Review: Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook
January 27th, 2009
I purchased the entry model of the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 for my daughter for Christmas. I am not among those hanging on every morsel of netbook news out there. I’m interested in the relatively new netbook market, but I don’t really think the form factor is for me. I did think it would be a perfect gift for my daughter, though, since she has small hands and needs a smaller notebook. Also, she is very young and this is a first computer.
I can compare the Dell only to the Acer Aspire One as it is the only other netbook I have first-hand experience with. A few of these have been purchased for colleagues by my employer. A notebook of this size is very pleasing to look at and to hold. Of course, the screen resolution makes it difficult to do much with it, but this could be expected from this type of product. The product is decked out in piano black and that faux-aluminum silver plasic that seems to be all the rage among notebook manufacturers. It’s really quite ugly, but I didn’t really expect much in that regard either.
My number one issue with this netbook is the battery placement. The battery is inside the lid of the computer just behind the keyboard. I would venture a guess that Dell placed the battery this way to maintain the form of the computer. The Aspire One has a battery that hangs a little off the back of the notebook. The problem with Dell’s placement is that it leaves very little room for the keyboard which would already have been cramped by nature of the fact the computer is so small. The major compromise is that the apostrophe (‘) is moved from directly to the right of the semicolon down to the bottom of the keyboard. Should you ever forget about this foul arrangement and attempt to place an apostrophe, you will instead press the “Enter” key. I just hope you weren’t typing in any sort of field that takes the “Enter” key as anything but a line break. If you’re typing an IM or entering text in a single-line web form, your data is already off to the races!
Another minor issue is the trackpad. I’m unsure if this problem may be a behavior of the OS (Ubuntu Linux) or an attempt at a hardware compensation for the trackpad’s diminutive height. The mouse pointer tracks much more quickly vertically than it does horizontally. The effect is very disorienting and really takes some adjustment.
My last complaint is that the 4GB SSD is really very small. I realize I chose the most basic hardware package, but I believe this notebook should not have been made available with less than 8GB of solid state memory.
On the up side, the OS is very snappy in spite of the system’s specs. Dell has even included some custom extra software to make the netbook experience more complete. Puzzling is the install of several applications designed for playing and burning CDs… by default… on a computer with no optical drive. Hmm.
I’m not very happy with this particular netbook. For my daughter’s part, she loves it, but I really wish I had chosen a different option for her. It should be good enough to get her started in computing and maybe provide her with some learning opportunities over the next couple of years, but I unfortunately cannot recommend it.
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