Dell's Mini 9 now shipping, arriving on doorsteps everywhere

The headline pretty much sums it up -- it appears that Dell hasn't wasted any time getting the first batch of Mini 9's out from Round Rock (or China, or wherever), as the earliest of adopters have already had the pleasure of peeling away the shipping label and firing one up. Hit the read link for two unimaginative shots of the netbook on a dirty desk, but only after you've phoned up Dell in search of your own tracking number.

[Via thegadgetsite, thanks K.C. Kim]

[Brad @ Sep 12th 2008 7:08AM]

Ignorant... Penang, Malaysia is where they ship from.

[GeorgeJ @ Sep 12th 2008 7:09AM]

This could be the upcoming dell 12"...

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-8424.aspx

emailed this to Engadget earlier...

[TJ @ Sep 12th 2008 7:13AM]

Acer Aspire One owns the Dell, sorry.

[xxdesmus @ Sep 12th 2008 8:00AM]

I'm drooling over both...I'd take either one.

[Sean @ Sep 12th 2008 11:31AM]

If they ever fix those mouse buttons on the trackpad, sure.

[DerekBez @ Sep 12th 2008 8:18AM]

Got mine yesterday.

Neat. Solid. Comes with Google Desktop and some software for the webcam. Not much else. The power supply built into the plug is huge, but quite light. In operation, the little 'un is a bit slow, but that might be all the crap that is preloaded in memory. The keyboard is going to take some getting used to. Especially the tiny right-shift key.

[BigPapaSmurf @ Sep 12th 2008 8:30AM]

I agree about the shift key - I didnt even know it had a right shift key! But yeh its got some usual Dell bloatware on it like the Dell support software and McAffee antivirus - removed both of those - comes with MS works installed too. Comes with the OS and works on cd... Not that its got a cd drive but I guess theres not any other way they could package it! Not sure if its got the usual HD partition or not.
Speed seemed ok for me after setup etc - takes about 20 secs to boot up, not bad really probably as fast to do that as my Core 2 3ghz with vista

[chyan @ Sep 12th 2008 8:30AM]

Im getting one in Malaysia.
Gotta compare it with my Aspire One.

[MonkMan @ Sep 12th 2008 8:40AM]

Got mine yesterday and spent about a couple of hours with it last night. Pretty sure it said "Made in China" on it, but anyway... Took quite a while to get through the windows installation process and then download the 18 windows updates. It came with some bloatware, for example Google desktop and toolbar, McAfee. I declined the EULA for google toolbar and that caused lots of error messages and Windows to shut down! Once I rebooted, Google toolbar had been installed anyway, despite me saying 'No'.

It was an STEC SSD and Windows was set to compress the drive.

Once I'd got a decent browser on it, everything seemed fine. Screen Ok (not great), keyboard Ok, speed Ok and WLAN signal was very good. It's exactly what I wanted for £299 so I'm pleased so far. Also very quiet.

I tried pendrivelinux and that worked vaguely OK but the wlan card wasn't supported. Maybe I'll try to track the linux distro (GOS?) that they're meant to be shipping with it at some point.

[nw15062 @ Sep 12th 2008 9:10PM]

It is not GOS the default distribution is Ubuntu 8.04 which is quit a difference in quality. Easy mistake big difference.

[MonkMan @ Sep 12th 2008 8:46AM]

BigPapaSmurf: It has no CD/DVD drive. You need to plug in an external one and boot from that. It did have an extra hidden HD partition (which I could see when I booted into lunix) but it was only about 50Mb and I didn't investigate what was on it.

[fish @ Sep 12th 2008 9:01AM]

Fix the keyboard and I might be interested.

[ventivent @ Sep 12th 2008 9:38AM]

To those of you who purchased the Mini 9, why did you choose this over MSI Wind or Acer Aspire One, or even Asus 1000H?

[John @ Sep 12th 2008 10:43AM]

I've been vacillating between the Dell Mini-9 and the Acer Aspire One. Here's a spreadsheet comparing the two for my purposes (cloud computing with Firefox, and not wanting a hard drive).
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pmFi6rR4TiJPUvfynez-pfg

[Mark @ Sep 17th 2008 4:57PM]

1. Wanted a SSD to cut down on noise and to be a bit more robust (so I could throw it in my bag and not worry about it). I don't need a big HD, everything is up in the cloud. I read that the Aspire One was very loud.
2. Battery. I wish the Dell had a 6 cell, but it's better than some of the others.
3. The Dell brand name. I have no real way to know, but if I had to guess I'd trust Dell's quality control/service more than the others.

My perfect netbook would be:
8.9 inch screen
Atom
4 to 8 GB SSD
1G RAM
Bluetooth (for tethering to a cell phone)
6-cell battery
$399

[WK @ Sep 12th 2008 1:12PM]

I've owned enough/worked on enough Acers to swear off of them completely.

MSI is an unknown in terms of finished computer product.

That's why I ordered a Dell. I've had nothing but good experiences with their support.

[Fanfoot @ Sep 12th 2008 3:04PM]

John,

Thanks for the helpful, detailed comments.

How about the temperature level of the Dell? I've heard its a bit hot on your lap. Any truth to that?

Too bad the longer SSDs for the Eee 901 won't fit in the Dell. Certainly looks like an SLC would speed things up considerably. Doesn't sound intolerable from your comments though. I presume that will be remedied shortly though. Still one of the reasons to stick with an Eee that so many people have them, lots of community support, hardware available, etc. Presume the Dell will ship in enough volume to see some of the same over time though...

I still wish the Dell hadn't screwed up the right shift key... just move the cursor keys down a row guys...

I wonder when Dell will start shipping Red and/or Blue colors?

BTW, looks like more recent mini's have been shipping without the WWAN connector soldered down, i.e. if you take off the expansion cover on the bottom, the lower left connector isn't there anymore, which will limit expandability in the future unless you're real good at soldering...

[Darryl @ Sep 12th 2008 7:29PM]

I was all set to get the mini 9, but I wanted a high specced mini and the Eee 901's price dropped. Also, the shipping price kept changing from 0 to 8 to 25 dollars, and customer service was not helpful at all. So I got the Eee 901 on Amazon, free shipping, no tax, $40 cheaper for better specs. Although the free shipping is taking forever...

[MrBoB @ Sep 13th 2008 12:05AM]

I ordered this over the Wind because MSI switched to a crappy touchpad. You can't turn off tap to click. I freakin hate tap to click. It's too bad, I was VERY exciting about the Wind.

I chose this over the Acer because I don't like the buttons to the right and left of the touchpad on the Acer.

The Asus 1000h isn't really a fair comparison, but the EEEpc 901 is pretty close. In the end, I didn't get the Asus because I really wanted Ubuntu preinstalled.

Also, I don't like hard drive noise, so the SSD was a bonus, compared to MSI and Acer.

[Kathy @ Sep 14th 2008 3:26PM]

I originally bought an Eee when they had the smaller screen. Wanted to return it after one day. Found out Asus had an agreement with the seller to not accept the Eee back "under any circumstances." Would have been okay if the seller had posted that info on the webpage but they didn't. What they had posted was that the manufacturer would handle any returns or exchanges. When I contacted Asus, they wouldn't even talk to me about exchange or return. They just kept closing my case -- the equivalent of hanging up on me. I posted on the Better Business Bureau website then sold it on eBay. About a week later, the seller sent me an RMA.

Just a horrible, shady way of handling customer service, if you ask me. I will never buy another Asus product and won't buy anything other than consumables, if that, from the seller. This scared me off of manufacturers that I'm not familiar with and Dell quoted me a fair offer, with their extended warranty. At least Dell tries. Asus sucks.

[Fearghoul @ Sep 15th 2008 4:08PM]

MSI Wind and Acer systems - too ugly looking and they use noisy hard drives instead of SSD
Acer Aspire - the linux version uses the slow 8 gig SSD and the touchpad set up is terrible. as pointed out by others, having the buttons on the left and right of the touchpad instead of at the bottom is a horrible design decision. how do i know this? i tried the system out at a store.

sure they are cheaper, but i got to use an employee discount coupon on the dell, so it still came out to be a decent deal.

i'm all for cloud computing. these days having bigger specs is meaningless. it's all about aesthetics and durability.

[denimwizard @ Sep 12th 2008 9:49AM]

I ordered an unbuntu model mine won't becomming till Oct 20th .

[Uchiha Sasuke @ Sep 12th 2008 11:18AM]

@ JOHN

Dude, if that spreadsheet is what you're basing you're decision to get a dell, get real. BTW, the Acer 6 cell comes with Windows not Linpus so check your facts also.

[Mark @ Sep 12th 2008 11:26AM]

How much space does the XP OS take up? Wondering with the 16gb hd, how much free space should be available? Anyone have some thoughts please. Thanks..

[Fanfoot @ Sep 12th 2008 3:05PM]

You can probably get Windows XP into 2GB or so. But on a virtual install (in VMWare), I'm using about 8GB after installing Microsoft Office, Project, WMP, iTunes, Quicktime, etc etc. I wouldn't want to get a Windows machine with less than 8GB, and bigger would be preferable.

Course if you're just going to install FF3 on it and a few media players...

[DjFIL @ Sep 12th 2008 11:42AM]

Hey... if anyone who recieved the Dell Mini 9 w/ Ubuntu... if you can post an ISO of your recovery DVD's on some torrent sites, I'd really appreciate it. In Canada I was forced to get it with Windows XP, and I really want the Dell Ubnutu Netbook Remix that they are shipping with. Thanks :)

[WK @ Sep 12th 2008 1:13PM]

Last I heard Dell was ironing out the kinks in the Ubuntu version, and only XP versions have shipped.

[nw15062 @ Sep 12th 2008 9:14PM]

You don't need the recovery cd just install the standard Ubuntu 8.04 release and then use the ubuntu forums how to to install the net book remix for small displays. I have it running on my older dell laptop right now with the netbook remix interface it works ok but is not full finalized for official release, the good side is it is constantly updating so hopefully when the dell ( w/ ubuntu releases it will be ready.

[PeteC @ Sep 12th 2008 12:26PM]

I still have an Asus 901 on order in the UK from dabs but it's still not shipping. I prefer the way the dell looks but the longer battery life, increased SSD size (20GB linux) and multitouch touchpad of the Asus are making me stick to my guns. The 901 is also £279 (with a £20 discount voucher) vs the £299 of the Dell so I'm figuring money saving + extra storage, battery life and multitouch probably far outwight this thing just looking nicer to the eye. Unless the Dell's SSD drive is superior or there's anything else I'm missing?

[Fanfoot @ Sep 12th 2008 3:07PM]

Sounds like the Dell's SSD is slower. Check out jkkmobile's reviews.

Also, you can upgrade the 901's SSD if you want, while I can't see any options for the Dell yet. Looks like the slot is shorter in the Dell (50mm vs. 70mm) so the MyDigitalSSD parts won't fit...

[TDG01 @ Sep 12th 2008 12:50PM]

I ordered mine a week ago....still says "In Production" and is scheduled to ship 9/22....WXP....

[Phil @ Sep 12th 2008 1:27PM]

Me too, I ordered on the 8th and it's showing me a ship date of 9/22. What gives? I ordered the top of the line XP model

[Ryan @ Sep 12th 2008 9:51PM]

I ordered on the 6th and it's still in production with a ship date of 9/22 as well. Those that already have gotten the laptop, did your ship date always say like 9/9 or 9/10, or was it much later, closer to the 22nd like mine is, and the laptop just shipped early? It would be good if the latter were true, and I'll get mine early next week.

[0xyg3n @ Sep 12th 2008 12:51PM]

Lol if I had known my pics were going to be plasted all over the net I would of cleaned all the dust etc off my desk first.

[genXesis @ Sep 12th 2008 4:31PM]

@ 0xyg3n .... How's the keyboard feel? What's it like to type on? If you own another netbook, how does it compare?

[0xyg3n @ Sep 12th 2008 8:24PM]

This is my first netbook.

But I do use a keysonic mini keyboard.
http://www.keysonic.de/pages/keyboards/ACK_3400_U/ack_3400_u_uk.html

The dell keys are bigger how ever I have no trouble with small keys. The feel of the keys in excellent fair amount of travel. I have no trouble with the placement of keys either like the right shift. Just by touch you can tell the keys apart.

[Glenn @ Sep 13th 2008 3:04AM]

How so TJ, elaborate the details please.

[Mischievous @ Sep 13th 2008 3:13AM]

I was hoping the MINI would show up per http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3399&p=9 review photos with PCIe slot and antenna. I'm VERY disappointed Dell left the PCIe slot and antenna off for WWAN card. I'm reconsidering my purchase, and might call and cancel order (WIN XP 16GB SSD Bluetooth White). Thanks Oxyg3n from Australia for your site post and photos of your delivered MINI.

Even the Dell service manual (http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins910/en/sm/index.htm ) had the PCIe slot and antenna.
3G is a deal breaker for me, and I'm not about to go out and buy the USB unit when I've got a mini card already. Oxyg3n also caught that Dell has the 5530 WWAN drivers on disk shipped with his MINI also. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

NOTE: Did ANY US delivered MINI units happen to have PCIe slot and antenna out of curiosity???????????

[Nick @ Sep 14th 2008 2:38PM]

I ordered mine the night of its release (the 4th?) and mine says In Production Preliminary Ship date: 9/19... so hold on to your pants, and I'll be writing a nice extended review for it as well, expecially for those who a keen to know if the US version is shipping with the WWAN port.

Cheers.
Nick

[Mario @ Sep 15th 2008 4:49PM]

Same info here, ordered the day of release, In Production, and Ship Date of 9/19.

[ryan @ Sep 16th 2008 2:21PM]

I ordered one as soon as it was released on the website 9/4 with a ship date of 9/19. I live in Oklahoma..... I have seen no updates on the dell website I'm still "In-Production" really annoying

[ryan @ Sep 19th 2008 2:36PM]

Welp just got my e-mail from dell i've been expecting
At Dell, our customers are our top priority and we regret when we are unable to ship our products by the original estimate provided. Although we anticipated being able to ship your order sooner, we are experiencing an unexpected delay and have adjusted the estimated ship date as reflected below (see Revised Estimated Ship Date). We value your business and appreciate your patience.

[Dale Barrett @ Sep 21st 2008 8:55PM]

did dell give you a new shipping date mine was going to ship 9/22 (how far are they behind)
i think it just the black one that is delayed

[JW @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:38PM]

Order placed 9/05, order shipped 9/19. Delivered this AM.

[kara @ Sep 22nd 2008 1:33PM]

just got mine on the 19th my shipping date also said on the 22nd but i guess it came a little earlier and mine is black too.
i can't complain about this net book at all .keyboard is great its not as bad as some people might say. a couple days on it and ur use to it trust me. i can type a whole essay if i wanted.
the screen is wonderful! and might i say the mini is not bad with audio either for such a small little thing, u can pretty much rock out listening to the speaker across the room. i def recommend this to anyone who is looking to a buy a net book. my friend had an asus and it sucked! slow and bad keyboard. i'm for dell all the way! and for people complaining about the amount of space in it.... i mean c'mon guys if you're looking for a laptop to store everything and anything on it get a bigger laptop with more space. this one is mostly for on the go , portable, and easy to use. but what i'm planning to get is those small cute external drives, they sell cheap, just plug it in and u can store everything ur heart desires on it.

[Bear @ Sep 26th 2008 6:17PM]

"Although we anticipated being able to ship your order sooner, we are experiencing an unexpected delay and have adjusted the estimated ship date as reflected below (see Revised Estimated Ship Date). We value your business and appreciate your patience"

Anyone else just get this note? Two weeks since I ordered and they just now realize it's gonna be another whole week? C'mon!

[Dale @ Sep 27th 2008 10:54PM]

got mine on 24 hours they aired to me i reformated the hard drive and save almost 3 gbs i used a hard drive enclosure and a internal dvd player and the dvds that came with the mini
worked great

[Walter Toki @ Sep 30th 2008 6:26PM]

I ordered my Dell Mini-inspiron on-line on Sept 5 and received an email confirmation
for a Sept 22 delivery. I rechecked the Dell website 10 days later and found out my order was
cancelled. I did not receive an email that they cancelled my order. SO, I called them and had to reorder
the mini-inspiron and the estimated shipping date was now Sept 30. Now today (Sept 30),
I called the Dell customer service to ask if my order was shipped and the Dell person
said the estimated shipping date has been moved to Oct 7. Dell then sent me an email
stating that "Although we anticipated being able to ship your order sooner,
we are experiencing an unexpected delay and have adjusted the estimated ship
date as reflected below (see Revised Estimated Ship Date)."

I have ordered two Dell laptops in previous years (and most recently a Lenovo) and never
experienced such delays. I am beginning to wonder if there is some problem.

[Steven Sande @ Oct 2nd 2008 5:35PM]

I ordered a mini 9 on 9/22 (XP version) and it was delivered today (10/3). I plan on ripping XP off of it ASAP, and try to get Mac OS X running on it. Worst case, I'll download Ubuntu Netbook Remix and install it. :-)

Steve

[STEVE @ Oct 14th 2008 8:45AM]

I ordered a Mini 9 Ubuntu model the day after I received the catalog. It was scheduled to ship 10/13. Now moved up (with the ususl delay note) to 11/10. Has anyone actually received a Linux model?