DELL INSPIRON MINI 9 QUICK REVIEW

The red just got darker - DELL Inspiron Mini 9

Dell follows the lead of Asus coming up with its offering to the Netbook market, the Inspiron Mini 9. While this unit doesn’t boast any radically different features, it does offer more customization options than most competitors. For as little as $ 349, you can get a Mini 9 with 4-8GB storage space, 512MB RAM, a lower resolution web cam and Ubuntu Linux OS. If you’re willing to pay an additional $ 150, you could buy 16GB storage with 1GB RAM and Windows XP. Throw in a few more dollars and you can get an internal Bluetooth antenna.

The design imitates the Asus 9-inch Eee PC while being slightly slimmer and the unit comes in glossy black and white, which like most such exteriors attracts finger prints almost immediately. The same material covers the palm rest space while matte finishes have been used on the keyboard and the bottom. The build quality is solid and the exteriors manage to resist minor scratches. The use of magnesium alloy to reinforce the inside of the chassis makes the Mini 9 more resistant to daily usage.
Open it up and you find that Dell has managed fairly well to provide a satisfactory keypad even though they have made a few changes. For all that, touch typing still won’t be possible. If this is your primary laptop, an external keyboard is recommended. Dell has also moved the function keys to the middle and done away with the F1 –F12 keys, which is a bit frustrating for those of us used to the shortcuts possible with those keys. The Synaptics touchpad is of a good size, relatively speaking, and is amazingly sensitive and responsive. Speakers, located below the screen do a decent job with video clips and system sounds though a certain amount of distortion was obvious at maximum volume.

The glossy LED backlit display comes with a native resolution of 1,024x600 pixels and provides good horizontal and acceptable vertical viewing angles. Outdoors, customers might experience slightly annoying glare issues. On the sides, the Mini offers three USB ports, a multi-card reader, audio jacks, VGA and Ethernet/LAN.

Like most Intel Atom based netbooks, the Mini 9 tends to heat up with the Wi-Fi card spot getting the hottest. The lack of a fan also contributes to this. With normal usage, though, the unit doesn’t get uncomfortably hot and turning off the wireless card takes care of the hottest spot.
In spite of a 4 cell battery, there doesn’t seem to be a significant increase in battery life. Under normal usage, with the wireless card turned on and the backlit display at maximum, the Mini offered 3 hours and 37 minutes.

The 1.6 GHz N270 Intel Atom CPU ensures decent performance for normal usage but then the same can be said for most other net books as well. The bottom line being that the Mini doesn’t really stand out from the competitions’ offering. Buy it if you’re willing to accept its limitations.

Price: $349 (Standard)

DELL Inspiron Mini 9 Ratings:

Value for money

Our rating