A few months back, I was traveling with a small group to Saudi Arabia. As we sat in the Jordanian airport lounge waiting for our next flight, I noticed that my colleague was using a netbook. He’d been able to get on the airport free wi-fi and was chatting, emailing, surfing, and more. At 6’5”, Steve was absolutely dwarfing this tiny device.
Like many people, I’d imagine, I had the idea in my head that a netbook was simply too small for me to use on a regular basis. With a screen that small, the logic went, how could you possibly see enough of a document or Web page to actually do anything? But seeing Steve working away without the extra weight and size that the rest of us were carrying around, I started rethinking my preconceptions.
At SXSW last week, Dell put on an event where they had their new Mini 10 on display. By the end of the night, I was a convert and my friends at Dell were frisking me on the way out the door to ensure that I hadn’t put one under my coat. With a hard drive, I could install apps like Skype or even Microsoft Office. With a built-in TV tuner, I could watch over the air TV from my hotel room, and with its weight just a fraction of my current laptop, I could carry it around at conferences without killing my already troublesome back.
I’ve been test-driving the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and have been truly amazed. The future, as Wired recently wrote about is in doing more with less. Here’s the quick and dirty review of the Mini 9 (as well as netbooks generally) from my few days of use.
Pros
- Great screen quality. I am surprised by how little the small screen ended up mattering in regular usage.
- The built-in SIM card slot is a stroke of genius that I’d like to see applied to every laptop. I pulled out the SIM card from my AT&T ExpressCard and plugged it into the netbook and was online in seconds, without the ExpressCard hanging off the side drawing power.
- Size. Of course.
- Big hard drive allows you to keep local files, (legal) movie rips, and applications that ensure you can work at 30,000 feet over the Atlantic ocean.
- Plenty of input/output ports, with a VGA out, ethernet, audio in/out, three USB ports, and a multi-type flash card slot.
Cons
- By far the biggest concern is the size of the keyboard. Amazingly, the Dell Mini 10 keyboard was totally usable while I struggled to type with the Dell Mini 9. What a difference an inch makes, apparently.
- A bit heavier than expected. This isn’t a huge deal, and was more of a misconception about what netbooks are.
- Battery life is still about what you’d expect with a normal laptop, which makes sense I suppose since everything from power usage to battery size is scaled down. Down the road, I’d really like to see these devices offer vastly superior battery life over a normal laptop. An eight-hour conference day still requires a power adapter in my bag.
- For someone who uses an external mouse as much as possible, I found the trackpad to be a bit tough to use. I think this stems more from a lack of physical separation between the spacebar and the trackpad than the trackpad size itself.
Overall, I’m looking seriously at how to integrate a netbook into my personal approach to computing. There’s little chance I’ll give up the power and size/comfort of my 15-inch laptop, but I’m excited about the possibilities of being able to travel and attend conferences with a netbook. I’m even more excited that my back may be functional after a three-day conference if I make the switch!
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I’ve been looking at a Dell Mini 9 for some time now. One of the things I like is that you can get the mini with Ubuntu linux if you are not a Windows fan. You can also replace the OS with a retail version of Mac OS.
I almost bought one of the mini 9’s this week when Dell had them on sale for $200 but I knew the Mini 10 was out and that would probably be better since the Mini 9 is a bit too limited for me.
I’m waiting however, for Apple. There is a rumor that they will introduce either a netbook or a tablet PC this year. The problem is that I don’t *need* a netbook — I *want* a netbook.
I’m a very satisfied Asus 1000h netbook user. The screen is great. It’s actually brighter at 30% than my previous laptop, HP 2710p at 100%. Performance is good enough for MS Office, Firefox, PDF, Skype. etc. Battery life is great too. Last month, I had a big presentation meeting with one of the clients being connected via Skype. Only after I was on site, I found I left my power adapter in the hotel and my 1000h had only 75% battery left. I was in panic, but had no other option but moving on with what I had. The meeting went longer than expected, and after 3 hours of Powerpoint presentation and continuous Skype video connection in the background, the 1000h still had 20% battery left. I was totally impressed. The screen size could be larger and keyboard could be better (in terms of responsiveness. I’m fine with the size), but given its size, weight, and price, I can say it’s one of the best computer purchase I’ve made.
I’ve been using a Mini9 for some months now. Running the base spec originally shipped with XP but now running the public beta (build 7000) of Windows 7. So far so good…
I’ve described Netbooks and smartphones for several years as ‘Companion Devices’. They’ll never replace my full powered desktop/laptop however they have great part to play for adhoc access. I’ve found the Mini9 especially useful on crowded trains!
I’m participating in the Band of Brothers Bike Ride in aid of Help for Heroes. On May 24th, four of my colleagues and myself are joining 300 others and leave Portsmouth and cycling (via the Normandy Beaches) to Paris.
I’m taking my Mini9 and will be blogging on the way (power charging and 3G availability permitting!) so please pay a visit to nleaney.spaces.live.com and follow our progress…
You can follow me (nleaney) on Twitter too…
If you’d like to sponsor us please visit justgiving.com/nigelleaney
If for nothing else, they are great backup machines. I think they have their place. All technology overlaps, and it looks like netbooks will win out over the so-called UMPC.