Review: Dell Inspiron Mini 9 notebook computer

There has been a conspicuous absence of the biggest names in the mini-notebook market.

While Asus and Acer have led the way, the only one of the household-name computer companies to dip its toe into the water has been HP, but its offering was more of a business model, costing much more than most.

Now, late to the party, Toshiba and Dell have both announced their own mini-notebooks (we'll be looking at the Toshiba in a future issue). Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 is a 9in model, with very similar dimensions to the other 9in laptops around. As with similar computers there are two versions, one running Linux and one running Windows XP Home (as with similar computers the Mini 9 isn't powerful enough to run Vista).

The Windows XP version we looked at included 16GB of storage as opposed to the 8GB in the Linux edition but otherwise both are the same, using the Intel Atom processor and with 1GB of memory. That makes it powerful enough to run email and web-browsing programs without trouble although, as with the others, try to run more than a handful of applications at once and everything will slow to a crawl. Needless to say, modern games are out too, but then that's not what this computer is designed for.

Clearly, to get the price down, you might expect Dell to have made some design compromises, but Mini 9 shows that's not the case. It's admirably sturdy in its build quality, although it's no more bulky than any of its rivals, making it very easily portable. The keyboard is also good quality, with a width that stretches across almost the whole body, making the keys large enough to type on comfortably (they're still smaller than those on standard notebooks, though). The trackpad is likewise large. There's no CD or DVD drive, but it has three USB ports, a memory card reader and a webcam.

The Mini 9 can access both wired and wireless networks as well as make Bluetooth connections, and it comes with Microsoft Works, so you can get straight to work as soon as it's out of the box. Battery life of three and a half hours was decent but not exceptional, but unless you're going to be out and about for more than three hours at a time the Mini 9 is an impressive, high-quality mini-notebook.

Good points Sturdily built; good keyboard
Bad points Battery life is unexceptional

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