The Inspiron Mini 9 is Dell’s long-awaited contender to the Netbook throne. With Asus’ ever-expanding range of Eees; MSI’s Wind and its several clones – take a bow Advent and Medion – and seemingly every manufacturer under the sun trying to get a piece of the Netbook action, Dell is the one name that has been conspicuous by its absence.

Now, finally, in the luxurious splendour of Monte-Carlo’s Fairmont Hotel, we’ve managed to get our grubby mitts on the Mini 9 itself.

The 9 in the title gives away the most important part of its specification. The screen is an 8.9in panel, which looked bright and vibrant, while boasting the usual 1,204 x 600 pixel resolution.

Unlike the rest of Dell’s brightly-coloured new ranges, the Inpiron Mini 9 is finished in a rather dour grey and black attire. The glossy black lid looks nice enough, even if it is a bit of a fingerprint magnet, and build quality generally feels pretty sturdy. Compared to the likes of MSI’s Wind, the lid and chassis feel just that bit more reassuringly stiff, and it seems like it’ll survive the daily rigours of being thrown in a bag.

The version we saw came with the popular Ubuntu 8.04 installed as standard. And while the specification list is the standard netbook fare – an Intel Atom N270 running at 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM and 8GB of solid-state disk -  startup was a touch on the sluggish side, taking a good 45 seconds before Ubuntu showed its face.

But, more crucially, we weren’t especially enamoured with the keyboard. Dell has opted to keep the letter keys as large as possible, while shrinking the surrounding ones, a choice which leaves the Tab, Shift, Caps Lock and other keys looking painfully small.

It’s a shame, as there’s a good 8/9mm of chassis to the left and right of the keyboard which has been inexplicably left fallow. In our brief encounter, we preferred it to that of Asus’s original 8.9″ models, but it was a far cry from the delightful ergonomics of MSI’s Wind, Asus’ Eee PC 1000 or Acer’s Aspire One.

Dell is offering two versions, the one seen here with Ubuntu for £269, and another with Windows XP for £299. HSDPA/3G will initially only be available on Mini 9s bought directly through Vodafone, but Dell’s reps didn’t rule out the possibility of HSDPA-equipped models becoming available in the future. And when we pressed them about other models in the range, such as the 12.1in Intel Atom Z530-powered model accidentally leaked by Tesco, they admitted that the company will be expanding the range in the not too distant future.

In the meantime, we’ll leave you with some shots of the Mini 9’s shapely sides to drool over…