The Singaporean Gamer

Imagine my surprise when I saw a brand new Dell Mini 9 advertised for S$350. The itch came and cannot be relieved unless I made an offer.

Specs:

• Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz
• Intel GMA 950
• 1GB DDR2-533 RAM
• 8GB SSD (mini pci-e)
• 8.9″ (1024×600) LED backlit screen
• 1 RJ45 10/100 ethernet
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
• 4-in-1 Media card reader
• 3 USB ports
• 1.3 MP integrated webcam
• 4-cell 32Wh Li-ion battery
• Windows XP SP3

My very first impression: this thing is damn small and light! It’s really just for portability. Of course, the initial boot-up is slow, with all the crappy Dell and trial software that’s in there. The geek in me was screaming to reformat and reinstall Windows XP, but not without trying out other stuff first.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a pretty cool OS. It’s a twist of the very popular distro Ubuntu. The UI has been optimized for the limited real estate screen of a netbook. It’s also very snappy and fast on the Dell Mini 9, and the OS boots under a minute. Of course, the only reason I’m not staying with it, is because I’m lazy to get my games to work under Wine.

So it’s back to Windows XP for me. I tried to nLite my copy, but somehow, there always seems to be hiccups after I installed it. Some random service, like the Logical Disk Manager, won’t start, even though all I did was take out the languages. Sigh.

Doing all those, it gave me quite a good impression on the capabilities of this netbook. The Intel Atom processor will certainly not receive any performance crowns. It is a pretty slow CPU, so I will need to be extra patient with it. The solid state drive is relatively fast, especially when booting up, as seek time for a SSD is on a totally different scale altogether than a mechanical hard disk. However, reading and writing data feels a tad slower than usual, so probably it is not as fast as it should be. The amount of storage could also pose a problem. After install XP and drivers, I’m left with about 3.5GB of data. I have expanded it by slotting in my 16GB SD card, but still I am not confident of running programs off an SD card, since it will be much worse. I am seriously considering upgrading the storage, though it will cost an arm and 2 toes.

The touchpad is also somewhat OK for normal usage. It is sensitive enough, and I can tolerate it even if it is small. However, what I don’t like about it is how near the spacebar is to the touchpad, and the fact that there is no barrier between them. Thus, at the beginning, whenever I press the spacebar, I will sometimes hit the touchpad, causing it to unintentionally click somewhere else. Solution: time for me to get a mouse, specifically this portable mouse (Yes, I am a sucker for high end peripherals).

This brings me to the keyboard. Like everything else, the thing is small, but what is good is the letter keys are big enough. However, the extra keys, like Tab, Delete, arrow keys, etc, needs to be diminished in order to accommodate the bigger letter keys. I guess I can’t complain much, since keyboards are relative, and after extended use, I will most probably get used to it, and will be able to touch type as fast as I do on my work laptop and home PC.

Overall, it does get some getting used to. After each use, I find that I am loving it more and more, despite it’s smallness. It’s just too cute. If your computing needs (or in my case, wants) are not terribly high, a netbook could serve your purposes well. Just plug in a monitor and external peripherals for home use, and unplug when you bring it out.

The Dell Mini 9, at 1.2kg, will definitely be in my bag, if I bring one, each time I go out. Heck, it’s small enough to be put into my wife’s handbag (though I don’t think she will want to keep carrying it for me)! I think the most useful feature of a netbook is the fact that it is so light, you wouldn’t even notice the weight.

I guess I’m quite pleased with it. Now I can play my GOG games, old DOS games and emulators on the go! For the price I paid, it is pretty much worth every cent. I am not so sure I’ll feel this way if I had paid retail for it though.

Tags: dell mini 9, netbooks

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 11:40 am and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.