Dell Inspiron Mini 9 review

Although you can buy the Mini 9 from Dell itself, the only version with embedded 3G is on sale from Vodafone. And it's the best of the bunch. We're normally cynical about "free" laptops, but at £21 exc VAT per month it works out at a reasonable £500 or so over the Inspiron's 24-month contract.

Take away the typical cost of mobile broadband fees, and the "real" price of the hardware is somewhere around £200 exc VAT. For that, you get a fairly typical Windows XP netbook, with a 1.6GHz Atom processor and 1GB of RAM.

This is enough to make it feel nippy in use, and you'll never overload it with programs since it contains a mere 8GB solid-state drive. This isn't the travesty it seems: if this is your second PC, you're more likely to store files online using a service such as Live Mesh (www.mesh.com) than on the Inspiron. There's still room for Microsoft Office and key applications, and if you want more storage space the media card slot comes into play.

Solid-state drives also offer plenty of advantages. Greater ruggedness makes them a fine choice for a laptop that will be slung into a bag, and at 1.08kg you should have no hesitation doing exactly that with the Mini 9.

Even the power supply weighs just 200g, and a battery life of just less than four hours is still respectable.

The keyboard is cramped but usable, and we're fans of the high-quality, 8.9in glossy screen. In many ways, the Inspiron embodies exactly what netbooks should be - it provides hassle-free, always-on broadband in a compact, light and affordable machine.

Author: Tim Danton