Your thoughts on the HP Mini 311 and Lenovo x100E

Just wondering what you think of these two machines below. I'm not looking to get one but I am wondering why anyone would pick one over the other.

i'll go first - I have a Lenovo x200s and the x100e is very similar to it in terms of size. My x200s is built rock solid so that is why i would prefer the x100e over the mini.... the downside is that the x100e has a different keyboard than most ibm/lenovo notebooks i've used and, with ibms/lenovos, the keyboard is one of the best features...

is the amd faster than the atom? when i looked at the cpu benchmarks site, it says the atom is much faster but i find this hard to believe since both procs are similarly built/similar speeds/caches....

anyway, what are your thoughts?

Specs of both machines below:

Lenovo x100e ($449)
AMD Athlon Neo Single-Core MV-40 (1.6GHz, 800MHz, 512KB L2)
1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (1 DIMM)
160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
11.6" HD screen
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 32

HP Mini 311 ($399)
Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor N270 (1.60GHz, 512KB L2, 533Mhz FSB)
1GB DDR3 System Memory
160GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
11.6" diagonal HD LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1366 x 768) edi
Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3 edit

 

I do admit these are very similar in price and features.

The AMD Neo MV-40 processor however is more powerful than the Atom and the 3200HD graphics card is only about 10-15% slower than the 9400M that is packaged as the ION chip.

Both provide about the same amount of battery life.

I think it is just a matter of if you want Windows 7, better keyboard, and a slightly faster computer with the Thinkpad name on it, then the x100e is better.

If you want a slightly cheaper, more modern looking, computer with XP that's slightly more portable, than the Mini 311 is better.

Personally I would choose the Thinkpad because I think the keyboard, Thinkpad name, and slight performance difference is worth it. I also dislike the design on the HP shell and I don't enjoy Intel and nVidia that much from past experiences.

However, I really can't stand anything smaller than a 12" screen so I opted for HP's DM3 when it came out, and I have to say I am very pleased.

 

Wow - Great response by TSE - the only (tiny) thing I can add is I regret getting my Mini 311. The Atom 280 crawls compared to the SU2300 on my Acer 1410. Plus the lid on the Mini 311 is downright flimsy. My only concern with the Thinkpad is AMD's well-deserved awful reputation for battery life. I'm only keeping my H-P dv2 because the build quality is so good - battery life sucks on it...