Dell Mini 12 Hits UK Comments

Strangely, with the Dell link you supply, it only offers Vista, no XP home or other flavour offered at all!

So the offer is, an underperforming, low end Vista laptop, for the price of a decent laptop? no thank you Dell

On the dell website (from the link at the end of the story) the OS is specified as "Vista Home Basic" rather than XP Home. Which is a pity, as I would have probably gone for one with XP on - but Vista in 1GB of memory? No thanks.

Well a macbook air will cost you £1300. I know the mac has a bigger screen and is a lot more powerful, but its does bear some similarites.

Personally i prefer my xps 1330 laptop for its power, but i can see this new one being popular with sales people etc who have basic requirements but need a good screen.

I'm still waiting for a 10" netbook with a 1280x800 screen. Then I'll buy one. I'm not sure the 12" is pocketable enough for me but would consider it if a cheaper XP variant was available.

My sister's just bought a Samsung Q210 which has a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB Ram, 160GB HD - basically double the ram and HD specs of the Dell Mini 12, along with a more powerful CPU. It also doesn't cost that much more (£70). Is the Dell Mini 12 that much more portable to make up for the disappointing specs? I also agree that the netbook tag seems ill-fitting for something that's over 10" in size and costing around £430.

Awfully poor value, you can go down to Currys/PC World and get a 12" dual core laptop for less money and not much more weight. I'm sure the 3 cells battery will give it an abysmal run time too.

I imagine that in Dell there are some strategists thinking that they can get to Apple's margin level. The problem is, Dell isn't Apple.

@ Andy
Hope the review for the NC10 turns out well :) It's the first netbook I'm seriously considering, due to the good looking keyboard and relatively good value compared to the EEE and Wind.

Pbryanw: The samsung is significantly heavier at 2kg vs 1.25kg and it also very probably has a fan making noise wheras the mini 12 may not have one (the 9" version doesn't) and will be completely silent when they release the SSD version.

The dell also draws less power and uses less materials so it's better for the environment and it is still £70 cheaper.

@Xiphias - Yes, I suppose it's the Macbook Air factor - the reason why some people buy the Air instead of a Macbook or heavier laptops, and why it's doing so well. Still, I think the Mini 12 does seem a bit underpowered for its size.

It's a bit of an old fashioned idea to equate size with capability isn't it? ;)

The air is just popular because of it's looks as it doesn't offer any material advantages (quite the opposite) over it's competition while the mini 12 is significantly lighter (and more portable) than a similarly priced Core 2 duo laptop - I had a quick check and the lightest sub-£500 12" I could find was 1.81kg, and that was with a very poor battery that'd probably only give you half of the three hours the mini 12 is supposed to do.

While some people are going to prefer heavier Core 2 duo laptops, at this price there's going to be a lot of people buying it as a second machine or for only occasional use in which case the processing power doesn't matter as much and the much lighter weight is going to be very attractive.

Xiphias is right on the money. In weight/price/screen size terms Dell are the only game in town. Unfortunately this laptop isn't worth anything until they sell a version with Linux or XP.

One thing that people miss with the device - even now, months later, is that it fanless and therefore completely silent. In fact it boasts one of the biggest screen size in fanless laptops out there, if not the biggest.

That for some people is a valuable attribute and generally not somethign one can find in 12" screen, unless you are willing to pay up $1800 dollars for a japanese spec import. Many of those devices have ultra low voltage CPUs that are about the same power or less than what is in this one. Which also begs the question why Intel and Microsoft suddely decide that low power laptops must only have 10" screens. I mean has anyone here tried a Panasonic W2 or W5 from the old days? Same poky CPU, but it worked great for many people. This artifical distinction is about margin protection, not practicality.

This device is a great acheivement by Dell for consumers. And the nature of that achivement shouldnt be glossed over, in the rush to make rather less relevant comparisons with 10" screen devices.