Dell Mini 9

As those of you who have been reading this site may know I have been looking into netbooks for quite a while now.

After a lengthy period of research (or procrastination…), I had narrowed things down to a couple of possibilities, neither of which I ended up with (figures – ED), and here’s why.

Turns out that there are a bunch of people with a Dell Mini 9, and it is being made to run Mac OS-X as well as Windows XP, or indeed Ubuntu Linux (or the netbook remix version). So the best of all worlds. I soon got my hands on the unit, and gave it a whirl myself.

Being a long time Mac user (since the Macintosh plus in the mid Eighties actually), I got OS-X Leopard on to it, more on this in another entry I think, this is a long posting all on it’s own! – One for another day….  

Design:
The size of this kit is only 9″ wide, by about 7″ deep, and a little over an inch high. Sleek and shiny clam-shell design, with a polished lid, which attracts finger marks like hell… but looks great! Mine came in black, though there are other colours out there. Connections include, 3 USB ports, 1 SD/MS-Pro/MMC card slot, Headphone and Mic sockets, VGA out and an Ethernet port. All these are located to the left and right of the unit, as the screen opens up, and swivels behind the base, effectively covering the access to the back of the unit, but does make it look even more attractive when opened up.

There are 2 USB ports to the left, and another to the right, which if you’re a leftie, plugging in an external mouse is an excellent idea. There are standard ports for everything else, on the left there is the Kensington port, power input, 2 x USB and a multi format card reader (SD/MS/Pro.MMC). on the right you have Headphone, microphone, another USB, VGA out and an ethernet.

The keys in initial use seemed ’stiff’ and a bit ‘clicky’, but after a while they loosened up a bit, and you do get used to the size being slightly smaller, and some in slightly different positions than you may be used to. The track pad is moulded in with the case, which gives a much smoother finish and less chance of grit getting caught between it and the case, in use, it operates fine, the buttons themselves were similar to the keyboard, and that ‘click’ seems to have stayed here, although I use an external mouse usually, so maybe this is a usage thing.

All in all, the design for me is perfect, looks good, is the right size, and is a joy to use.

Technical Spec:
There is no Hard disk with my unit, instead, it uses a Solid State Disk (SSD) drive, essentially the same as a memory card. What this offers is a quicker boot up time, no moving parts to get damaged or jogged, but less storage space .. you pays your money, you takes your choice. Again for me, this is exactly what I wanted, most things I do are Internet based, and using something like G.HO.ST (http://www.mark-wilson.net/?p=570) means that most of my files and applications are on-line, meaning I only really need an operating system, browser and Internet connection. But there is a hard disk option for those who prefer to carry everything they own around with them, and risk it getting dropped and lost. RAM was 1Gb (now 2Gb, which is the maximum), and a Intel Atom N270 processor running at 1.6Ghz.

The resolution goes up to 1024 x 600, which if I am honest does hamper some Mac OS-X applications, where the buttons etc.. are off the bottom of the screen, as there is no ’scroll’ on the desktop with OS-X. But colours are bright and clear, OS-X has a wonderful calibration tool, which with a bit of tweaking, makes this display really zing!

Connectivity wise, there is the Ethernet port, as mentioned above, but also built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Some units came with internal Wireless broadband card, however here in the UK, this was only supported by Vodaphone, and coverage for me didn’t really stack up.

Finishing off there is the ubiquitous Web Cam functional, once you get past the gimmicky value of this though, not a lot of use, unless you happen to know a lot of people with webcams and want to chat to people face to face… Doesn’t really do it for me to be honest, but if it’s your sort of thing, then this can do it absolutely fine.

Standard battery life is around 2 1/2 to 3 hours depending on your usage, and of course Wi-Fi use will lower this considerably.

Operating Systems:

Mini 9 - Running Mac OS-X

As I mentioned, this unit originally shipped with Windows XP (albeit a cut down UMPC home version) or Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR). I haven’t as yet used Windows on this, but am going to set up another SSD with this on, to swap out at a later date.

I have had both Ubuntu and Ubuntu UNR running flawlessly, boot is quick, and in set-up, installs and runs everything first time without incident. Mac OS-X for though is an excellent system, and is much more friendly and in my opinion, fits with the design of the unit itself much more closely. There are problems with this though that I should mention. Some people report issues with USB support, myself I haven’t had a problem. I did have a major issue when putting the unit to sleep, in that it wouldn’t ‘wake up’ again, and I had to completely power down, and reboot, upgrading my Dell EFI fixed this though, and all apple software upgrades have gone smoothly. I even managed to upgrade the Dell BIOS from A01 to A05 using Dell Efi through Mac OS-X (not for the feint hearted though).

Overall:
For me, this has been the perfect addition, it is small and portable, looks great, does everything I want it to do, and even if you’re buying a full copy of OS-X on top it keeps the cost down to below £300.00.

I will at a later date do a complete post for installing and configuring this unit (or indeed the 10v – see notes below) for Mac OS-X, in the meantime, pop along to here http://www.mydellmini.com/ to get a taster.

Notes:
Firstly, if you are thinking of installing Mac OS-X, it is not necessarily legal to do so. The user agreement for this software does in fact say that it is for use on Apple machines, OK, so it doesn’t actually say you can’t use on non-apple machines, but…. And as most people will tell you (I hope), if you are doing this, buy the software (yes, that’s BUY, not download from Warez sites, torrent or get hold of an OEM version, actually BUY it). To be honest, it’s not that expensive, and you could even get the box set including iLife and iWork for reasonable amounts of money, not anywhere near what Microsoft would charge you for the equivalent, and the operating system in my opinion is much better.

It should also be noted at this point that the Dell Mini 9 is no longer available from Dell (take a look on E-Bay). They have instead decided to go for a bigger unit a 10″ design. There is the original Mini 10, which has a different processor, and is slightly more expensive, but for reasons I can’t fathom has a lower spec graphics set-up. They have now introduced the 10v which is the standard Atom processor (the same as in my Mini 9), but has the 900 graphics board, which is compatible with Mac OS-X… so please be aware of this if you are thinking of installing Mac OS-X, go for the 10v version.

~ Mark ~