Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Review

[hp79]

The screen reminds me of axim x51 series PDA. Price looks okay with discounted price, but not at regular prices. I still like lenovo netbook better because of the larger screen. Larger capacity battery compared to other manufacturers are nice on dell's mini, but still not satisfiable for me. I'll probably wait till they start using more energy efficient chipsets.

Looking at the keyboard photo again (keys Q. A. Z not straight) I wonder how that would type like.

[BrokenStr8]

Pretty slick what Dell is doing.$99 for one of these with a purchase of a regular laptop sounds great.Thats a $250 difference...same as all these $250 or equivalent coupons thats they always have floating around.I highly doubt you can get this deal w/ a coupon.I may consider getting in on this if it's allowed.

[lossfound]

I found this Mini 9-related interview very interesting and elucidating as to some of the design choices made with the Mini 9.

To sum up, Dell's attitude is explicitly along the lines of "this will not, and cannot, be your primary laptop." A recurring theme in the interview is that the Mini 9 is intended for casual and short-term use. Sure, this is the party line with existing netbooks, but it's a totally stupid party line. The winner in this particular race is going to be the company that develops a reasonably priced product that can deliver the goods as a primary mobile solution rather than a supplemental one. The days of six-pound laptops are over now, and it's time for the big dogs to come to terms with that instead of finding sneaky ways to stall the mobility revolution.

In the context of this interview, it seems to me that some of the issues with the Mini 9 - specifically, the absurdly awkward keyboard - may have been borderline malicious choices made out of a desire to cripple the netbook, limit its usefulness, and push it into supplemental-hardware-for-the-privileged territory. Making the function keys into "real", combo-stroke Fn-keys in the middle of the keyboard eliminates the power users; the layout just looks positively dreadful. (And what's with everyone but Acer missing the boat on discrete, no-Fn-required PgUp / PgDn keys?)

Elsewhere in this interview, it's pretty clear that they just don't get what people really want. Most of us would certainly take the option of a six- or eight-cell extended battery at the expense of another half pound, but they don't seem to be interested in that either.

Let's face it, the SSDs on these things are a joke in terms of performance, and while I thought the SSD was a good idea when I got my EEE 701, I quickly tired of the resultant slowdown. Folks with SSD-based Aspire Ones are faring little better, and the benchmarks for the Mini 9's SSD in this review are worrisome too. Not offering a hard drive option is yet another way that Dell can convince you to buy another "proper" laptop on top of the Mini 9.

I like the fact that the 9 is a fanless design, but I'm simply not going to invest in what is obviously willfully crippled hardware. The first company that can sell me the machine I've known they could sell me all along - a 3-pounder with Atom, a real hard drive, a usable screen, a usable keyboard, 6 hours or more of battery life, ready availability, AND a reasonable price - gets my business and loyalty.

Right now, Acer and Lenovo are the only possibilities I can take seriously, provided that Acer actually delivers on their $400 6-cell version of the One, and Lenovo still has another month to botch it just as almost everyone else has at this point.

[Shakey_Jake33]

Embarassing that it has more USB ports than the m1330!

[kash04]

does anyone know if it comes with the 3g wwan card or do u have to aquire it .

[Jerry Jackson]

does anyone know if it comes with the 3g wwan card or do u have to aquire it .

It does NOT come with a 3G WWAN card ... regardless of what a few other idiots on other sites are saying. Trust us, we've spoken to Dell about this. There is a card slot were a 3G WWAN card can be inserted at a later date, and Dell may offer this option at additional cost later ... but the Mini 9 does NOT have a 3G WWAN card.

I really hope the fools who are saying it does over on other sites get called out on this.

[MaggieScratch]

Thanks for the great and thorough review!

If I buy this fairly soon, I want to order the Ubuntu version with the minimum configuration of 512mb/4GB and perhaps have everything upgraded in a year or so. The only thing I would add at time of order is the Bluetooth, I think. A question: as a Linux newbie, and someone who is not that knowledgeable about hardware, does the entry-level configuration actually work well enough or is it too much of a compromise? I would be using it mostly as a mobile writing machine (using Open Office Writer) and light websurfing on a daily basis and when traveling to upload photos and blog, websurfing, watch videos, etc. I generally don't keep a lot of stuff on a laptop except temporarily storing a document or two that I'm working on--I usually work off SD cards and thumb drives for media.

The only piece of software that the 9 seems to be missing to be a pretty complete mobile system for my purposes is the GIMP, which I have been using for a few years with XP on my laptop and PC. Is it realistic to be able to expect to install the GIMP on the 512mb/4GB configuration and have it work reasonably well for light usage?

I'm not scared of Linux, in fact I'm intrigued by it.

[oblomschik]

No, it's not reasonable to expect to use GIMP reasonably well on 512mb/4GB Ubuntu (or any other OS) box. You will want 2GB and more space.

Thanks for the great and thorough review!

If I buy this fairly soon, I want to order the Ubuntu version with the minimum configuration of 512mb/4GB and perhaps have everything upgraded in a year or so. The only thing I would add at time of order is the Bluetooth, I think. A question: as a Linux newbie, and someone who is not that knowledgeable about hardware, does the entry-level configuration actually work well enough or is it too much of a compromise? I would be using it mostly as a mobile writing machine (using Open Office Writer) and light websurfing on a daily basis and when traveling to upload photos and blog, websurfing, watch videos, etc. I generally don't keep a lot of stuff on a laptop except temporarily storing a document or two that I'm working on--I usually work off SD cards and thumb drives for media.

The only piece of software that the 9 seems to be missing to be a pretty complete mobile system for my purposes is the GIMP, which I have been using for a few years with XP on my laptop and PC. Is it realistic to be able to expect to install the GIMP on the 512mb/4GB configuration and have it work reasonably well for light usage?

I'm not scared of Linux, in fact I'm intrigued by it.

[mocoloco311]

See my response (#11) above.

Not to over analyze the subject, but what was it you were trying to install? Having set up Ubuntu for others I've found that once they know how to use Add/Remove Applications (and understand that FOSS software is free and plentiful) they're pretty much set; the few exceptions to this (eg. Skype, Amazon MP3) are available as .debs you just double-click on. Thus none of my users have needed the command line to install apps, so I'm curious about what you needed that required this.

[hurrikaane]

What prevents a manufacturer from producing a 12" laptop w/ full keyboard at the $400-$500 level?