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HP’s Mini 311 adds a larger, high-definition display and advanced graphics to a basic Netbook, while keeping the price very appealing.

The Netbook wars have heated, with personal computer manufacturers adding up upscale features such as bigger HD displays and faster low-voltage central processing units in an effort for drive prices up past the usual $299-$399 range.

We have seen HD Netbooks from Sony and others, generally with prices closer to $599, so we are excited to see HP’s fresh Mini 311 packing in an 11.6-inch, 1,366×768 screen, as well as Nvidia’s Ion graphics chip, all beginning at $399. You are still stuck to the same Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and Windows XP, but that’s typical for a $399 Netbook.

The actual reward is in the Nvidia Ion, which, while not a real discrete GPU, provides enough power to play HD video files smoothly, as well as do some basic gaming. For nongraphics tasks, it will not impact performance much, but it does clear some of the frustrations related with Netbooks, without driving up the price.

With a high-resolution screen and finer graphics packed into a standard-price Netbook, you would be right to expect a little cost-cutting somewhere else. The Mini 311 is far from the flashiest-looking laptop computer out there, even among low-cost Netbooks. Most of the chassis is a dull, generic, gray plastic, with either a black or a white lid with a subtle swirl pattern. The white version, which we’d, costs an extra $20 for no particularly good reason, and the very faint gray swirls on it actually made it look a bit dingy from a distance. On the plus side, the system itself feels sturdy enough, and there was no flex in the lid when we pulled it open and shut.

The HP Mini 311 includes a standard set of associations for a $399 Netbook (entry-level models under $300 perhaps tempted to drop one of the USB ports or HDMI output). Still, extras such as 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will cost extra. While not as customizable as Dell’s Netbook line (inquisitively also named “Mini”), there are options for the CPU, networking, and mobile broadband.

At tasks which are not graphics-intensive, the Intel Atom N280 CPU performed as expected, roughly matching other Netbooks. As always, we consider Atom-powered systems to be fine for basic tasks such as Web surfing, e-mail, and office tasks, and even introductory Photoshop work–as long as your anticipations are kept realistic.

Putting the Nvidia Ion to the test, we did the unthinkable, loading up a handful of full-fledged PC games on a Netbook. Most Netbooks can hardly handle casual games such as Plants vs. Zombies, to tell nothing of full 3D graphics. Despite the hype, this is decidedly not going to be your main PC gaming rig, but Unreal Tournament still managed to get 23.2 frames per second at 800×600, which is borderline acceptable. Tweaking the settings could likely squeeze a little more out of that game. We also installed Call of Duty 4, and during a particularly intensive firefight sequence, we ran into some stuttering at the same 800×600 resolution, but overall found it to be fairly playable (although your definition of playable may vary).

The major rejoice for Netbooks is still to be useful all-around devices, and as the Nvidia Ion shares much of its DNA with the GeForce 9400 graphics found in the 13-inch MacBook (which is excellent for an integrated graphics solution), the real bottleneck to achieving this goal is the 1GB of RAM and the single-core Atom CPU. We would be very interested in seeing how the same gaming tests run under Windows 7 with double the RAM.

We also amply anticipate to see road warriors hacking away at World of Warcraft on the HP Mini 311 at airport departure gates and in coffeehouses. As a matter of fact, HP should just paint a giant WoW logo on the back of this thing and sell it as a $400 portable Warcraft machine.

Video playback was first-class, and our test 720p WMV file ran flawlessly–something no other Netbook has been able to do. Web-based video is another story, yet an updated version of Flash will let streaming Web video make use of the GPU. At the moment, Hulu on-demand content ran properly as-is, but not radically better than other Netbooks.

Read more about this netbook here: HP Mini 311-1037NR