Editors' Rating
| Service & support |  |
6.0 |
| Design |  |
8.0 |
| Features | |
8.0 |
| Battery life | |
8.0 |
| Performance | |
6.0 |
Published: 08 Sep 2008
We've known for some time that Dell was working on a Netbook-style laptop — the same kind of small, low-power, inexpensive system made popular by ASUS and its Eee PC line. And even though there are not many surprises in the new Inspiron Mini 9, it's still an excellent example of the form, without any of the deal-breakers (older CPU, not enough storage space, hard-to-use touchpad) that have kept other Netbooks from being more universally useful.
Component-wise, the Mini 9 is similar to other recent Netbooks, such as the Eee PC 901 and the Acer Aspire One (which all use Intel's Atom CPU). Our test unit arrived with 1GB of RAM, a 16GB solid-state hard drive and Windows XP, a configuration costing £299 (inc. VAT). As an interesting note, the Mini 9 apparently includes an inactive internal mobile broadband module. According to Dell, it will be announcing carrier and coverage details in the coming weeks.
Dell's 8.9in. Inspiron Mini 9 is based around the Atom N270 processor, and comes with 1GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD. It runs Windows XP and costs £299 (inc. VAT).
In person, the Mini 9 is similar in design to ASUS's 9in. Eee PC. It's slightly thinner, at about 3.2cm at the back, tapering slightly toward the front (2.7cm). Our system had a glossy black (and fingerprint-prone) finish, which is currently the only available colour in the UK. Interestingly, most of the leaked product shots we've seen up to now show a red model.
The challenge for any Netbook is to squeeze as much keyboard as possible into a very tiny space, and the Mini 9 does a good job with it. The Dell letter keys are larger than on the 9in. Eee PC, but certain keys — Tab, Caps Lock, and so on — are reduced to small slivers. In addition, the entire function key row has been removed. F1 through F10 are now alternate keys of the A-L row. It's an interesting compromise to get the most surface area for everyday typing, but it does make some tasks, such as jumping between web page fields with the Tab key, somewhat awkward.
Opening the lid, the 8.9in. 1,024-by-600-pixel screen shares space with a webcam above and two small speaker grilles below. The display offers just enough space for displaying web pages and Word documents, and we think the 9in. size is the perfect fit for Netbooks, rather than the smaller 7in. or larger 10in. screens on other systems.
The Inspiron Mini 9 has three USB ports, headphone and mic jacks, VGA out, an SD card slot and an Ethernet port — a fairly standard set of connections in the Netbook world. Bluetooth is integrated, and Dell is expected to announce a mobile broadband plan soon. We'd love to see mobile broadband in more Netbooks, but it's typically prohibitively expensive as an option on a sub-£300 system.
With Intel's new 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU, specifically designed for low-power Netbooks, you're not going to find the same level of performance you'd get from even an inexpensive Core 2 Duo notebook. Still, the Intel Atom processor performed about as expected, closely matching the Asus Eee PC 901 and MSI Wind in our iTunes performance test.
In anecdotal testing, we found the Mini 9 to be highly usable for web surfing, emailing, and even playing music files (its speakers were surprisingly loud, if predictably thin-sounding). The combo of Intel's Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, and Windows XP found in almost every current Netbook works well for basic tasks, as long as you keep expectations modest and don't mind occasional slowdown if you try and open too many browser windows at once.
The Mini 9 ran for 3 hours and 21 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the included 4-cell battery. That's second only to the 6-cell battery in the Asus Eee PC 901, and easily beats the Asus Aspire One and the MSI Wind.
Dell includes an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labour warranty with the system, with mail-in service. Upgrading to a two-year plan will cost an extra £29. Support is accessible via phone, an online knowledge base and driver downloads.
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