Five reasons Dell Inspiron Mini 9 will crush Eee PCThe titchy Asus Eee PC 901 might be running away with the title for the best littlest laptop around, but it’s in danger of being shown up by the brand new Dell Inspiron Mini 9.

We’ve rounded up five reasons why Dell’s new laptop will kick dirt in the eye of the original ultra-mobile laptop.

Size matters
The ASUS’s teeny Eee PC has been hamming it up in the slim stakes, but Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9 manages to fit into an even slinkier little black dress. It’s a little wider than the Eee PC at 232mm, and is also 175mm deep, but is still 9mm slimmer in diameter. It’s a clear winner in the weigh in though, coming in at 1070g, that’s 70g lighter than the Eee PC.

Keyboard king
With such a small amount of space to work with, Dell’s done away with function keys, leaving everything you need for work and play on the go, without any extra bulk. It’s keyboard minimalism at its best, and we love it.

Dapper design
We like our gadgets looking slick and smooth. And there’s not many slicker than Dell’s Mini 9. We love the little black box, and it makes the Eee’s more boxy design look positively archaic.

Ubuntu inside
Both the Eee PC and Mini 9 tout a dose of Windows XP and Linux but it’s Ubuntu that captures the eye here. It’s fast, accessible, secure has easily changeable options and not to mention being much quicker than Vista, simpler than Linux and with more updates too.

Price points
Not only is the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 little on size, it’s equally meager on cost. The Eee PC might be small on size but compared to Dell it’s pricey too, at £350 a pop. Instead you could scoot off with a dinky Dell for £269 for a Linux version or £299 for an XP equipped Dell Mini 9.

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  • abookas

    Five reasons why the Eee 901 still beats the Inspiron Mini 9 hands down:

    I’d been wanting to get a netbook ever since the first Eee showed up last year. I kept putting the purchase off as announcements of new hardware came out. I would have bought a Linux Eee 901 in July, when it was launched, but it was largely unavailabe. So I decided to wait for the Dell, since the rumours made it sound quite promising.

    When the Dell was finally officially announced last week and the exact specifications were published, it was easy for me to make a quick decision and buy an Eee 901 the same day.

    Price:
    The Dell is available for £299 in the UK, in one configuration only. This includes £20 for shipping, but currently the only way to get one is via the Dell website. The Eee 901 is currently available for less than that on different websites. I took a printout of an offer of £270 to my nearest PC World, they matched they price, and I left the store very satisfied with my Eee.

    Design:
    This is of course a subjective and arguable topic, and altough I do like the simple design of the Dell, I don’t think it’s fair to describe the 901 as boxy and archaic. As a matter of fact, I find it to be very sexy. Plus, and this is a major plus versus a Dell, it comes in a choice of white or black, while the Dell is only available in black.

    Usability:
    While the Keyboard on my 901 was my only real concern with it, I got used to typing on it within a matter of days. I haven’t tried out the Dell yet, but even though I believe it to have a slight advantage over the Eee keyboard, I don’t expect the difference to be material considering the similar overall dimensions. Comparing both the Dell and the Eee, and looking at the specifications made me realise why I was interested in a netbook in the first place: mobility. Which brings me to one of the two main reasons why the Eee is superior to the Dell (for my needs at least).

    Battery:
    I wanted a netbook because I wanted to be able to take a small device with me where I go. When I’m travelling, when I’m in the office, but just as much for when I’m lounging in my living room, sipping coffee in my kitchen or barbecuing in my garden. And the Eee easily trumps the Dell in mobility. The Dell comes with a 4-cell 2200mAh battery, whereas the Eee 901 comes with a 6-cell 6600mAh battery. Different websites are estimating the Dell to last just about three hours without wireless turned on. The 901 officially lasts for more than six hours, although I’ve managed to squeeze out more than that with wireless on most of the time. On top of that Dell is currently not expected to offer a 6-cell battery in the near future, and even if it does, it will protrude from the back of the chassis, just like on the Acer Aspire One or the MSI Wind. The difference in batteries also explains the slightly higher weight of the 901.

    Operating System:
    This was the final straw: the Dell is currently only available as a Windows model in the UK. Having been a windows user for most of my computing life, I was keen to get a Linux netbook for two reasons: This was my chance to experience Linux and become familiar with it. Although I don’t entirely hate Microsoft, I believe there are better alternatives out there. And secondly a tiny machine with these specs will always run better and faster with a lean and mean Linux distro rather than bloated and outdated Windows XP. I could have waited a few weeks for the UK Linux version to be available, or imported one from the US, but in the end, all of the other factors above still make the Eee 901 the better netbook for me. I’m currently very happy with the pre-installed Xandros OS, and although the basic interface is very good and the full OS is easy to switch to, I plan on tweaking it and trying out different distros like Ubuntu – remember, I’m a complete Linux newbie.

    Knowing what I know now about the Dell and the Eee I would have gotten the 901 much earlier. I’m a very happy and proud Eee owner, despite having flirted with basically all other netbooks before, including the Acer, the HP, the MSI and last but not least the Dell. I can only recommend it to anyone with similar preferences.

  • abookas

    Five reasons why the Eee 901 still beats the Inspiron Mini 9 hands down:

    I’d been wanting to get a netbook ever since the first Eee showed up last year. I kept putting the purchase off as announcements of new hardware came out. I would have bought a Linux Eee 901 in July, when it was launched, but it was largely unavailabe. So I decided to wait for the Dell, since the rumours made it sound quite promising.

    When the Dell was finally officially announced last week and the exact specifications were published, it was easy for me to make a quick decision and buy an Eee 901 the same day.

    Price:
    The Dell is available for £299 in the UK, in one configuration only. This includes £20 for shipping, but currently the only way to get one is via the Dell website. The Eee 901 is currently available for less than that on different websites. I took a printout of an offer of £270 to my nearest PC World, they matched they price, and I left the store very satisfied with my Eee.

    Design:
    This is of course a subjective and arguable topic, and altough I do like the simple design of the Dell, I don’t think it’s fair to describe the 901 as boxy and archaic. As a matter of fact, I find it to be very sexy. Plus, and this is a major plus versus a Dell, it comes in a choice of white or black, while the Dell is only available in black.

    Usability:
    While the Keyboard on my 901 was my only real concern with it, I got used to typing on it within a matter of days. I haven’t tried out the Dell yet, but even though I believe it to have a slight advantage over the Eee keyboard, I don’t expect the difference to be material considering the similar overall dimensions. Comparing both the Dell and the Eee, and looking at the specifications made me realise why I was interested in a netbook in the first place: mobility. Which brings me to one of the two main reasons why the Eee is superior to the Dell (for my needs at least).

    Battery:
    I wanted a netbook because I wanted to be able to take a small device with me where I go. When I’m travelling, when I’m in the office, but just as much for when I’m lounging in my living room, sipping coffee in my kitchen or barbecuing in my garden. And the Eee easily trumps the Dell in mobility. The Dell comes with a 4-cell 2200mAh battery, whereas the Eee 901 comes with a 6-cell 6600mAh battery. Different websites are estimating the Dell to last just about three hours without wireless turned on. The 901 officially lasts for more than six hours, although I’ve managed to squeeze out more than that with wireless on most of the time. On top of that Dell is currently not expected to offer a 6-cell battery in the near future, and even if it does, it will protrude from the back of the chassis, just like on the Acer Aspire One or the MSI Wind. The difference in batteries also explains the slightly higher weight of the 901. Plus the 901 has 4GB more drive space.

    Operating System:
    This was the final straw: the Dell is currently only available as a Windows model in the UK. Having been a windows user for most of my computing life, I was keen to get a Linux netbook for two reasons: This was my chance to experience Linux and become familiar with it. Although I don’t entirely hate Microsoft, I believe there are better alternatives out there. And secondly a tiny machine with these specs will always run better and faster with a lean and mean Linux distro rather than bloated and outdated Windows XP. I could have waited a few weeks for the UK Linux version to be available, or imported one from the US, but in the end, all of the other factors above still make the Eee 901 the better netbook for me. I’m currently very happy with the pre-installed Xandros OS, and although the basic interface is very good and the full OS is easy to switch to, I plan on tweaking it and trying out different distros like Ubuntu – remember, I’m a complete Linux newbie.

    Knowing what I know now about the Dell and the Eee I would have gotten the 901 much earlier. I’m a very happy and proud Eee owner, despite having flirted with basically all other netbooks before, including the Acer, the HP, the MSI and last but not least the Dell. I can only recommend it to anyone with similar preferences.

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