World First Review of Dell's 12.1in Netbook

An anonymous reader points to what's claimed to be "the world's first look at Dell's 12.1" netbook," running at Australian Personal Computer Magazine. There's a bit of gushing at the beginning, but this is followed by some informative pictures, informal battery-life tests, and interesting background about the machine's components. Upshot: it's a well-made, decent-performing small laptop with a better keyboard than smaller netbooks and more wireless options than most. However, it's shorter on battery life (bigger screen, smaller battery) than Dell's smaller Mini 9, and less easily upgraded.

Comments

Australians

[Kaseijin]

At $1000 I'm not sure who this is targeted at.

1000 AUD is about 600 USD, which seems in line with the competition.

Working mobile

[Bender_]

I think it is quite useful of you want to work while travelling in an airplane on a train. The 9" netbooks are not really good for anything that involves a lot of typing.

A bought a DELL latitude x200 off ebay a couple of years ago for exactly that reason and I have never regretted it. Back then this was still a business notebook and costed $3000+ (I paid $250, years later). The $999 price point is not too bad.

The main drawback seems to be the battery. But did you know they had outlets in many european trains?

Re:Captain Obvious to the rescue!

[compro01]

I question too. $1000 (CDN) bought me my current laptop (an HP tx2512) in August, which has a 1.9ghz AMD X2 processor, 3GB ram, 250GB hard drive, half decent video (ATI 3200HD), same 12.1" screen size (same 1280x800 resolution too), and is a convertible tablet. About the only thing the Dell does better is that it is thinner, a little lighter (mine is only 2 and some pounds), and has a built-in 3G modem, though I can stick one of those in my expresscard slot (which the Dell lacks) if I had need.

Glad I didn't buy a first gen Netbook

[NoNeeeed]

The "netbook" market has moved so fast over the last year, I'm glad I didn't stump up for an early Eee PC. This looks like it may hit my sweet spot of price/performance/size.

I'm at least a year from buying a new laptop and I can't see me replacing my current MacBook with another mac. As much as I like MacOS, I can't justify the cost of a full spec laptop. Currently, little of what I do stretches my MacBook's performance, no games, no video editing. A cheap, portable and rugged netbook running linux is just up my street. Another MacBook would be a nice to have, but at a price-tag that I just cant justify.

I think this is something some manufacturers are missing, fewer and fewer people are pushing the limits of their existing hardware. There just doesn't seem to be the pressure from software as there used to be. I know there are applications that need more power than a cheap latop can deliver (games, high-end graphics work, video editing), but this is becoming an increasingly small segment of the whole market.

Paul

Re:Captain Obvious to the rescue!

[jabithew]

AU$1000=US$620=CN$788=GBP391=EUR492