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?

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Filed under: Laptops

We’re no strangers to rebranded netbooks, but we’re a little befuddled as to why Dell’s rebranding its own Inspiron Mini 9 as the Vostro A90. Sure, we’re digging the stealth looks, but the specs haven’t changed at all, and we don’t think the Vostro brand really has any more cachet than Inspiron — they’re both pretty low end. Even more bizarrely, the A90 is apparently Japan-only for now, and it’s priced at an absurd ¥92,830 ($972) — yeah, you can get three Eee 900As for that price with more or less the same specs. Must be one hell of a paint job.

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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: Laptops

We’re assuming Apple will eventually give up and release a netbook of its own, but until then Steve had better get used to seeing OS X hacked to run on all manner of tiny laptops — the latest to make the switch is Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9. Nothing too complicated about this hack, since most of the work was already done for the internally-similar MSI Wind, but you’ll have to dig up some extra Broadcom drivers to get WiFi and sound working. Seems like a fun little project for the weekend — anyone going to take the plunge?

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Filed under: Laptops

Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9 didn’t waste any time going from its formal debut to hitting the review circuit today, and although its basic design didn’t blow anyone away, it seems like an impressively put-together piece of kit for the price. Everyone laments the tiny keyboard, although it’s apparently fine once you get used to it, but Notebook Review flat out says it won’t cut it as a primary typing machine. PC Magazine says the 1.6GHz Atom and 1GB of RAM are enough for most tasks under XP, although multitasking is a chore; the Linux configurations seem similarly capable — Laptop says the custom build of Ubuntu Remix is “smooth” and “sleek.” The four-cell battery averaged around three and a half hours under both XP and Linux, which is decent, but several noticed that Dell hasn’t made an extended battery available yet. We’d expect that to change soon, but overall it’s a minor quibble — could this be the netbook that finally makes you reach for your wallet?

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Read - Notebook Review (”…fabulous netbook… [but] only ‘your new best friend’ if you’re willing to overlook a few flaws.”)
Read - Washington Post (”… isn’t perfect, but it does offer a terrific design and a good price.”)
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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

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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