Netbooks Get Bigger – Introducing the Dell Inspiron Mini 12

Dell has bypassed the 10″ netbook frenzy with the new Inspiron Mini 12, a 12.1″ netbook, which was released earlier this week in Japan.

The Inspiron Mini 12 will make up for what we consider the largest shortcoming in netbooks today, the shrunken keyboard, by providing one that is nearly full size.

Dell has also upgraded a number of other parts over “traditional” netbooks (as much as there can be tradition in a product line less than a year old) like the their own Inspiron Mini 9. The resolution is much bigger at 1200×800, and the hard drive is available in 40GB, 60GB and 80GB options, albeit at 4200RPM. The Mini 12 will also use a new and more efficient edition of Atom processors (1.3GHz or 1.6GHz, your choice), which will generate 3 hours of battery life on a 3-cell and twice that on a 6-cell. It also has 1GB of RAM, which is rather unexceptional.

Dell had this to say about their unit, “If you are the user that spends a lot of the time in the Web browser, using Web mail, and updating Twitter this is an outstanding platform for a great value,” but warned that there are “performance walls” for more intensive users.

Currently it only ships with Vista, but XP and Linux options should be available by the end of the year. Dell claims Vista works fine on the Mini 12, but you might want to wait on that one. Prices begin at around $600.

Via laptopmag

Written by Daniel Shain on Monday, October 27, 2008