Dell Mini 9
It looks as if the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 isn’t the savior that it was being made out to be and the MSI Wind still holds the crown for best netbook. I’m happy to see someone offering Ubuntu as the default version of Linux as it has the most online documentation and application support. I would still opt for the Windows XP version, Ubuntu is free and can be had later but Windows XP would cost more than the $50 cost of the upgrade.
Upgrades are made simple by a door on the bottom. I don’t know for sure, but it should max out at 2GB of DDR2. Strangely, Dell only offers the option of 512MB or 1GB but not 2GB. DDR2 is dirt cheap today and I’m sure Dell has access to a few 2GB DDR2 SO-DIMMs. If you’re going to let the customer custom build why not just offer it as an option?
Well, this fits nicely between the Acer and the MSI. The MSI is still my favorite because of it’s keyboard. Well actually, the HP’s keyboard is my favorite but most likely due to their lenient drug testing policies, it costs $750 which is where the much more powerful Core 2 Duo 13” notebooks start…. Much too pricy for a netbook.
I’ll end this post with a bit of good news for computer users. Samsung is planning on making low cost SATA II SSD’s in 8, 16 and 32GB sizes. No clue on prices yet but I’ve been wanting a small SSD for my gaming PC to install games on. Since gaming is a read only activity an quick reading SSD would be great and may improve loading times on some games. This would be a good option for some of these netbooks too that have SATA support. I’m sure replacing the mechanical drive in the MSI Wind would improve battery life and system temperatures. More info in the link:
