Filed under: Laptops

We knew more Inspiron Minis were in the works, and Dell’s just officially announced the next member of the family, the Inspiron Mini 12. Yep, the same machine we first spotted all the way back in June, and nothing much has changed in the meantime — you’re looking at either a 1.3GHz Atom Z520 or 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor (a step up from the usual 1.6GHz Atom N270), up to an 80GB drive, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth / WiFi, and that 12-inch, 1280 x 800 display, all in a 2.72-pound package less than one inch thick. The bad news? It’s Japan-only for now, but it’ll hit the States late next month with a starting price under $600. That’s a pretty hot price / performance ratio on paper — if this thing performs like it should, it could potentially take away sales from more full-featured ultraportables like the Envy 133 and the MacBook Air. We’ll see how it goes — the netbook market suddenly got interesting again, eh?

Read - Dell announcement
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Read - Dell Q+A

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Filed under: Laptops

Early Dell Inspiron Mini 9 customers who sprung for a larger drive may want to check their partitions — Dell apparently used a static 4GB Ubuntu image during some initial manufacturing runs, leaving the OS in a 4GB partition and the remainder unused. The problem’s been fixed now, but if you were unlucky enough to get one of the wrongly-formatted units, Dell’s saying that you’ll need to restore from the System Restore disk, but there are some live partition options out there if you’re feeling brave.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

While in the throes of customizing your dream machine over at Dell, weighing CPU cost vs. memory cost, would you click on a $19 option called “Iron Man movie with bonus content?” We sure wouldn’t, but now you can, part of what the Director of Dell’s Global Consumer Group is calling the company’s “slow immersion into content as a major piece of the puzzle in terms of what consumers want from a PC.” Right. The (surely DRM-riddled) film is available on any Inspiron, Studio, or XPS laptop or desktop, playable on that machine itself or through your choice of Windows Media Extender. Iron Man is the only film on offer now, but meaty palms are likely being pressed as you read this to drive other partnerships and more choices. This could let the company hook customers before even shipping their hardware, a potential advantage for what looks to be a looming content battle with Apple.

[Thanks, SebS]

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Filed under: Laptops

Once we all understood that the netbook was more than just a craze to be dominated by ASUS and its Eee brand, it was inevitable that Dell would join in. Sure enough, out popped the Inspiron Mini 9, priced competitively and loaded with hardware good enough to satisfy most in the market. Now that the first wave of machines have hit doorsteps (and subsequently, office desks, airplane tray tables and bathroom ledges), we’re curious to see if Dell’s foray into the already crowded netbook market was a play well made. Are you happy you chose Dell’s option over the others? Are you pleased with the value? Is the keyboard comfortable enough? Satisfied with the battery life? There’s too much competition in this space to let someone get away with a halfhearted effort, so feel free to really spill your guts on this one.

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Filed under: Laptops

We already found that Dell was shipping out the first wave of Mini 9s to eager consumers, so it’s perfectly logical to see that at least one particular owner was able to stifle his excitement long enough to video the unboxing process and upload it to the intartubez. Not like there’s anything there you’ll be shocked about, but the comparison shots with a much beefier sibling really puts things in perspective. Check it out in the read link.

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Filed under: Laptops

Hard to say what’s going on exactly what this clusterfrack of a listing over at Tesco. While the Dell laptop shown is the £299 Inspiron Mini 9, it’s labeled with an Inspiron Z530 title bellowing a 12-inch display. Moving down to the specs, we’ve got an exact match to the unreleased 12.1-inch E Slim exclusive we brought you back in June: 1.6GHz Atom processor; heavier 1.2kg (2.6-pounds) weight; bigger 12-inch WXGA (1,366 x 768 pixel) display; wider 29.9-cm (11.8-inch) dimension; and 40GB hard drive spinning Ubunto Ubuntu Linux. A spec-for-spec match to the E Slim. So Tesco, October 6th you say? Full Tesco specs listed after the break because that read link won’t be up for long.

P.S. Dell doesn’t sell a 12-inch laptop under any model number presently, nor does it have a Z530 in its product roster.

[Thanks, Craig and Yau]

Continue reading Tesco leaks 12-inch Dell E Slim specs running “Ubunto” — October 6th launch?

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Filed under: Laptops

The headline pretty much sums it up — it appears that Dell hasn’t wasted any time getting the first batch of Mini 9’s out from Round Rock (or China, or wherever), as the earliest of adopters have already had the pleasure of peeling away the shipping label and firing one up. Hit the read link for two unimaginative shots of the netbook on a dirty desk, but only after you’ve phoned up Dell in search of your own tracking number.

[Via thegadgetsite, thanks K.C. Kim]

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Filed under: Laptops

If you’re anything like us, the idea of a $99 Inspiron Mini 9 was enough to make you seriously consider picking up a new full-featured Dell laptop, but since the math is a little confusing given Dell’s shady history and the number of promotions on its site, we thought we’d break it down for you. Essentially, Dell’s charging close to full price for the large machine in order to absorb the cost of the Mini — so while a $1,259 Studio 15 with a 1.86GHz processor, 3GB of RAM, a 250GB drive, and a 3 year warranty goes for $699 on Dell’s fall deals page, it’s $1098 with a Mini. Hey, the difference is just about the Mini 9’s $349 list price, isn’t it? Same story with the other Studio 15 and XPS M1330 / M1530 configurations that apply for the $99 Mini deal — you can find cheaper deals, but they’re all about $300 - $400 less than the CTO price, so adding in a Mini 9 essentially washes out. So much for that hot two laptop $700 impulse buy — we’d say it only makes sense to pull the trigger on this if you’re actually in the market for a new full-featured machine. Let us know if you manage to work the numbers any differently — our credit card hasn’t gone too far.

[Thanks, Matt]

Read - Dell $99 Mini 9 promo page
Read - Dell fall deals page

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var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/hardware/Official_Dell_s_8_9_inch_Inspiron_Mini_9_netbook’; Dell doesn’t take its site down when it introduces product unlike some laptop peddlers. The result, however, is shots like this of early pre-release gear like the Inspiron Mini 9 netbook as Dell spins the product up for retail. $449 full spec’d just like we heard with 8GB SSD, 1GB memory, Bluetooth 2.1, Windows XP, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. We still expect to see a lesser spec’d $349 model running Ubuntu. Shipping on the 16th of September in your choice of white or black though white will cost you a $25 premium. Dell seems to have taken the link down already but we’re sure they’ll get the site sorted out in a few hours. For now, happy URL hacking as we dig for more details.

Update: Here’s the $349 model running Ubuntu.

[Thanks, Shon]

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var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/hardware/Official_Dell_s_8_9_inch_Inspiron_Mini_9_netbook’; Dell doesn’t take its site down when it introduces product unlike some laptop peddlers. The result, however, is shots like this of early pre-release gear like the Inspiron Mini 9 netbook as Dell spins the product up for retail. $449 fully spec’d just like we heard with 8GB SSD, 1GB memory, Bluetooth 2.1, Windows XP, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. We still expect to see a lesser spec’d $349 model running Ubuntu. Shipping on the 16th of September in your choice of white or black though white will cost you a $25 premium. Dell hasn’t officially announced the product yet but we’re sure they’ll get that sorted out in a few hours. For now, happy URL hacking as we dig for more details.

Update: Here’s the $349 model running Ubuntu — the Inspiron 910u. The top-end $449 XP configuration pictured after the break.

Update 2: Starts at £299 in UK and €369 in Germany.

Update 3: Oops, looks like someone broke a press release embargo making all the specs and prices listed above extra, super official and in sync with the exclusive we had back in June. In addition, the take home price also includes a free, basic Box.net plan offering 2GB of remote storage. See the full release after the break all you tweens and tweeters.

Update 4: Direct2Dell — Dell’s official blog — says you can get the Mini for just $99 with the purchase of a Studio 15, XPS M1530 or XPS M1330. Offer ends Tuesday, September 9th. Not bad if you’re already gearing up for a back-to-school Dell anyway.

[Thanks, Shon]

Continue reading Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9 pops official — Ubuntu starts at $349 (Update: $99 with purchase of 2nd Dell)

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Filed under: Laptops

It’s everything but official, but hopefully the image above will enable you to rest easy knowing that you’ll soon be able to order yourself a Dell netbook starting at $349. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (we’re assuming that’s the final moniker) will apparently weigh in at 2.28-pounds, boast an internal WiFi module and pack an Intel Atom N270 processor. The baseline model ($349) will include Ubuntu Linux 8.04, 512MB of RAM, a 4GB SSD and a black or white paint job. For $50 more, you’ll get an 8GB SSD and a 0.3-megapixel webcam, while the $449 version throws in Windows XP, 1GB of RAM and a 1.3-megapixel webcam. C’mon Dell — you’re only fooling yourself at this point.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Laptops

Dell’s Inspiron 910 / Mini Inspiron hasn’t exactly been a secret since we first heard about it back in April, but it sounds like this baby bump is about to go from open secret to bouncing bundle of joy — Dell just confirmed to InformationWeek that the netbook is scheduled to arrive later this week. That’s all we know right now — Dell reps called those earlier specs we’d heard “pretty much rumor and speculation” — but we’ll go out on a limb and say we wouldn’t expect anything less than an 8.9-inch screen and 1.6GHz Atom in there. Sorry if we killed the surprise, guys — but remember, you can still wow us with the price tag.

[Thanks, AC]

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You’re looking at official Dell pics of its upcoming Inspiron 910 netbook nabbed from their on-line support docs. These images match the others we’ve seen down to the key (look, no dedicated function keys) which pretty much confirms the mini laptop’s final appearance. Now if Dell could just hit one of the rumored release dates we could all get back to pillaging market share from standard sized laptops.

[Thanks, Mike and Hao]

Read — keyboard
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Read — status LEDs

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You’re looking at official Dell pics of its upcoming Inspiron 910 netbook nabbed from their on-line support docs. These images match the others we’ve seen down to the key (look, no dedicated function keys) which pretty much confirms the mini laptop’s final appearance. Now if Dell could just hit one of the rumored release dates we could all get back to pillaging market share from standard sized laptops.

[Thanks, Mike and Hao]

Read — keyboard
Read — external optical DVD/CD drive
Read — status LEDs

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Filed under: Laptops

Look, we know you’ve spent the last three or so hours toying around on Dell’s build-to-order page, but be honest with yourself — are you really willing to pull the trigger on an Inspiron 13 without taking one tiny peek at a review first? NotebookReview has snagged one of the new 13-inchers and taken it for a ride on the test bench, and overall, things are lookin’ up. Reviewers found the design to be “sleek,” the specifications to be “reasonable” and the price point “attractive.” Beyond that, it also found the battery life to be surprisingly satisfactory, though the “cheap palm rests and noisy slot-loading optical drive” were small (albeit noteworthy) nuisances. In the end, critics summed things up by suggesting that if you’re scouting “a basic mobile companion with good looks and a low price tag, then this is probably the right notebook for you.” Hit up the read link for the full writeup and even a few benchmarks.

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Filed under: Laptops

Dell’s Inspiron 13 made its Wal-Mart debut earlier this month, but now the budget back-to-school lappy is ready for you to trick it factory-style on Dell’s site. Nothing too crazy on the options list, and it looks like you’re stuck with some form of integrated graphics no matter what — but hey, when the most extravagant configuration maxes out at $1,149, you can’t be too picky.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Laptops

At this point we’ve seen a ton of Dell’s upcoming Inspiron 910 / Mini Inspiron, but until this thing hits the street for real it looks like our pal Mr. Blurrycam has a new favorite target. Here’s the 8.9-inch netbook testing Ubuntu somewhere, with a far less ugly keyboard than last time — maybe next time it’ll sprout some function keys. Two more, including a configuration screen, after the break.

Continue reading Dell Mini Inspiron caught running Ubuntu in the wild

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Filed under: Laptops

Dell’s Inspiron 910 can’t stay hidden, apparently — check out these new, higher-res shots of the 8.9-inch netbook in the wild. Nothing spectacularly new here — and we’d still like to see some locked-down specs on this thing — but ooh, shiny. Check the power adapter after the break.

Continue reading More pictures of Dell’s Mini Inspiron surface

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The cats over at Gizmodo have gotten their eyes on some succulent and salacious photos of the oft-rumored, much-discussed, openly-desired Dell “Mini Inspiron” (or as it’s now being called, the Inspiron 910) — and they’ve shared with the world. In the pics you get to see that familiar pencil-pose along with a slew of insides and outs, including an up-close look at ports, keyboard, and guts. The specs look like they’re right in line with those leaked materials we had back in June, and the word is this little baby will be hitting shelves come August 22nd. Time to swing by the Coinstar machine.

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Filed under: Laptops

Remember the Inspiron 1535 that was due any day now? Unfortunately, it’s still MIA, but if you’ve got to get in on the action early you can apparently buy Dell part #310-9760, an AC adapter listing compatibility with two laptops the company hasn’t yet announced. Um, just in case you weren’t following along, that’d be the Inspiron Studio 1535 and 1536 (or maybe it’s just the Studio 1535 / 1536 — we don’t really know).

[Thanks, nizzy1115]

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