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Tiny Laptop!
Sep 23, 2008
in Gadgets and Gizmos
W00t, w00t! I finally bit the bullet and bought a new computer. My old desktop at home died. *sniff* I'd been using my work laptop for the past several months, which isn't exactly optimal. I'm not going to illegally download music on a work computer. Heh.
I kept going back and forth between a new desktop and a new laptop. Should I switch to Macs? Decisions, decisions. After a little bit of thought and the realisation that I didn't want to spend a ton of money, I decided on the little Dell Inspiron Mini 9.
Look how cute it is! It's 2.3 pounds, smaller than a hardback book (look at the photo of it sitting on the book I'm reading), and is perfectly sufficient for doing what most of us do at home - being on the intewebs.
I got the fancy-pants model, which starts at $489 and has Windows XP, a 16GB solid state hard drive, 1GB2 DDR2 at 533MHz (I cut and pasted that and only sort of know what it means), and a 4 cell battery. I upgraded to the 1.3M pixel built-in webcam and added the Bluetooth capacity, and got it in white (which at the time cost an extra $25, though they seem to have dropped the additional fee for that as of now). There was a $40 discount for purchasing and free shipping, so it cost me $551, shipped. Not too shabby.
Now, the keyboard is tiny, as it's going to have to be on a 8.9" laptop, and they moved the apostrophe down by the spacebar, which is annoying, but it's working pretty well. I am having some issues with the cursor bouncing all over the screen and the resolution needs to be changed every time I restart the machine, both of which is annoying. It also comes with a bunch of junk pre-installed and set to load when Windows loads, so all that needed to be cleaned out, but that's always a problem when you buy a comptuter from somewhere like Dell.
So, all in all, I'm happy. If nothing else, it is pretty cute. Heh.
I kept going back and forth between a new desktop and a new laptop. Should I switch to Macs? Decisions, decisions. After a little bit of thought and the realisation that I didn't want to spend a ton of money, I decided on the little Dell Inspiron Mini 9.
Look how cute it is! It's 2.3 pounds, smaller than a hardback book (look at the photo of it sitting on the book I'm reading), and is perfectly sufficient for doing what most of us do at home - being on the intewebs.
I got the fancy-pants model, which starts at $489 and has Windows XP, a 16GB solid state hard drive, 1GB2 DDR2 at 533MHz (I cut and pasted that and only sort of know what it means), and a 4 cell battery. I upgraded to the 1.3M pixel built-in webcam and added the Bluetooth capacity, and got it in white (which at the time cost an extra $25, though they seem to have dropped the additional fee for that as of now). There was a $40 discount for purchasing and free shipping, so it cost me $551, shipped. Not too shabby.
Now, the keyboard is tiny, as it's going to have to be on a 8.9" laptop, and they moved the apostrophe down by the spacebar, which is annoying, but it's working pretty well. I am having some issues with the cursor bouncing all over the screen and the resolution needs to be changed every time I restart the machine, both of which is annoying. It also comes with a bunch of junk pre-installed and set to load when Windows loads, so all that needed to be cleaned out, but that's always a problem when you buy a comptuter from somewhere like Dell.
So, all in all, I'm happy. If nothing else, it is pretty cute. Heh.
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Comments (14)
It's adorable.
Oh, man, it's so cute. I've been wanting a mini but I was worried about the keyboard because I type at I-was-a-secretary speed. Can you let us know how you acclimate to the keyboard?
So Sweet!
That is adorable as laptops go. ;) You made me laugh about the illegally downloading. haha
triplyksis - Let's hope the RIAA doesn't try to come after me. :)
alicatstrut - I sure will.
Pretty cute...!!! it looks like mine... : ]
Great deal! Dell pc's are a bit annoying with that pre-installed stuff but my sis and I have both owned inspirons for years and with a pentium processor they're great performers. best of luck with your new toy!
I bought a Fujitsu Lifebook a while back that is 8.9". It was terribly expensive and doesn't have the touchpad mouse, which makes everything 10x more difficult. I wish I would have waited and got this Dell!
I can't believe this! I just bought a Dell in June. I got the fancy-pants artist design on the outside, and plenty of storage, etc. etc., but it weighs a ton. I don't think I could have dealt with the tiny keyboard on this one anyway. But it definitely is cute, and I would buy my dd one when she is old enough, in a couple of years. Thanks for sharing.
You are so lucky.
I WANT!!!
Why did I not see this? Thank you so much for directing me to this post. I was thinking of getting a Dell, but I'm so laaame. I've been building my own desktop computers since forever, and I feel like switching to a manufacturer's one is just going to make me wince. And it's Dell, preloaded software and all. However, this review has been most helpful, but I'm thinking of getting the Aspire One instead since what it offers will be more of what I will need and in the price I'm willing to pay. But I like to look around and see what other people have though of just netbooks in general, or a particular model they are using. I think netbooks are sensational and I just want to see how they are all faring :)
Yeah, I had to do some major cleaning to get all the junk off of this (there still stuff I don't need), but it's a good little computer. And now they come in red! I wish they had the red when I got mine.
Dell has published the A04 BIOS (firmware update) to fix the screen resolution issue and the phantom battery beep. It is on their message board page, but I am not sure it has rolled to their public support page so until then this is officially "download at your own risk."