The HP Mini 311 (or Compaq Mini 311C in Europe) comes with 1GB of RAM soldered to the motherboard. At first glance, that might make this NVIDIA ION-powered laptop a bit less attractive, since it somewhat limits your upgrade options. But Blogeee reports there’s good news: There is another RAM slot that users can take advantage of to upgrade the RAM.

All you have to do is pop open the back and slide in a 2GB module to upgrade the memory to 3GB.

That makes the HP Mini 311 one of the most versatile low cost 11.6 inch mini-laptops around thanks to its low power Atom processor, 6 hour battery life, NVIDIA ION graphics, and even Hackintoshability.

Most Asus netbooks have one or more access panels on the bottom that make it easy to upgrade the RAM or hard drive without dissecting the computer. The Asus Eee PC 1008HA does not. The 1008HA is the company’s thinnest and lightest netbook with a 10 inch display, but in order to keep the laptop slim, Asus used a non user-replaceable battery and eliminated the RAM and HDD access panels.

But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to upgrade the machine. YouTube member rohitbhosale has posted two videos showing how to disassemble the Eee PC 1008HA so you can access the RAM and hard drive. You’ll need to remove the keyboard, pry apart the case, and probably void your warranty.

Even if you have no intention of following these steps yourself, it’s worth watching the first video just to get a good look at the long and thin battery, which should give you a pretty good idea why we won’t be seeing extended batteries for this netbook anytime soon.

The first video shows how to disassemble the netbook, while the second shows how to put it back together. You can find them both after the break.

via Eee PC Italia

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Just in case you were wondering how easy it is to pop out the 1GB of RAM that comes with the Dell Inspiron Mini 10v and replace it with a 2GB stick, here’s your answer: Not easy. Not easy at all.
In fact, the process looks pretty much excruciating, and definitely isn’t the sort of thing that beginning computer hackers are going to want to try to attempt. MyDellMini Forum member anguish has posted a 3 part video showing all the steps it takes to replace the RAM. Why three videos? Because YouTube cuts off his videos at around 10 minutes, and it’s not until about 13 minutes in… with some video edits in place that you can even see the RAM.

In a nutshell, you need to remove the netbook’s keyboard and palm rest, then pry up the motherboard in order to get at the RAM. And then of course, you’ve got to reassemble the computer and hope that you haven’t misplaced any of the screws.

The funny thing is that Dell includes a single access panel on the bottom of the Inspiron Mini 10v. It’s for the WLAN adapter. Because you’re clearly going to need to access that more often than the RAM, right?

You can check out the three part video series after the break.
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