The Deal

Yes, it’s true: in a three-day special sale, Dell is offering its newly unveiled Inspiron Mini 9 at a price point starting at USD $99.00.

The Rub

The catch: you must buy another Dell notebook, albeit also at a discount. Thus, you end paying somewhere between $1,200 and $2,400 for two notebooks.

This special promotion is called the “Dell 3-Day Laptop Sale“. You have to select and configure one of the Studio or XPS notebooks listed as available under the sale terms, and then the Inspiron Mini 9 will be available as an “accessory” during the build configuration procedure for your Studio/XPS notebook (see the second tab panel?):

The Play

Now, to demonstrate a XPS M1330 selection (without any customizations beyond the default configuration) and its accompanying Inspiron Mini 9 “accessory”, here’s a typical build configuration review panel screen:

A few important details here:

• Note the price: without the $347 discount for the XPS M1330, the total price of the default XPS M1330 with a spec’ed Inspiron Mini 9 (resembling the Ubuntu-based Inspiron 910u) is $1,790. Imagine if you’d decided to customize the XPS M1330!
• Note the customizations I applied to the Mini 9:
  • The 1.3 megapixel webcam;
  • The 16 GB SSD (instead of the default 4 GB SSD);
  • Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 (instead of NO Bluetooth!);
  • and 1 GB DDR2 RAM (instead of 512 MB RAM).
• Note that this is for an Ubuntu-based Mini 9… there was no option to switch to the Windows XP Home Edition that you could opt for, if you chose to order the Inspiron Mini 9 by itself.
• Note the preliminary ship date.

The Verdict

If you’ve got some extra bucks to burn to try this deal out, I’d say you should go for it, especially if you’re already in the market for a new Dell-manufactured notebook. Spending at least an extra $99 to try out Dell’s attempt to enter the mini-notebook arena may be worth it.

On the other hand, there are plenty of other computers and devices out there that may interest you, and which may provide greater utility to you. So, do you need a new Windows-based “main” notebook and have a bit of leftover time-and-effort to try out something from a vendor that desperately needs to make its mark in the realm of innovation (and with more than 10 years of lagging behind)?

As Dell [DELL] continues its endeavor to radically change (and hopefully, improve) its image with the public, they’ve come through with a new competitor line to the HP 2133 Mini-Note line, which in turn is a formidable response to the ASUStek’s Eec PC.

I’ve discussed the recent issues with the mini-/sub-notebook arena that Apple used to range quite freely in; it seems evident that this new convergence segment is open enough to provide an opportunity that Dell needs to regain the leading mindshare it had lost to other vendors.

Inspiron 910

You’ll notice that the identifier used for your build configuration will change from Inspiron Mini 9 to its true name if you decide to accept the Windows XP Home Edition base. Also note the CPU and the storage used. Perhaps quite telling is the pricing for the computer. Although its price is touted as starting at USD $349, the truth is that you’re most likely going to use configure a build similar to the above screenshot to maximize the usefulness of the sub-notebook. Still, at $479, it’s not terrible. But also note the preliminary ship date listed.

Inspiron 910u

Now, in addition to offering Windows XP Home Edition, there is base using Ubuntu 8.04, which is significantly more interesting for non-Windows users or certain developer types. Note that, after a bit of configuring, the build configuration looks very similar to the 910, but price is higher at $494 (because there was a discount being offered on the Windows XP Home Edition base) and the preliminary ship date is much further out.

The Verdict

Compared to the HP 2133, the Inspiron Mini 9 models are significantly less expensive, and the build quality does look better than the Eee PC’s (although it would require physical production model comparisons to confirm this). So, as a value proposition, the Inspiron Mini 9 looks very attractive.

What could be better are the usual suspects:

• More RAM
• Larger storage capacities
• Longer battery life
• 802.11n support