The HP Mini 311 comes with NVIDIA ION graphics and either an Atom N270 or N280 processor. That gives it more oomph in the graphics department than the vast majority of Atom-based netbooks and notebooks on the market. But as I pointed out in my review of the laptop, it generally feels a little sluggish when you’re performing tasks that don’t take advantage of the graphics processor, such as surfing the web.

Now members of the MyHPMini forums have begun using a hacked BIOS that makes it easier to overclock the laptop, allocate additional memory for graphics, and make other modifications.

Bear in mind, there’s a difference between making overclocking easier and making it easy. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you should probably avoid this hack, as you can easily void your warranty and leave your notebook in an unbootable state (although early testers report that there are ways to revive a partially bricked system).

Some users are reporting that they’ve gotten their HP Mini 311 laptops to run as fast as 2.2GHz. Not bad for a processor that normally tops out at around 1.7GHz.

via Netbook Reports

PC makers seem to love putting glossy lids on netbooks. And there’s a good reason for that: They’re sleek and sexy and look all kinds of awesome when you first spot the computer on a store shelf or take it out of the box. But give it a few days, and you’ll notice that your glossy lid is covered with oily fingerprints and smudges, which kind of diminishes the cool factor.

EeeUser forum member sharkexe came up with a  solution.  He used black matt film, which is normally used to cover cars, furniture, and other itmes, to cover his Eee PC 1005HA.

Applying the film takes a pretty steady hand in order to keep everything straight. And if you want to cover all components of the laptop you’ll need to take apart the screen and remove the keyboard. But sharkexe reports that the film only costs a few bucks.

via GadgetMix

The Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator enables high definition video playback on netbooks with Intel Atom processors that wouldn’t ordinarily have enough power in the graphics or CPU departments to handle 1080p HD video. It’s not a complete graphics card, but rather a media coprocessor that can be added to an internal PCIe slot in some netbooks. A handful of netbooks from Dell and HP are available with an optional Broadcom HD card. But some netbook users have been picking up cheap cards on eBay and installing them in other 10 inch mini-laptops for a while.

One thing I hadn’t seen before though, was a Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator on a 9 inch netbook. But that’s exactly what EeeUser Forum Member horakus managed to create by adding a PCIe connector onto the mainboard of an Eee PC 901 netbook to make room for the video accelerator card.

It’s not the easiest hack on earth. But if you find yourself with a 9 inch netbook like the Eee PC 901 and you want to be able to play 1080p HD video on a non-HD screen, it loks like it is possible, at least on some models.

The Broadcom Crystal HD is available on eBay for as little as $19.

via Netbooked

People have been turning netbooks into tablets almost as long as netbooks have been around. But Insanely Wind forum member c0ff33 is working on one of the most ridiculously complicated tablet mods I’ve seen to date. He’s already managed to add a touchscreen, flip the display to it rests on top of the keyboard and use the netbook in tablet mode — while dual booting Windows 7 and OS X 10.6.2.But the next step is to add a mechanism allowing him to slide the screen up and reveal the keyboard beneath.

There are plenty of cellphones and small UMPCs with slide-out keyboards. But if c0ff33 pulls this off, he may have one of the only 10 inch tablets with a slide-out keyboard around.

And there’s probably good reason for that. A slide-out keyboard makes a lot more sense on a handheld device that you use your thumbs to type on while holding it with both hands. I’m not really sure how you’re supposed to use a nearly-full sized keyboard that slides out under the screen. It seems like the only comfortable typing position would be lying in bed or on a couch with your feet up and the tablet propped on your thighs. You know, kind of like the position Apple keeps showing in its iPad videos. I mean seriously, where are that guy’s legs even resting?

Anyway, the MSI tablet hack is still a work in progress. And whether it’s useful or not, it’s certainly impressive. You can find more details at the Insanely Wind forum.

via Netbooked

A handful of Chinese companies have been pumping out cheap knockoffs of the Macbook Air for at least a year or two. These notebooks tend to be thin, light, and feature keyboards and touchpads that look an awful lot like those on a certain pricey machine from Apple. But they also tend to be loaded up with Windows or Linux and bogged down by a relatively slow Intel Atom processor rather than the speedy Core 2o Duo CPU found in a Macbook Air.

Still, with the Air starting at $1499, it’s easy to see the appeal of these cheap lookalikes, which are often available in China and a handful of other locales for the equivalent of $400 or less. Now Shanzai.com is featuring the first-person account of someone who went the extra step and turned his knockoff into a real (kinda) Macbook by installing OS X.

The MacBook Air clone in question came from a store in the Philippines. It features a 13 inch display, Intel Atom N280 CPU, and GMA 950 graphics as well as a 3 cell, 3500mAh battery. Out of the box the WiFi card wouldn’t work with OS X Snow Leopard, but it was relatively easy to swap out the wireless card for a compatible model.

The end result is a $400 machine that’s pretty much a fully functional Mac. Of course, that’s not counting the price of OS X, which Apple doesn’t officially sanction installing on third party hardware. And the touchpad doesn’t work exactly that same was as a typical MacBook touchpad since there’s no support for two-finger gestures. You can see the laptop in action in the video after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every now and again someone will ask me whether one netbook or another has a backlit keyboard. No. Pretty much no matter which netbook you’re talking about, the answer is no, it does not have a backlit keyboard. Netbooks are, by definition, cheap laptops. And that’s a premium feature that you’re not likely to find in a cheap laptop anytime soon.

But that doesn’t mean that there’s no hope for anyone that wants to use their netbook in the dark. MyDellMini user vrg3 came up with an interesting solution. He opened up his Dell Mini 9 netbook and added a LED into the bezel near the webcam. Then he wired it up so that he could turn the light on and off by resizing and holding the Ctrl key.

In the end, it’s probably easier just to carry a flashlight around with you and shine it on the keyboard. But if you’re cool with drilling holes in your netbook and voiding your warranty, hit up the MyDellMini forum for details and more photos.

via Lifehacker

The Asus Eee PC 1201N is a notebook with a 12.1 inch display, a dual core processor and NVIDIA ION graphics. On the base of the laptop there’s an access panel that you can open by removing a couple of screws to upgrade the RAM. But if you want to perform a more serious upgrade, like say, replacing the hard drive, you’re going to need to open the Eee PC 1201N up a little more.

YouTube member DevilDragon360 has posted a video showing just how to do that. You can check out the complete video after the break. But in a nutshells, you need to remove most of the screws on the bottom of the laptop, then take off the keyboard and remove the panel separating it from the mainboard in order to access the hard drive. It’s not the kind of upgrade that’s for the weak of heart, but if you’re looking to boost performance by upgrading from the stock 5400rpm hard drive to a 7200rpm model or an SSD, this is pretty much the way to do it.

via Netbook Reports

Read the rest of this entry »

Want to add a Broadcom CrystalHD Video accelerator or another module that comes on a mini PCIe card to your netbook? While a handful of netbooks have unused PCIe slots hanging out on the motherboards, many use the only available space for the wireless card. And then there’s the Samsung NC10.

SammyNetbook forum member graemem was trying to figure out how to install the Broadcom HD decoder on his NC10, and he noticed that the netbook’s motherboard actually has a second PCIe option printed on it. There’s just no socket. The solution? Pick up a cheap socket and solder it to the motherboard. And that’s exactly what he did.

Of course, your results may vary, and there’s clearly plenty of room for things to go wrong with this type of hack, so please be careful. But you can find graemem’s step by step instructions and a handful of photos at SammyNetbook.

via Netbooked

We’ve seen plenty of people rip the keyboards off of their netbooks, add touchscreens and essentially turn their mini-laptops into mini-tablet computers. But one modder decided that wasn’t good enough. He essentially turned his Dell Inspiron Mini 10 into an oversized Dell Mini 3i phone, complete with Google Android.

At its core, the phone/netbook (can I call it a phonebook?) is just another tablet mod. But the designer added custom components to make the tablet look like a cellphone. And by installing an OS designed for cellphones, he was able to get the full effect. He can even make calls on the device.

The one thing you can’t do with a phone this size? Fit it in your pocket.

You can check out a video of the device’s journey from netbook to cellphone at Shanzai.com.

A few weeks ago we posted about a method for taking an HP Mini 311 netbook with Windows XP and NVIDIA ION LE graphics and installing some tweaked drivers to enable support for DirectX 10, a feature that previously only available if you had a full NVIDIA ION graphics card (without the LE). But if you don’t fancy editing your own drivers, there’s an easier way.

MyHPMini Forum member icelord has posted a list of tips and tricks for tweaking the HP Mini 311 BIOS. One of them involves loading a tool that will effectively convince your computer that it has ION graphics instead of ION LE. All you need is a downloaded driver file and a USB flash drive.

There are also instructions for installing PCIe cards that aren’t supported by the default BIOS configuration. This could include 3G, WiFi, or other wireless communications modules. Best of all, he posts a series of steps you can take to restore your BIOS if you accidentally muck things up.

Of course, you could also just purchase an HP Mini 311 with Windows 7 and get the full version of ION out of the box.

via MyHPMini