On March 6th I ordered a Dell Mini 9 using my birthday money. Before I bought one I did my research a read a good bit of info from MyDellMini.com. I ordered mine from the outlet like was recommended.
Ordering:
I would recommend this form of ordering to anybody. There is one big advantage to ordering it used. You get the product way sooner then you would have otherwise. The Products are already built so they can be sent out the next business most of the time.
Unlike many other Refurbished product sources you can get the same Warrantees on the Dell Minis as you get brand new. I really don’t see why you would buy a new one at this point.
The One I ended up with was only $209 without tax, the shipping was free at the time so there was no charge for it.
Specs:
- 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor
- Windows XP Home Edition SP3
- 512MB Ram
- 8GB SSD
I got the model I got mainly for the price I guess. The system runs amazingly well even at these low specs. I knew I wanted Windows and 8GB of Hard drive space as a minimum.
Performance:
As I said above the Performance is amazing even at the low specs this system has. I was able to run the rather demanding Zune Software v3.1 at the highest performance settings. It handles running Firefox and every other application I have thrown at it. I have been able to stream the high quality (Not HD) Hulu streams without stuttering. Youtube seems to work well in the high quality streams as well.
The performance of the wireless has been very good as well. Sitting in my living room which is a floor up and about 15 feet over the wireless works flawlessly. Did I mention the furnace room is in between here and there so there is defiantly something for the signal to go through. I access all my music over the network from another computer as another testament to it being reliable.
Build Quality:
The build quality is very nice on this thing, if feels very solid in the hand. I carry it one handed all over the house and it seems to hold up great. The plastic seems to be fairly prone to nothing more then finger prints. The hinges on the screen hold it very steady and only move when you make them.
The Screen:
The Screen on this thing is very sharp looking. Only when moving my face up very close can I see a line in between the pixels. Just keep in mind this is only a netbook, the screen isn’t huge however I find it big enough. It is great for watching video podcasts and catching up on TV shows.
The Speakers:
To start they aren’t meant for listening to your favorite hip-hop songs. Surprise, surprise there is close to no bass. While this is not surprising it is a bit was a disappointment. The computer does with software that allows you to adjust things via a EQ. I do however bring it into my room and hook it up to my large speaker system and it sounds almost as good as my Zune there.
The Keyboard:
I personally can type on the keyboard as quickly as I type on a regular sized keyboard. No, I don’t have small hands either. The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to but it works great once you get used to it. The only key I wish were placed differently is the apostrophe key. The rest make perfect since to me and they all work great.
Battery Life:
I haven’t spent a whole lot of time purposely testing the battery but I think it defiantly lives up to the 3 hours of battery life. Of course this is way shorter is you are doing things more processor or bandwidth intensive.
Pros:
- Small
- Light weight
- Great performance
- Low priced
Cons:
- Speakers have lots of treble
- Glossy screen gets dirty easily
If you have any questions or comments please post them below.
2 Comments
you have a zune ??!? zomg
Yep, for almost a year.
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[...] Cruleword’s Lifestream placed an observative post today on Review of The Dell Mini 9 After Just Over Two WeeksHere’s a quick excerptOn March 6th I ordered a Dell Mini 9 using my birthday money. Before I bought one I did my research a read a good bit of info from MyDellMini.com . I ordered mine from the outlet like was recommended. Ordering: I would recommend this form of ordering to anybody. There is one big advantage to ordering it used. You get the product way sooner then you would have otherwise. The Products are already built so they can be sent out the next business most of the time. Unlike many other Refurbis [...]