Dell Inspiron Mini 910 Review

I picked up the Dell Inspiron 910 Mini for a client and thought I would document my impressions.

The unit was pretty well maxed out on the options with 1gb memory, 16gb flash disk, webcam, and bluetooth. The 16gb disk shows as having 14.3 available of which 10 is free.

The Dell Inspiron Mini (from now on I'll just call it the mini) comes in what can best be described as "mini-malist Dell" packaging. It is well packed in a very tiny box without the usual Dell "onion layers" you have to deal with. (It seems there is a rule at Dell that whenever they ship a Dell laptop, the box it comes in must always be 100 times larger in volume than the actual laptop.) In the case of the Mini, the box is only about 1 or 2 inches bigger in every dimension than the laptop. A little foam sleeve and some foam wrap and that's it! I like it...

Once you get the mini out of the box, you just plug it in to the power supply and turn it on like you do any other Dell. The Windows screen came up right away, but there was a significant delay from that point until the XP installation started. I didn't time it, but it was a pretty long delay and you can't really tell what is happening due to the lack of a drive activity light.

The laptop itself is nice looking. The surfaces are shiny, which I don't like, but the layout and look of the unit is very nice and it has a very traditional laptopiness look. There is no catch or latch when you close the screen down, which feels funny at first, but without a catch, there won’t be a catch to break. Closing the lid puts the laptop in Suspend, as a default, but I changed it to Hibernate, which is the mode I like. The unit makes virtually no sound, so it fits in well at coffee houses and the living room without disturbing others (however, they will be disturbing you as they come over and ask questions about your cute and shiny laptop).

The keyboard layout is nice for a tiny laptop like this. I like it a lot better than the Asus EEE PC or Acer's micro in terms of size and feel. However, if you are used to a full sized keyboard, it will take a bit to get used to the smaller format. I liked that the letter keys are almost normal-sized. The other keys, like the arrow keys, are about 70% the size of the letter keys. It took about a day of use before I stopped typing the 0 instead of the O key, because of placement. Also, I seem to have problems with the quote key (“ and ‘), which is kind of in the wrong place, because I always tend to hit the left arrow key instead.

The buttons on the touchpad are a little giggly, but they work well enough. The touchpad was also a little "tappy". It seemed to think I was double clicking when I wasn't. I adjusted the touchpad and mouse settings a little and it worked fine after that.

Other than the keyboard and touchpad, the only other control on the main deck is the ON button. Any other functions, such as volume, sleep, wireless on/off, etc. are all done using the blue Fn key whilst pressing the key corresponding to the little blue function you want to do.

The model I picked up for my client runs Windows XP Home. The Ubuntu version would have delayed shipping and was not available at a significantly lower price, but I would have preferred it. The mini comes with SP3 already installed and is identified as the version for "ULCPC" or Ultra Low Cost PCs.

The wireless worked fine where ever I tried it. No signal problems or other disappointments. Battery life was very nice. While I didn’t do any specific rundown tests, I was able to use the laptop for 4 hours of writing and web surfing and the battery indicator (also known as the “battery liar” on most laptops) reported I still had 47% of the battery left. Charging was fast as well.

The mini comes with a few unneeded programs that you have to uninstall, just like any other Dell, such as "Browser Address Error Redirector", "Box.net Launcher", and "SearchAssist". After removing all of the unneeded software, including some games and other pieces I didn't need, we went from having 10gb free to 12gb free. You can free up another 1gb, if you disable hibernation (which I'm unwilling to do).

One of my early concerns is that Dell has decided (or was it Microsoft?) that the entire C: drive will be compressed. While this makes sense when you are dealing with a smaller drive like 4 or 8gb, the 16gb drive should be able to handle most intended uses without resorting to compression. The price you pay for compression is apparent slower disk access and, with a 1.6ghz Atom processor, the mini isn't exactly going to fly as it is. After I get a chance to play with things a little more, I hope to do some benchmarking on that, comparing compressed to uncompressed disk performance.

The screen dimensions are actually very usable at 1024 x 600. Most system windows and panels have enough room to be completely seen. The mini display is much better than the EEE PC! At 9 inches diagonal, it is also very readable. In fact, I really like the look of the display--it is sharp, crisp, and very readable.

All the applications I tried performed better than expected, including:
* Skype: worked great with the integrated webcam; very impressive with or without a headset.
* Google video chat: worked as nice as my standard laptop.
* Windows media; worked fine, speakers are a little tinny.
* IE7: works fine.
* Chrome: works great.

As noted above, skype works great on this thing. In fact, it could develop into one of those surprise "killer-apps" for the mini. It does video skype really, really well and I found it very usable. I could see putting all my apps in the cloud and using the mini as my most commonly used portal to them. When I don't have access to the cloud, I just use the local apps until I can.

My only recommendations to Dell for change would be:
* Get the keys a little wider--I'd sacrifice another inch of width for more finger breathing room.
* Forget about making things shiny. Mine's all smudged up after a week's use (and everyone putting their literally "greasy palms" all over it).
* More disk as soon as you can. 32gb would be a very nice option.
* A little more screen would be nice, but I don't need higher resolution.

I’ve used various web tablets, the EEE PC, and even the OLPC laptop and so far my favorite would have to be the Dell 910. With the professional looking design and great specs (for a netbook), I really like it. I recommend it, if you are in the market for a 2nd computer or need something on the road. If I didn’t also need a full-blown development laptop most of the time, I’d make the mini my only computer on the road.

RECOMMENDED!