Inspiron Mini 12 pops up on Dell's website: it's a done deal (almost)

We can't call it official with a straight face, but seriously, what else could you call it? A not-at-all mysterious Inspiron Mini 12 (1210) has emerged on Dell's website in the Product Support pages, hinting (and we're using that as loosely as possible) that a 12-inch netbook could be fast approaching to complement the current Mini 9. We're talking about a User Manual, Setup Guide, Troubleshooting documents -- the whole nine. Packed within the Setup Guide is a nice list of basic specifications, including your choice of an Intel Atom Z520 or Z530 CPU, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 10 / 100 Ethernet, Bluetooth / WiFi, optional WWAN, three USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, audio in / out, and a 12.1-inch display with a 1,280 x 800 resolution. It'll also feature a 1.3-megapixel camera, 3- or 6-cell battery and weigh around 2.73-pounds. Oh, and we get the impression there will at least be an option for Ubuntu. Feel free to dig around in the read link for as long as Round Rock keeps it active, and in case everything collapses prior to the formal launch, we've screened capped a few looks below.

[Via CMSReport]

Gallery: Inspiron Mini 12 pops up on Dell's website: it's a done deal (almost)

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[Bryant @ Oct 15th 2008 11:16PM]

I'll get hanged for this suggestion, but this seems like a good portable 720p HDTV (Vista Home Premium and an extra gig of ram would seal the deal for me)

[d00b @ Oct 16th 2008 2:14AM]

My SWAG is that this model will be initially priced at around $600-650 or so for base config, most likely under $700. This will likely drop a couple of hundred clams come year-end with the inevitable Dell discounts, price competition, and the plummeting economy.

Not sure if this attempt to upscale the netbook (with a bigger LCD) will get much traction, what with the Aspire1 already at $350 base. Until Intel allows some diversifying of the guts, the netbook market is a commodity and will be differentiated mostly on price.

[Flashpoint @ Oct 15th 2008 11:17PM]

"mini 12"?

either a gun or a porn movie.

[brickwood @ Oct 15th 2008 11:48PM]

...ehh.. ..terrible!

[AC @ Oct 15th 2008 11:18PM]

price?

if its reasonable, this will be a big seller.

[Cypress @ Oct 15th 2008 11:20PM]

I have been researching netbooks all day and I just thought I would buy the eee PC 1000H, but now this completely changes things....

[Casey @ Oct 20th 2008 10:21PM]

Well...the Dell Mini 9 had a lot of people waiting to make their decision when pictures and specs first surfaced over the summer. Then it missed its price point ($299 was rumored) and instead retailed at $350 for the basic version, and that turned away a lot of buyers, judging from the comments on this blog. So I'd say if you're not desperately in need of a netbook this size right this minute, its good to wait until this thing comes out so you have more products to compare, but don't get your hopes too high or Dell just might bring them crashing down when this computer is officially released.

[digitallysick @ Oct 15th 2008 11:30PM]

I like the 1,280 x 800 part

[Richard Glitter @ Oct 23rd 2008 10:12PM]

Amen!

I have kept my old Inspiron 700m around forever for exactly this
reason.

Alll the new netbooks are (slightly) thinner and lighter, but they
have lower screen resolution and no optical drive. My Inspiron 700m
still runs XP great with a 2 GHz Pentium M, 1 GB RAM, a DVD burner
built in, and nice 12" 1280x800 screen that is very bright and crisp.

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-700m/4505-3121_7-30975241.html

I always thought when I got this thing that it is the sweet spot for
size and portability without too much feature sacrifice. This
Mini-12 could be my next laptop, if it has an optical drive, which I
do need in a laptop.

[chuck @ Oct 15th 2008 11:32PM]

How odd, the service manual shows that the cpu and memory comes together in a upgrade card that plugs into the motherboard. It doesn't state if is the ram or the flash hdd that the card holds, but is kinda cool knowing that dell can make/sell you a upgrade card for future atom cpu.

[therpham @ Oct 15th 2008 11:35PM]

If the price is right, DO WANT.

[Boards of Canada @ Oct 16th 2008 7:56AM]

with Dell, the price is often right!

[aznofazns @ Oct 15th 2008 11:37PM]

How does the 1.6ghz Silverthorne Atom in this thing compare to the 1.6ghz Diamondville Atom found in most netbooks? According to Wikipedia the Silverthornes mainly just add VT and are smaller in size.

[CJ @ Oct 16th 2008 7:33AM]

I believe Silverthorne is dual-core. Don't quote me though, I'm probably dead-wrong.

[Steve Paine @ Oct 16th 2008 9:48AM]

Silverthornel cas the same processor core but it is supposed to be more efficient.
The important thing is that the chipset is brand new and supports hardware video decoding. GIVEN THE RIGHT DRIVERS AND SOFTWARE, the chipset can decode up to 1280p H.264. I've seen it in action and it's awesome!

This should be a very long battery life HQ video playback device.

Steve.

[Fanfoot @ Oct 16th 2008 2:11PM]

Yeah, the important thing about this product is its got the Poulsbo chipset, which replaces the old north/southbridge chips being used in current Netbooks. It drops a bunch of the features that go unused in netbooks as well as advancing power management quite a bit. So it should save power vs. the current chipset, at least in theory. If you look at current netbooks you'll see the big heat sink is on the support chips, not the Atom. It will be interesting to see what happens to battery life once netbooks switch to this thing, which they will presumably all do over time.

And yes, it apparently has hardware acceleration for various codec decodes--mpeg-2, h.264, vc-1, and as a result its supposed to be able to handle 720p/1080i HD video better than the current products, and presumably with lower power too. The video part is apparently from Imagination Technologies, not Intel.

And yes, it is limited to 1GB of RAM and 1366x768 video.

[Gunn @ Oct 15th 2008 11:52PM]

Any word on whether it has SSD or HDD?

[Fr0 @ Oct 15th 2008 11:59PM]

WTF is up with the non-expandable 1gb of memory? Talk about screwing the big brother here... Combined processor and memory card == teh suck.

[dan @ Oct 16th 2008 12:06AM]

is it definitely non-upgradeable?

that is a bit of a deal breaker :/

[Ian @ Oct 16th 2008 12:57AM]

Where do you see this?

And yes, this is a deal-breaker. I also don't want a 12" display. The go-anywhere, do-anything size of other netbooks is a huge part of their appeal. An 11" display would have been much smaller.

[niels @ Oct 16th 2008 5:50AM]

From the service manual it looks like the processor and memory are on the same board. And I seem to remember somewhere that the Poulsbo chipset is limited to 1 GB of memory. I could be wrong though. It's so close to being awesome, but 1 GB of ram with modern operating systems just doesn't cut it.

[Fr0 @ Oct 16th 2008 8:49AM]

@dan and ian,

Check out the setup guide and service manual. The setup guide (in the Specifications section) only lists 1GB as a possible memory configuration. Also, the service manual mentions a "2-in-1 memory and processor board", and makes no reference to removing any other memory or memory slots.

That to me says that it's not upgradable.

[Fanfoot @ Oct 16th 2008 2:12PM]

Correct, the Poulsbo chipset only supports 1GB of RAM.

[asymptotic @ Oct 17th 2008 3:15AM]

Looks like this will be one of the first centrino atom netbooks. Also the poulsbo specs have been updated to support 2GB ram max, but it doesn't look like this Inspirion Mini 12 will reflect that change. Maybe a later model will have 2GB ram support.

[cesium @ Oct 16th 2008 12:21AM]

Looks like my old 700m

[Iceman @ Oct 16th 2008 12:27AM]

I'm in the market for a new notebook. We will see how this one stacks up.

[Fanfoot @ Oct 16th 2008 12:38AM]

Depends on the price I guess, but I'm not sure this is a netbook...

A 12" that gets anywhere close to $1000 will just be another also ran laptop, competing against all the more powerful laptops with better CPUs and graphics and expandability and ports and ...

Now, if its $499 I suppose there's a chance this might go somewhere, but personally if I were Dell I would have focused on a 10" companion to the Mini 9, or even an 11" version, maybe with some other enhanced specs to justify a minor price bump (802.11n say, or SLC flash, or a 2nd populated PCIe slot...). And tried to sell it for under $500.00

[Ian @ Oct 16th 2008 12:55AM]

And this thing is only going to cost $800 or so.

Not impressed, really. There isn't much to be impressed with. They're trying to sell you a 3-4 year old 12" laptop design, but in 2008/2009. The resolution is on par with all 12" screens released over the years, and you're now getting the Atom instead of the original Centrino. And to top it all off, they're gonna sell it with Win XP. Deja Vu.

[mattyb123 @ Oct 16th 2008 1:16AM]

I literally was just about to order the Aspire One when I saw this. I think I'll hold off a few days. God I hope that HDD is an option and that is lands in at >$500

[Macdelaney @ Oct 16th 2008 1:26AM]

I think it'll definitely be >$500 ;) which is too bad, I would have bought the mini if it had a 10-inch screen rather than 9, 11 would have been the sweet spot, but 12 is ok too i guess.

[Fanfoot @ Oct 16th 2008 2:14PM]

You can get a 15" Inspiron Notebook from Dell for $499. I don't see why it should be more than that.

[mattyb123 @ Oct 16th 2008 1:24AM]

Ok after looking through the manuals on the site it looks like HDD will be present and it also appears that Vista will be the standard OS. Oh and it looks like the option of either a 3 or 6 cell battery...

[Fanfoot @ Oct 16th 2008 2:15PM]

Wow, Vista with 1GB of RAM is going to s-u-c-k.

[Justin @ Oct 16th 2008 1:29AM]

Did anyone stop to notice that this thing is using Poulsbo?

[Macdelaney @ Oct 16th 2008 1:31AM]

So the battery should give us some extra time, right? is there any other pro of using it?

[Justin @ Oct 16th 2008 1:39AM]

Yes, as well as Dx9 graphics, HD playback, and some other integration. Here's a great link from Anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3276&p=16

[mattyb123 @ Oct 16th 2008 1:44AM]

Hmm.. look familiar?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/10/12-1-inch-dell-e-slim-laptop-spotted-in-the-wild/

[Santaclaus @ Oct 16th 2008 2:31AM]

congratulations to dell for finally making netbooks notebooks again. -___-

[David @ Oct 16th 2008 3:09AM]

Sounds like an updated version of the XPS M1210 I have sitting next to me here. 12" is too big for a netbook I think, it's definitely in notebook territory now.

[L @ Oct 16th 2008 3:24AM]

Typical - after I've waited for this since the first leak back in Spring, and yesterday I gave up and ordered an EEE 1000H. *Of course* it finally gets announced soon after I've done that....

[JayPeg @ Oct 16th 2008 4:15AM]

Now all we need is the new Studio XPS 13" and were sailing! Any news on that yet?

[lolwecsan @ Oct 16th 2008 6:38AM]

This looks good, but if the price is too high, then you might as well spend a few hundred dollars more and get something like the thinkpad x200.

[jt @ Oct 16th 2008 7:29AM]

my stance exactly

[Boards of Canada @ Oct 16th 2008 8:00AM]

damn I want a small and light machine...

[Conceyted @ Oct 16th 2008 8:48AM]

I can't imagine any reason they would put this anywhere near $1000 or even $600-800. For $1100 you can get their 13" XPS M1330 and have "mini" gaming machine. Oh and 12" is not that small. I am still leaning toward Lenovo's s10 if they could ever get it in stock in black and have bluetooth like they originally released.

[Jnetty @ Oct 16th 2008 9:31AM]

We have two testing at work. But we don't know anything about the price yet. I want to get one.

[Brian @ Oct 17th 2008 1:39AM]

You have two of these Mini 12s testing at your work?!
Can you tell us if the motherboard is different to the ones the EeePC1000 use?
Is it actually redesigned with those bells and whistles?

[nsfw @ Oct 16th 2008 10:06AM]

But the mini 9 was successfully hackintoshed. With full features. So I"m guessing the mini 12 will be just as easy. The x200 will probably never work.

[23T @ Oct 16th 2008 3:46PM]

Wait a minute, is this the old 700M?????


http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-700m/4505-3121_7-30975241.html

- 23T

[inspironmini12 @ Oct 16th 2008 5:51PM]

offical info here: www.inspironmini12.com ...