- Tuesday, 9 February 2010
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Don't plan to sell your first chip - Bob Colwell, former Intel chief architect
Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 is a neat weee thing
Dell Inspiron Mini 9
Price £299
Manufacturer
Dell
DELL'S INSPIRON MINI 9 is at the smaller end of the mini laptop or netbook spectrum, roughly the same size and weight as the Asus Eee PC 900 and smaller than HP's rival 2133 Mini-Note PC. It is a lightweight mini laptop that crams a PC into a tiny package that can be carried almost anywhere.
Coming from Dell, this model is likely to attract more interest from business buyers, and exhibits a better build quality than some mini laptops we have seen. It has a clean design and, at just over a kilogram, is light enough to carry around.
The Inspiron Mini 9 is based on Intel's 1.6GHz Atom processor and ships with 1Gb of memory and either a 16GB Flash solid state drive (SSD) with Windows, or an 8GB Flash SSD for the Linux version. It has a four-cell 32WHr lithium-ion battery pack that can be removed from the system by sliding two catches.
To the left side of its sloping wedge-shaped case is the power connector, two USB ports and a Flash memory slot that takes SD Card, Memory Stick Pro and Multimedia Card Flash storage. The right side has an Ethernet port, VGA output, a third USB port and audio jack sockets.
The Windows box we tested was reasonably responsive. Its performance as measured by benchmarks is not good, but we found it perfectly acceptable for running productivity tools, browsing the web and accessing email.
To test performance, we used the Winstone 2004 benchmark suite, which is now somewhat old, but with which we have tested many Windows XP systems. This returned a score of 7.8, which is low for a laptop and lower even than gadgets such as OQO's model e2 ultra-mobile PC.
Battery life is perhaps more important than performance on a device like this, and the Inspiron Mini 9 is largely in line with other mini laptops at lasting for just a few hours.
Using the Battery Eater test tool, we found it lasted for two hours and 39 minutes when simulating productivity use, and around three hours and 29 minutes when in 'reader' mode, simulating the user simply viewing information.
Many of the keyboard keys are smaller than on a standard laptop, such as the right hand shift key, the cursor (arrow) keys and the return key. The row of function keys is also missing. In use, we found the Inspiron's keyboard reasonably good for typing, however.
The system's 8.9in display is clear and easy to read, but because of its hinge design the screen points more towards your chest than your face if you use the Inspiron placed on your lap. It seems to have been designed to give an optimal view when sitting on a desk.
We also found its 1024 x 600 resolution a little cramped for accessing some web-based applications, but this did not cause us any real problems.
The Inspiron's 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter proved rather less than satisfactory, however. We were unable to get a wireless connection, and Windows reported that it could not find any wireless networks within range.
We eventually discovered that we had to turn on Wi-Fi using a wireless select switch application that for some reason was not loaded into the notification area at startup, but was instead hidden away in the menus.
Dell ships the system somewhat cluttered with tools and utilities. As well as McAfee Security Center, Dell's Webcam Central, Dell Video Chat and Google Desktop Search all load at boot-time. Shame the rather more useful Wi-fi switch application didn't.
The Good Nice, cheap, light PC in Linux or XP
flavour
The Bad What's not to like?
The Ugly The clutter
Barman's Verdict
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It seems like you can upgrade from 4GB to 8GB for $10 in the USA if you "customize", but Dell UK seem to think that customisation is adding another year to the warranty. Still, that's better than what the Microtards in the home and small business department at Dell Norway are offering: Linux - they may have heard of it, but that's about it.
I sent them a email but never got an answer, maybe I will call. If you choose the linux version you can upgrade the SSD drive and the RAM to equal the high end XP version. When you do it comes out the same price. OK, either XP is free or they are paying for Ubuntu, not. They are trying to rip us Linux guys off. But at $450 for the upgraded Linux model looks nice and would be my choice over all of them right now.
The inspiron range is aimed at home users - comes with one year warranty. Couple of weeks and Dell are due to launch the Vistro version which is aimed at businesses - with the above spec's but also includes 3G and a longer more suited warranty for business purposes 

free plug dell ;)
The bad: what's not to like??? WELL...um....

1.no dedicated function keys, no f11, f12 AT ALL
2.odd rearranging of other keys
3.odd offset of the letter keys
4.no hard drive option
5.screen angle severely limited
6.no 3g
7.bad wifi
8.no extended battery option
9.webcam optional??
10.The Aspire One with SIX cell battery, 120gb hard drive, XP, webcam and bigger keyboard is CHEAPER!! Other models cost even less!
What are "productivity tools"? Can you speak English not Powerpointese, please. Did you mean "word processors and that sort of thing" or "office applications" or "disk defragmenters"?
I've had a Mini 9 for about a month now. It has some quirks, mostly noted in the review, but I like it a lot. It is half the size (and weight) of the Thinkpad T42 I have for work, and is ideal to take on non-business trips.

Some comments about comments. The "productivity tools" consist mainly of Microsoft Works, which can save in Word 2007 format. There is also a PowerPoint 2007 viewer, which makes the Mini 9 a great presentation display source.

3G is obviously coming - there is a space on the mainboard for a 3G card, but I was annoyed to find that on my unit, there was no socket soldered onto the board. I had thought that I might be able to add a card later. Dell already has drivers for a HSDPA card on its web site.

It comes with 1GB of RAM, but I just replaced that with a 2GB card for $30. When you get the Windows model, they have the SSD drive set to "compressed", which impairs performance. You can uncompress it and this speeds things up a lot, but you then lose some storage space. There are 32GB SSDs available on the market (note that the Mini 9 uses a PATA/IDE interface and not SATA as the Eee models do), but most are slower than the stock STEC 16GB card. I expect this market to improve over the coming months.

Unlike the reviewer, I found the "Wireless select switch" tool to be automatically loaded. It allows selection of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (if you ordered that option), both or neither. The only issue I have had with the Wi-Fi is that it is stubborn about connecting to my home router. I sometimes have to "Repair" the connection two or three times to make it work. However, it has not had this issue anywhere else I have tried it (and all my other Wi-FI devices are happy with the router. Strange.)

I do wish the screen would tilt back a few more degrees.

The Mini 9 feels like a quality device, unlike the original Eee which reminded me of my old Sinclair ZX81. It has lots of useful ports (unlike the Macbook Air) and the size is perfect for portability. I would not want a larger screen for this use.

The oddball resolution has two drawbacks I have encountered so far. First, Windows initially boots with a different resolution (800x600?) which causes the desktop to auto-rearrange every time I log in. So any icons I place on the right side of the screen get reset to the left. The other is that the Canon ZoomBrowser software that came with my camera refused to install, saying the resolution was too low. However, Google Picasa 3 worked fine and supports my camera, so no worries there.

A surprisingly good bargain and highly recommended by me. I am delighted with the Mini 9.
Dell have confirmed that 1gb is the maximum RAM - so you can't upgrade to 2gb even by removing the original 1gb.
Which makes the Mini 9 a 'No Thanks' from me.

I can confirm that the memory is just as easy to replace as any other notebook - I also removed the 1GB SO-DIMM and replaced it with 2GB - works like a charm. Count that as another customer however that is disappointed to find that the space for the 3G card does not have a socket soldered on - it would have made for a quick upgrade if it did. Im sure its only a matter of time before its standardised.
The reason why Dell would say a 1Gb limit is the license that computer companies have now when selling a netbook with XP. They cannot equip it with no more that 1Gb of RAM and no better than a Atom processor (or a chip with less than a Ghz in speed). I have upgraded my Mini 9 with a 2Gb chip and it works just fine in both XP and Ubuntu.
Don't forget that it has Bluetooth!
Very important to me (PAN internet with my phone)
As far as I can tell, it's the only reasonably spec'd and priced netbook with Bluetooth.
Considering their mobile design, you would have thought it was critical.

Also, you can buy it from Tesco Direct in the UK for £249. Spec doesn't mention Bluetooth though, so I don't know if that made the cut with the Tesco version. Search for Inspiron N270.

J1M.