Dell Deliver the Mini10 Netbook

Dell has announced the arrival of its Mini 10v netbook which is now available on it website. So the netbook market is starting to hot up and we remind ourselves that these aren’t a replacement for the laptop today but will provide that portable device that is capable of much more than a mobile, significantly more than a greyscale ereader or any dedicated device and weigh little and have a small footprint. The quest is to get the price right and ensure that the accessories are bigger than the device itself!


Dell have launched the Mini series in a variety of colours, (Ice Blue, Cherry Red, Jade Green etc), with hard-drive space from 160GB and 1GB memory as standard, built-in webcam, new internal 802.11b/g WiFi connection , Bluetooth connectivity and a choice of Linux Ubuntu or XP operating systems. The screen is 10.1”, a 16.9 ratio and can be connected to a larger screen or TV and is around the size of a large ereader but with colour and much more! The keyboard is 92% the size of a normal keyboard and is ‘spill resistant’! The weight is under 3 pounds and it claims extended battery life. The price starts at £199 which for a new product is fair but is now likely to drop as more come onboard.

Interestingly Dell have also announced the Inspiron 15 a laptop with 15.6-inch HD display, a 'large' hard drive and DVD burner and are priced from £299.

A Splash of Colour Makes A Difference?

When you buy a car do you buy the grey model or the vibrant red?

The Dell Mini 10 certainly will put some sizzling looks into the notebook races. With its choice of colour cover from Obsidian Black, Alpine White, Cherry Red, Pretty Pink, Ice Blue to Jade Green, it begs the question, what’s your choice? It will certainly get noticed in the crowded trains and coffee bars where notebooks appear today. We like the Ice Blue but there again Cherry Red or Jade Green.

The screen resolution is 1024 x 576 has been marginally changed in the vertical in order to give it a movie friendly 16:9 aspect ratio and has a 92% full sized keyboard and a battery that Dell claim is good for 6.5 hours. The Mini 10 will be Windows XP with Linux pre-installed Ubuntu 8.04 later this year. The basic, £299 model has 1GB of memory, a 120GB SATA hard drive and a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor. Options include wireless networking, Bluetooth, a 1.6GHz Z530 CPU and a 160GB hard drive and in the future will include on-board GPS, an built-in TV tuner, an HSDPA 3G module, a 250GB hard drive and 2GB of Ram.

So which colour would you choose?