Digital Home Thoughts: Dell USA Launches Inspiron Mini 9

Dell.com has finally launched their Inspiron Mini page, and you can check out the details for all three models there now. Strangely, the $349 USD version with Ubuntu is only available for pre-order, leaving only the Windows XP-based versions for sale. Equally strange is that the $399 version, equipped with Windows XP, only comes with 512 MB of RAM. Windows XP really needs 1 GB of RAM to breathe properly, so this is a poor choice - especially since many, if not all other netbooks at $399 come with 1 GB of RAM. The good news though is that for $51 more you get bumped to 1 GB of RAM and the 16 GB SSD hard drive. The bad news is that even at $449, you don't get Bluetooth or the 1.3 MP Web cam - Dell wants $20 and $10 respectively for each of those.

If it seems I'm being a bit hard on the Dell Inspiron Mini 9, it's because I had really high hopes that Dell would bring something exciting to the table - either in the form of reduced pricing, great custom configuration options, different colour options, etc. If you don't like black, you can pay $25 for the privilege of owning an "Alpine White" version. Supposedly other colours are coming later, but Dell was so late to the game, why not launch with all guns blazing? Dell is a huge company, and instead of broadening the netbook market and giving the other players something to compete against, they seem to have released an also-ran product. Maybe once I get my hands on one I'll feel differently - perhaps the build quality is excellent, or the battery life is better than Dell says. We'll see...