1366x768 High-Def Display Makes the Mini 10 a Winner
Written: Sep 17 '09 (Updated Sep 17 '09)
Product Rating:
Ease of Use:
Quality of Tech Support:
Pros: Super-bright, gorgeous HD display, good build quality, excellent keyboard, color options.
Cons: Non-upgradable RAM, bulky 6-cell battery, small touchpad with non-discrete buttons, those color options cost $40.
The Bottom Line: Great little netbook overall. Check out Dell Outlet and if you can find the configuration you want at a sub-$350 price point, snap it up. Full price? Pass.
chadley25's Full Review: Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (DNCWEA1) PC Notebook
I'd been wanting a netbook for quite awhile for reasons I can't explain. I already have a laptop (XPS 1530) which I use as my main computer most of the time. So this was purely a want... not a need. I found a good refurbished Dell mini 10 through Dell's outlet store for around $300 (there was a 15% coupon code available) that was configured almost exactly as I wanted. Here are the upgrades present in the unit I chose:
Ice blue color 1366x768 High-definition display (I believe it's LED-backlit) Intel Atom Z530 1.6 GHz processor 6-cell battery (56 WHr) Integrated ATSC digital TV tuner Bluetooth
Even with a fairly standard package savings of $179, this configuration new costs $564 (non-package price is a staggering $743). It's really not worth $564 for any netbook, and $743 is obviously completely out of the question. Refurbished units from Dell are certified and come with a one-year warranty (two years with new) and the same lackluster India-based service that their new units come with.
However, if you can find this configuration for under around $350 ($375 at the very most), my opinion is that it's well worth it.
First, the mini 10 is well-built. Everything fits well (save the battery, which I'll cover later), and it just looks like a quality machine. The edge-to-edge glass covering the display is a very nice touch, and the colored case is beautiful (red and blue were really the only two non-black colors I'd have chosen). I personally think it's tacky for Dell to charge an eye-popping $40 for colors in their new configuration process (black and white are standard colors). I could understand $10 or even $15, but $40 is a bit much for just getting a different-colored top shell.
The keyboard, said to be 92% of a traditional full-size laptop keyboard, is frankly outstanding. I was very, very pleasantly surprised. I'm a fast touch typist and had no problem adapting in minutes to the mini 10's keyboard. There is no discernible keyboard flex, and the keys themselves respond well and feel natural under my fingertips. The full-sized right shift key is appreciated and the navigation keys (such as home, end, page up, etc.) are logically located, unlike those on the high-end XPS 1530 I have.
The display is gorgeous. I honestly cannot gush enough about it, and the resolution is what sets this netbook apart from nearly all others (including the standard mini 10 and the mini 10v). Going to 1366x768 from the near-ubiquitous 1024x576 in the netbook market is a near doubling of overall pixels, and a 33% increase in horizontal resolution. The effect is noticeable in the extreme. The display is LED-backlit and is incredibly bright, putting my CCFL-backlit XPS laptop to shame. In any sort of dimmed ambient lighting, I turn the mini 10's screen brightness down to its minimum setting and it's still plenty bright. This was my #1 requirement for the refurbished units I considered... it had to have the upgraded display. I would be hesitant to recommend the mini 10 over other excellent netbooks were it not for this option. It's that impressive. Very, very few other netbooks offer a HD screen option, so this really sets the mini 10 apart.
I didn't really care about HDTV, but I have to admit, it's pretty cool. Opening the TV wizard initiated a scan and within a couple of minutes, 23 channels were locked in, and the pictures were sharp and beautiful. Now, the internal antenna isn't particularly strong so Dell includes a nice little external HDTV antenna that plugs into an MCX port on the computer's left side. The antenna can be set on its base on the table, or mounted to the top frame of the display with its included slide/clip. It works very well, but I can't deny you would look like a chicken-fried dork sitting at a coffee shop with a rabbit-ear antenna protruding from the display of your netbook. HDTV is a cool option, but it wasn't something I had to have. This pre-configured refurbished netbook just happened to have it, and it's a neat little treat, but not at all necessary for me.
The tiny speakers on the mini 10 are out of sight, placed on the front underside of the chassis. Since the underside curves a bit, the speaker holes are not covered when the netbook is placed flat on a table. I have found that for system sounds, spoken dialog, and non-demanding sound effects, these speakers are perfectly adequate. They're obviously lacking when it comes to music and more robust sound effects (explosions, etc.) -- really, no surprises here. There's a lovely 1/8" headphone jack on the side that yields much better audio results, same as any laptop or netbook.
I got the upgraded Intel Atom Z530 processor (1.6 GHz from the 1.33 GHz of the standard Z520). There are plenty of techie reviews available that can quantify the difference between these processors. For my part, the Z530 seems to handle Windows XP just fine. My understanding is that the Z-series of Atom processors are more energy-efficient than the much more common N-series that proliferate in netbooks nowadays (N270/N280). So far, I have no complaints with the processor. Hard drive storage is the standard (and impressive) 160 GB at 5400 rpm. The drive is very quiet when being accessed, adequately fast, and doesn't seem to run hot at all.
The integrated graphics are okay. Obviously this machine is not going to fare well when compared with full-featured laptops with discrete 256 MB or 512 MB video cards, but that's not the niche the netbook seeks to fulfill. For most casual applications (watching videos on YouTube, uploading VGA videos shot with digicams, etc.), the mini 10 responds with aplomb. I haven't tried using the HDMI output to stream video to a large monitor or TV, but my understanding is that the integrated graphics chip can't really keep up with that sort of demand.
The mini 10 does tend to run warm after awhile, but reasonably so. My XPS 1530 gets noticeably hotter. I believe the mini 10 is fanless. There are four ventilation ports on the underside for passive cooling.
The 6-cell battery is a double-edged sword, to be certain. It's ungainly, could have been designed better, is somewhat ill-fitting (it's slightly loose even when latched securely into place), and obviously adds weight. But the benefits are unquestionable: I easily get 5.5 to 6 hours' runtime between charges, and were I to switch everything down and go into major power-saving mode, perhaps only running WiFi with a dim screen, that might add another 30-40 minutes. It's not a jaw-dropping battery life like some we've seen (8 hours), but it's ample and sufficient for me. The 6-cell battery elevates the rear of the netbook when placed flat, so it facilitates cooling and also angles the keyboard nicely. It's only when the computer is not in use that the added bulk of the battery is cumbersome. The AC adapter is slightly smaller than a deck of cards, well-designed (there's no "brick" in the middle), dual-voltage, and relatively lightweight. A white LED on the adapter end (that plugs into the mini 10) indicates power.
Speaking of white LEDs, there is one on the mini 10 itself, the power indicator, that is incredibly obnoxious in a darkened room. It's very bright, and, while when using the computer it's not a problem, when you close the screen, the light is incredibly bright. After the computer goes into its hibernation mode, the light "breathes" and it's equally annoying. White LEDs are great, but not in every application.
The touchpad has been roundly maligned in almost every professional review I've read. While it's not the best touchpad in the world, the integrated buttons DO actually click and I've not had too many problems with the pad itself. It supports multi-touch gestures such as scrolling, zooming, flipping (like through pages or a folder of photos), rotating, and a couple of other shortcuts. One I like is just laying your hand (usually all your fingers) on the pad to immediately minimize all windows and show the desktop. Very slick. Discrete buttons would have been nice, but the way it is really isn't awful, and I use a cordless travel mouse most of the time anyway.
Wireless communication features have been excellent. The integrated WiFi and Bluetooth cards have both worked flawlessly. No complaints at all. I have only the standard a/b/g WiFi card installed. The integrated 1.3 MP cam works seamlessly. My chat programs (MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo) detected and incorporated it easily. Quality seems to be good, as is the case with the adjacent microphone.
The weight of the netbook with the 6-cell battery is not bad, still under three pounds. It's not breathtakingly light, but it's very manageable, and it's really only the protrusion of the upgraded battery that prevents the mini 10 from being sleek and light all around.
Probably the most egregious and glaring fault of the mini 10 is its non-upgradable RAM. The 1 GB DDR RAM installed on the machine is actually soldered to the motherboard. I'm sure Dell had some semblance of a reason for doing this, but they should have found a workaround, or included 2 GB to begin with if they truly had to solder it. It's certainly no dealbreaker as 1 GB is largely sufficient in most XP application scenarios, but more memory is pretty much never a bad thing, and it was short-sighted of Dell to include only 1 GB of memory if it was going to be non-upgradable. This shortcoming has been lambasted on forums and comment boards, and rightly so. It is, in my opinion, the mini 10's Achilles' heel.
Overall, however, this netbook is very good. For me, the upgrades to a true HD display and the inclusion of HDTV (albeit gimmicky and geeky all at the same time) are what help the mini 10 stand out in a forest of distressingly similar netbooks. One need hardly even read the spec sheet of any 10" netbook produced in 2009: They're all the same, save some negligible differences. The real distinguishing factors are design and ease of use (keyboard, touchpad, etc.) -- the mini 10 excels in its design and the keyboard is excellent. The touchpad gets about a 6 or low 7 from me (out of 10), and as mentioned, it's the high-resolution display that pushes this one firmly into the "recommend" category. But with a slight caveat:
Would I pay $500 for the mini 10, even as equipped here? No. But at $300, or even $350, it's well worth it. It's an attractive and capable netbook, and is set apart from the herd by its color options and optional HD 1366x768 display.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300 Operating System: Windows Processor: Other Processor speed: over 1000 Screen Size: 10 inches RAM: More than 256 Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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