Leaked flyer reveals pricing, configurations for Dell Inspiron Mini 9

It's everything but official, but hopefully the image above will enable you to rest easy knowing that you'll soon be able to order yourself a Dell netbook starting at $349. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (we're assuming that's the final moniker) will apparently weigh in at 2.28-pounds, boast an internal WiFi module and pack an Intel Atom N270 processor. The baseline model ($349) will include Ubuntu Linux 8.04, 512MB of RAM, a 4GB SSD and a black or white paint job. For $50 more, you'll get an 8GB SSD and a 0.3-megapixel webcam, while the $449 version throws in Windows XP, 1GB of RAM and a 1.3-megapixel webcam. C'mon Dell -- you're only fooling yourself at this point.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[anon @ Sep 4th 2008 12:20AM]

Why are Linux versions always shipping with worse hardware? Seems arbitrary.

[1234321 @ Sep 4th 2008 12:37AM]

because it is ussually assumed to be more lightweight

[Gunn @ Sep 4th 2008 1:21AM]

I totally agree. 4G and 512MB for Ubuntu 8.04? That sucks in all universe.

[dark star @ Sep 4th 2008 12:23AM]

yeah man, i thought the xp edition would be $350! heres hoping stackable coupons!!! hehe

[john @ Sep 4th 2008 12:21AM]

A day late and a dollar short - the Aspire One holds the lead.

[john @ Sep 4th 2008 12:31AM]

I mean, I'm not even a netbook guy, but when Acer can hit a 160GB HD and 6 cell (5 hour+?) battery at $50 less than Dell's 8GB offering...the choice is clear.

This is a clear-cut case of someone being too late to the market. These prices are in line with Q1 2008.

[kyle @ Sep 4th 2008 1:29AM]

yep. and this makes me a very happy man, because i just ordered an acer an hour ago, while hoping and praying that the dell didn't come out at some amazing price.

i got the 6-cell, 120GB, 1GB for $389.

[Kevin @ Sep 4th 2008 12:23AM]

I'm staying up till midnight to order mine. I'm tired of lugging my monsterous e1705 around Wichita State. Thank god for it finally being released.

[giantenemycrab @ Sep 4th 2008 12:23AM]

I think I'll get the base config and just buy me a 4gb SDHC.Probably save a little money, plus then I can use it for other stuff. I don't even want the webcam.

[zervin @ Sep 4th 2008 12:26AM]

I'm tempted to do the same. Chances are the hacker will start taking it apart early. RAM is cheap, and The acer gang has had great success using compact flash adapters and such to expand the drive in the aspire one. I already have a dell 5520 WWAN card ill be plugging into this little guy.

[Ray @ Sep 4th 2008 12:38AM]

why not just buy the base model, add more ram, a large disk drive, and install xp yourself?

the msi wind is being shipped with a new battery (6 cell), and its looking mighty tempting... im still going to hold off my net book purchase for better processors, i really hate the atom, not to say that one clocked at 1.6 is bad though

[kyle @ Sep 4th 2008 1:31AM]

why, when you can get the acer 512/8GB for $319?

[zervin @ Sep 4th 2008 12:23AM]

Please don't feed the comment trolls ^. That being said. Lets get going with the buy me link. Sux they didnt have a 299 model, but i am guessing we will be able to get come combo/slickdeals setup to work on that price. Question for me becomes a matter of that better webcam and ram for $50 bucks more.

[Sean @ Sep 4th 2008 12:24AM]

Wow that's... pretty steep.
I was waiting for Dell's offering for a long time, but at these price points and storage I may as well go for the Aspire One or Wind.

[zervin @ Sep 4th 2008 12:31AM]

I hate to say it, but I may have to agree with Sean. I WANT the dell bad, but Aspire One systems are on sale for 329 WITH 8gb SSD drives and a webcam. Does anyone know if the Wind or Aspire has a mini pcie slot for WWAN and simcard?

[Quix @ Sep 4th 2008 12:42AM]

Welcome to the Social. Edition.

[tekdemon @ Sep 4th 2008 12:35AM]

Man that 8GB is kind of lame...I mean most netbooks probably don't need 80 or 160GB, but 8GB is just too little to be meaningful.

Oh well, I'm going to be upgrading my 1000H's drive to a high-speed 64GB SSD anyway since that's probably the only thing that'll make it blazing fast and insanely portable =)

[ouno @ Sep 4th 2008 12:35AM]

Only black or white? Where are all the cool colors?

[Bleck @ Sep 4th 2008 12:35AM]

This is fake... Dell already confirmed that the Mini will start at $299. So either this entire thing is fake, or everything is $50 too much. (Which would make more sense actually).

[OnlyInTheEvening @ Sep 4th 2008 12:45AM]

WHAT? A COMPANY RELEASED A PRODUCT AT A HIGHER PRICE THAN WHAT WAS INITIALLY STATED?

Geez, what are the chances? I mean this has only happened with nearly every electronics manufacturer ever.

[bebop @ Sep 4th 2008 12:54AM]

Dell has confirmed precisely nothing! It could be fake, or it could be that Dell made some late-in-the-day decisions as to price, name, and color. Given the Acer Aspire One (XP,1GB/120GB HDD) sitting at $349 right now I'd say Dell have their work cut out for them regardless.

[jeff @ Sep 4th 2008 12:39AM]

Jeez, what a waste. Everything Dell is overpriced, period. The expensive model should have come with at least an 80gb hdd. Or more solid state storage space. And, seriously folks, half a gig of RAM does NOT NOT NOT NOT cost $50. And I refuse to pay for a webcam that doesn't work as well as my external Logitec--which I rarely use! Sheesh.

[Punjab @ Sep 4th 2008 12:41AM]

I would say fake since their is no pic of actual unit and their are docs only dell.com about a 910 not a 9

[megaton @ Sep 4th 2008 12:42AM]

Wow, not what I was expecting from them. I am glad I bought the Aspire One after the price drop. I was waiting for the Dell, but no info being released and the ability to just walk down the street and pick one up sold me on the Acer. 1gig of RAM and a 120 gig hdd for $350, + it already has a place for a 3g card and a six cell battery coming. I can put Ubuntu on there myself, sorry Dell. The only thing that would get me excited now would be info or a launch of the 12" E Slim, but unfortunately, Dell is mum.

[d00b @ Sep 4th 2008 12:43AM]

Because it requires less hardware to run? Or may be because, in the eyes of vendors, your avg Linux consumer fits into the, ah, "price sensitive" segment.

Speaking of price, I love the crossed-out "regularly $494". Yeah, as if.

All in all, the pricing and the specs are very underwhelming, to put it politely. We'll leave the chopped down keyboard for the reviewers to howl over.

[Loc @ Sep 4th 2008 12:44AM]

It looks like you can order one now if you enter in the E-Value Code at the Dell website, or at least customize one. But it says the preliminary ship date is the 15th.
:/

[Loc @ Sep 4th 2008 12:49AM]

the white one costs $25 more. :(

[zervin @ Sep 4th 2008 12:51AM]

Confirmed, the evalue code works. I would be hesitatnt to order before an official release though. Would suck getting stuck with a incorrect price, or missing a coupon.

[Loc @ Sep 4th 2008 12:56AM]

yeah good point.... I like doing the customizations anyways. Doesn't everyone? lol

[Arcy @ Sep 4th 2008 12:51AM]

Just logged into my Dell account and the "Inspiron 9 (Mini)" appears under the products drop down, though the link is a dead end.

[diode3diode @ Sep 4th 2008 12:54AM]

Where's the $299 price tag!!
Man, all these netbook companies suck. Always offering that sweet spot in the beginning then charging an arm and a leg when they finally sell. I thought someone with some marketing muscle will be different from the pack.
'Nuff rant.
... ... ... (crosses fingers hoping for $299 price on friday)

[foodgoes @ Sep 4th 2008 1:06AM]

Social. Edition... 03MP webcam?, i am guessing that is a typeo

[Twoje @ Sep 4th 2008 1:08AM]

Wow. Very disappointed...

Guess I'll have to decide between the AA1 and the MSI Wind.

Which would you all recommend? I'll be using it only for browsing the web, chatting on AIM, possibly taking notes (as I am a college student).

Also, I will be walking around a lot with the laptop [probably] in my backpack, so I would assume the AA1 is better for that because of the SSD. Not sure if the screen size makes a huge difference...I don't think 1 inch justifies a $100 higher price tag. The AA1 also has the 6-cell battery. And I've had MSI has been putting bad parts in their Winds...

So I guess I'm leaning towards the AA1 (1GB, 6-cell, Linux version for $400 on Newegg), but if anyone has any reasons I should go with the Wind (or any other netbook), let me know.

I don't want to spend more than $500.

[d00b @ Sep 4th 2008 1:33AM]

8 gigs won't get you very far, even if all you have on it is school material. Forget MP3s, videos, etc. You can supplement with flash cards, but best (and cheapest) just to buy a model with built-in hard drive.

The MSI Wind is overpriced at this point. It will lower its price once the rest of the comptition shows up in retail. My fav is the Lenovo Ideapad S10, although the Aspire One definitely leads on price, plus it's available now. I'd hold off for the hard drive version, which should be showing up any time. Don't try to run XP on the SSD model or you will be sorry.

Extended batt, definitely.

[denny @ Sep 4th 2008 1:46AM]

1 inch does actually make a difference when you get this small. i've had my Wind for a couple weeks and i love it. i've seen the 9 inch aspire at best buy and its just a tad too small =(

[Robert Linderman @ Sep 4th 2008 1:11AM]

I just purchased an AspireOne on Friday and after reading this, I am SO glad I did! I paid $349 for my AspireOne with 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive and a keyboard I can type over 100 words per minute on with function keys, I am definitely keeping my AspireOne and recommending it for all of my clients. Dell, on this one, it looks like you are a day late and a dollar short! Acer wins this round and gets my business, you had your chance. Let's see what round two looks like.

[Riley @ Sep 4th 2008 1:17AM]

Does anyone pay regular price for dell stuff? They're always either on sale or have coupons available. I'd wait a couple of weeks until that kicks in if anyone wants to buy.

[atbnet @ Sep 4th 2008 1:17AM]

Order it now?

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=19&kc=6F961&oc=dnpcxw1&x=0&y=0

[rahim @ Sep 4th 2008 1:19AM]

This definitely sucks. I was soooo hoping to get a Dell Netbook since they were advertising that they want to beat the market's pricing strategy, but for those prices, that's simply ridiculous, especially when Dell's very own full fledged laptops can be purchased at the price of $449.

Man AA1 has had some really good deals lately, and that up there does not seem like a typo, it says "0.3" . I think this ad is legit and it seems laid out like its a page from Dell's magazines.

I think I just lost some respect for Dell...

[Giroro @ Sep 4th 2008 1:19AM]

How is the XP model "regularly priced" @ $494 if it hasn't been released yet?

[bot @ Sep 4th 2008 1:19AM]

I ordered my Eee 901 on Monday and I was worried Dell would offer a very similar model for cheaper, but they didn't. Sure, even the highest config is 100 dollars less than what I paid for ($50 less after rebates) but I'll be getting alot more. +12GB SSD space (and who knows if that 8GB module is the slower kind or what), bluetooth, wireless N, and 6 cell battery. I'm assuming since it isn't explicity stated in the flyer it's going to be a 3 cell. If the $450 model had that (fast) 16GB module that was supposed to be available, and 6 cell battery, I would have kicked myself in the pants for getting the 901 so early.

[Juancarlos @ Sep 4th 2008 1:39AM]

Looks like its a 4 cell battery. I think I might just go with the AA1 that Twoje was looking at on Newegg. I'll probably wait until Dell makes it 100% official that they plan to have 0% market share before I jump the gun on the Acer.

[john @ Sep 4th 2008 1:51AM]

How much to add/customize features?

Like, take the base config, like upgrade to 1GB RAM and 8GB SSD (so, like the top config, only with a real OS and no webcam).

[Rob @ Sep 4th 2008 2:24AM]

Looks like in the UK at the moment only one model is showing up. It's the maximum one with XP but it does show as a 16GB SSD drive at a price of £300 (not as bad a conversion as I feared). Unfortunately no sign of knocking off some of the price to get linux as well.

[Juancarlos @ Sep 4th 2008 2:42AM]

If you check out the link posted above, looks like 25$ for the memory, and 35$ for the 8GB SSD, 75$ for the 16GB SSD.

[G_ @ Sep 4th 2008 6:56AM]

there is 5 dollar differnt betwen linux and win on Same Hardware.
I would like know why.....

[cmil1212 @ Sep 4th 2008 7:38AM]

Not sure why anyone would want this. Laptops for all i guess, even if it's a crappy one..lol

[dyana @ Sep 4th 2008 9:37AM]

Just checked out www.dell.com and noticed that the 1.3mp webcam is NOT automatically included in the "high-end" version of this mini - for $449 you get the .3mp webcam.

[Brian @ Sep 4th 2008 9:32AM]

And here I was, thinking Dell could come up with something that would make me cancel my Lenovo IdeaPad S10 pre-order.

Silly me. Asus Eee's are more appealing than this new Dell.

[Jnetty @ Sep 4th 2008 10:01AM]

That price sucks for the XP version. For that price I rather get a regular laptop.