Dell Home has the new Inspiron Mini 9 for $349 - automatic $50 off + $8 shipping = $307 shipped. This netbook sports a low-power consumption Intel Atom Processor N270 1.6GHz, 512MB DDR2, 4GB SSD, 8.9" 1024x600 LCD, 802.11g Wireless, 32WHr Battery, and runs Ubuntu Linux.
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#1
wolf_359 - Posted 5:24 am PST 12/1/08 (309 Posts)
And it's finally available in red! (For $25 more)
#2
gassyjoe - Posted 5:32 am PST 12/1/08 (1239 Posts)
Too little Ram, too little HD space, don't get this one.
#3
suegrau - Posted 6:10 am PST 12/1/08 (92 Posts)
It was worth it for the $99 I spent when they added it to the XPS I bought. Handy little sucker 
#4
neouvou - Posted 7:19 am PST 12/1/08 (75 Posts)
Why not just get a dell 700m or 710m?
They have DVDRW drives too.
They have DVDRW drives too.
#5
wolf_359 - Posted 7:23 am PST 12/1/08 (309 Posts)
If you're focusing on the RAM, storage space, or optical drives, then you're missing the point of the netbooks. If you don't get it, don't get it.
#6
uncle_pennybags - Posted 8:13 am PST 12/1/08 (294 Posts)
About the only thing the Dell netbook has going for it is Ubuntu preinstalled. Other then that I'm very, very underwhelmed by Dell's offering.
#7
undefined - Posted 8:16 am PST 12/1/08 (266 Posts)
wolf_359: the problem isn't that the RAM or SSD is to little compared to desktop computers (like the last desktop i built with 8 GB RAM & 640 GB HD in RAID-1), but compared to other netbooks (like the acer aspire @ newegg for $250, also with 512 MB but with a 8 GB SSD).
i have an old laptop ('99 ibm thinkpad 770x: 320 MB RAM & 8 GB HD) that i just upgraded to xubuntu 8.04.1 and the performance is slightly bearable. the ram is just enough for firefox, an email application, and a media player, but any more than that and you're hitting swap. the 8 GB leaves just under 5 GB free, which only leaves 1 GB on a 4 GB SSD. that's fine for around the house where all my multimedia, ebooks, etc is just a 802.11g hop away, but not on the other end of free wifi (2 Mb/s) or an airplane (0 Mb/s). and yeah, you can compliment the SSD with memory cards & thumb drives, but those are usually slower, and in the case of a thumb drive, hangs off the netbook where it has to be disconnected for storage or you risk damaging the usb port.
and the RAM isn't that big of a deal because it can be upgraded, but the SSD is more problematic.
i have an old laptop ('99 ibm thinkpad 770x: 320 MB RAM & 8 GB HD) that i just upgraded to xubuntu 8.04.1 and the performance is slightly bearable. the ram is just enough for firefox, an email application, and a media player, but any more than that and you're hitting swap. the 8 GB leaves just under 5 GB free, which only leaves 1 GB on a 4 GB SSD. that's fine for around the house where all my multimedia, ebooks, etc is just a 802.11g hop away, but not on the other end of free wifi (2 Mb/s) or an airplane (0 Mb/s). and yeah, you can compliment the SSD with memory cards & thumb drives, but those are usually slower, and in the case of a thumb drive, hangs off the netbook where it has to be disconnected for storage or you risk damaging the usb port.
and the RAM isn't that big of a deal because it can be upgraded, but the SSD is more problematic.
#8
mattb123 - Posted 9:33 am PST 12/1/08 (697 Posts)
I got a Mini9 from my employer. It came with a 16 gb SSD and 1 GB of RAM that I upgraded to 2 for cheap (like $25 or so). For additional storage I added a 16 GB SDHC card and I have to say it does pretty well. I did some tuning, like disabling the swap file and I installed Office 07 (paired down a bit) and uncompressed the drive. The result is a decent performing little notebook that I think will be good for communications and traveling light. It should also make a decent movie watcher for the plane.
Word and Excel are acceptably responsive. The ram upgrade and disabling swap seemed to help a lot.
For the right use, these are pretty slick little machines, but I would not get one with a 4 GB SSD. That is just impractical.
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