If it were just any netbook, we wouldn't be quite as excited. But with the rumours around Nvidia's Ion swirling around the internet for months, we're finally glad to see the graphics chip popping up in a netbook.
The HP 311 is your standard spec netbook by design: 11.6 in HD LED screen, Intel Atom processor, 92% full-size keyboard and 250GB HDD (ok, that's a little bigger than usual).
Still, it's the inclusion of the Nvidia Ion that has our complete and full attention. That also makes the HP 311 one of the first netbooks designed in mind to pull off the playback of 1080p HD video.
Until now, HD video has performed rather sluggishly under the Intel GMA 45 graphics chipset and the Nvidia Ion is touted as a graphics replacement of sorts among netbook enthusiasts.
But in the recently reviewed Sony X-Slim series, we also know that Intel have their sights set on pumping out better graphics (and a graphics chip that support HD video in accompaniment with the Intel Atom chip), so it won't be long till we see the GMA 50 begin to dominate in this area rather quickly.
With entertainment options in mind, there's also a HDMI port on board for HDTV access and a 6 cell battery for up to 7 hours of battery life.
The Mini 311 isn't netbook cheap however; at $899, it's still a few notches below some Asus, MSI and Samsung in terms of value for netbooks. Still, with the Nvidia Ion support on board, there is cause for appreciation of HP's efforts. And we hope more netbooks follow in this enhanced graphics path.