Dell's Inspiron Mini 12 'œnetbook' arrives at last

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 01 December 2008 08:07

Opinion and Analysis

Dell’s 12-inch netbook is finally available in Australia, but with a hardware limit of 1GB and only Windows Vista Basic on offer (unlike in the US, where Ubuntu is also available), is the Inspiron Mini 12 worth it?

Netbooks are funny beasts – a machine that is less powerful than most models sold over the past two or three years, yet generally offering longer battery life and less heat output, and being limited to a 10-inch screen.

Dell’s 12.1-inch Mini 12 bucks the 10-inch screen trend, but as the screen is capable of a 1280x800 resolution, which breaks the 1024x600 10-inch “restriction” that Microsoft places on the ULPC (ultra low cost) version of Windows XP it licenses for netbooks only, Dell was forced to offer Windows Vista instead.

As the included version of Window is Vista Basic, rather than the Vista Business version, there is unlikely to be any free downgrade to XP, meaning you’ll have to supply your own.

Dell might have the power to “force” Microsoft to let it offer Windows XP on a future 12-inch Mini 12 model, we’ll just have to wait and see – but if it takes too long, Windows 7 might get here first, as might more powerful processors.

But that’s all months away, at the very least, and the Mini 12 still holds appeal – it’s slim, has a larger keyboard than is found on regular netbooks, and has a much more “normal” 12.1-inch screen.

It doesn’t get super hot like Mac models or “regular”, more powerful notebooks, is much lighter at 1.236kg than most “regular” and more expensive notebooks while still coming in at well under $1000, with AUD $749.00 being the recommended retail price.

The additional specs are familiar to netbook enthusiasts – there’s a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB 1.8-inch 4200RPM hard drive (although some competing netbooks come with 160GB hard drives as standard, but aren’t as thin), a 1.3 megapixel webcam, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The standard 3-cell battery gives approximately 3 hours of battery life, while an optional 6 cell battery is rated at 6.5 hours of life. An 80GB hard drive

Initial reports say that Vista works well enough on the Mini 12, it’s just a little slow, with those who have installed their own copies of XP finding better performance. Presumably anyone who has installed the Windows 7 pre-beta has found better performance, too.

Vista’s slower performance isn’t helped by the fact the Mini 12 only has 1GB of RAM, and can’t be upgraded to 2GB, thanks to Intel, in its wisdom, restricting netbook chipsets to only 1GB of memory in total, even if a 2GB chip could be installed. 

Why did Intel do this? And how is the US Mini 12 different from the Australian one? Please read on to page 2.