Dell Mini 9 first impressions

A few weeks ago Dell announced a super portable and inexpensive laptop. The mini 9 is a 9″ laptop (looking and feeling more like a dvd player than a laptop) - but this little machine does a real nice job of being a great portable machine.

“Loaded” the machine runs with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage (SD memory - no hard drive). There also is no CD/DVD drive, but there is wired and wireless networking and comes with XP Home or Ubuntu.

I have been working with the XP version and so far found it slow (installing software and networking), the storage has been fine thus far and the keyboard is SMALL! I type S before I type A - Annoying. I cannot work quickly when working with this machine.

I love the idea - but so far, the MacBook Air wins out in my mind.

The Air and Mini have similar features, more storage, larger keyboard and SO MUCH faster. Granted, you are going to pay $1000-15000 more but I personally know I can get the work done I want to get done on the Air…

If you are truly looking for a light, portable workstation in the $500 - check out the Dell Mini, it just may work for you…

UPDATE (09-25-08):
keyboard small no “disk” access light so there are times i do not know if the system is doing anything or just SLOW… Urg. How hard would that have been
SLOW to wake from sleep. Here is a real small and portable machine. when i’m on the train and want to quickly fire up something - why does it take about a minute to get to a point where i can type and work?