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Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (910) Review

jpeyton

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
This is a work-in-progress review.

Unboxing: Ships in a very tiny box; 13x9x3.5 inches. Good egg carton protection on the inside. AC Power adapter is very small. Includes software CDs, including a Windows XP re-install CD (because the SSD is too small to have a restore partition).

My config:

Intel 1.6GHz Atom
8GB SSD
1GB RAM
0.3MP Webcam
WinXP Home
4-Cell
WiFi/g
Obsidian Black

Screen: The LED backlighting feels very even; no typical CCFL light leakage around the edges. Bright too; I am comfortably using it at minimum brightness. Size and resolution is good. Off angle viewing is average.

OS: This version of WinXP Home is specifically for netbooks. By default, things like system restore are turned off, the paging file size is fixed at 200MB, and it loads very fast. Dell installs a lot LESS crapware by default these days.

Performance: The Atom CPU and SSD feel fast when you're doing isolated single-tasks. Loading a browser, Office app, etc., is fast and responsive. Loading or processing large files feels very sluggish. Installing the Office 2007 service pack, and various Windows Updates, took an eternity.

There is not much room left on my 8GB SSD after installing Office and a few basic utilities; only 1.5GB free space. I added a $39 16GB SDHC card for storage, but I might have to uninstall some programs if I want to install anything else (no plans to do that yet, since I only want to use this for internet/email/office).

I might try installing a "Lite" edition of XP to see if I can free up more space, speed the system up more.
 
I would like to know how's the "lite" XP version does on the mini. Please keep us posted with updates.

How's the battery life on it btw?
 
AT's review showed ~3 hours at half-brightness listening to music and browsing over WiFi.

I think at minimum brightness, it should be ~30 minutes longer. Sorry I haven't had time to do a battery test yet, still trying to figure out a good software config for it first.

I found out Dell enables "file compression" on the SSD by default. That might be why it felt so sluggish doing larger installs.

There are about 45-50 processes running by default at boot up. I think a lite install of XP can get that down to 20 processes, and should free up enough room on the drive so I don't have to enable file compression.
 
Installed XP Lite; down to 19 processes after install at idle :thumbsup:

System feels a lot snappier already. XP loads about 30% faster.
 
Wow I really want to get one of these netbooks from Dell, but their choice to go with a 4 cell battery hurts! I can get an AAO for $399 with Atom, 1gb ram, 160gb hdd, and a 6 cell battery....but the Dell looks more stylish, finished, and has no moving parts. They don't even have an option to buy another battery for your mini!
 
I've been playing around with my Mini 9 for the past few days and I'm quite impressed. After reloading Windows XP on there to get rid of most of the crapware and turning off compressed drive. I have about 4.5 gb's left out of my 8gb after installing all my applications. I've been watching movies on it and using it to surf the web and it's really nice to have something easy to carry around. I do recommend everyone upgrade their memory if they get the 512mb one though.. as I upgraded mine to 2gb since it's so cheap now.

There are only a few things I'd have negative to say about it. The first is some of the keys on the keyboard really drives me nuts.. like the apostrophe key which is moved onto the bottom row. Also people complain about not having an F11 or F12 key, but I don't really use those anyways. The other thing that's kind of annoying is that it does get quite warm/hot sometimes.. I noticed it mostly when I was installing applications. I think it's due to the fact that there's no fan and is completely silent. I'm hoping this won't cause problems in the future because of heating issues.
 
Do you have access to the SSD and memory by unscrewing the cover on the bottom or just the memory or none?
 
Originally posted by: abaez
Do you have access to the SSD and memory by unscrewing the cover on the bottom or just the memory or none?
Click to expand...
Yes, the memory, SSD, WiFi, and other slots are accessible from the bottom.
 
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