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Inspiron posts

Dell launches Design Studio for Inspiron 15, new FastTrack delivery service

by Nilay Patel, posted Jul 9th 2009 at 1:49PM

Hey, you in the market for a cheap laptop with some crazy custom artwork glued to the lid? Dell's got you covered -- the Inspiron 15 has just been brought into the Design Studio fold, meaning you'll be able to select graphics from a wide variety of artists when you spec out your system. Most artwork seems to be priced around $60, but we're told that could vary -- considering the base Inspy 15 is just $499, we're assuming / hoping the ceiling won't be much higher. Dell's also launching a new FastTrack next-day delivery service for pre-configured machines -- the company claims it's constantly tracking orders and will be able to keep the most popular models on hand. Of course, that's sort of the opposite of the whole "totally custom laptop" thing Dell's pushing with Design Studio, but hey, sometimes you need a bog-standard PC, and you need it now.

Dell UK offers free flights to US or Europe with Inspiron or Studio 15 purchase

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jun 11th 2009 at 7:29AM

Dell's offering a free return flight (that's round-trip in Yanklish) from the UK to the US or Europe with the purchase of a £499 Inspiron 15 or £599 Studio 15. There are limitations such as airports (Heathrow and Gatwick only for trips to the US) and destinations (New York, Boston, DC, Amsterdam, Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, and a few more city airports) but the offer seems to be a good deal if you're flexible and wanted to fly to any of these cities over the next year anyway. Just don't get too hung up on any one destination when submitting your request:

The Booking Request Form entitles you, the bearer, to one return flight offer as specified, to one of the featured destinations. To obtain the flight you will be required to provide 3 alternative destinations and 3 alternative travel dates. Our booking agent will use all reasonable endeavours to meet your booking requests but this cannot be guaranteed and, in such circumstances, you will be offered an alternative.

Still, if you're lucky enough to grab a coveted LHR to JFK slot, then a spot-check shows flights starting at about £400 in August 2009. In other words, the laptop is nearly free if you were already headed in that direction. So go ahead, you like to gamble, right?

[Thanks, ugotamesij]

$399 Dell Inspiron 15 makes the scene

by Nilay Patel, posted May 13th 2009 at 5:03PM

Here's a question: given the vagueness of the definition and the trend towards larger screen sizes in general, how soon do you think Dell will start calling its new $399 Inspiron 15 configuration a "netbook?" Seriously, it's not like the 2.16GHz Celeron and 2GB of RAM running Vista are going to majorly outgun the usual 1.6GHz Atom / XP setup, and the pricing is about the same as a nicer 10-inch netbook, so we can totally see some marketing droid at Dell getting a bright idea. Any bets on this happening? We'd put the odds at 50/50.

Dell's rainbow-hued Inspiron desktops now available

by Laura June, posted May 12th 2009 at 2:12PM

There's a certain breed of person out there that wants everything to be available in a plethora of colors and options, infinitely customizable to fit the personality of whatever room it'll inhabit. That breed of person is us. Dell's customizable addition to the Inspiron line -- which includes the 537 and the 537s -- present the buyer with a host of options -- eight different colors, a choice of Intel Celeron, AMD Sempron, Core 2 Quad and Phenom X4 CPUs, up to 8GB of RAM, integrated Intel graphics or ATI Radeon GPUs, and up to 750GB HDD for the slim tower and 1TB for the mini-tower. The Promise Pink model is part of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure program, and we have a feeling we'll be seeing it pop up over on Della any minute now. The starting price for the lowest-end model is $299 and they're available now. One more shot after the break.

[Via Desktop Review]

Continue reading Dell's rainbow-hued Inspiron desktops now available

Dell Mini 10 gets six-cell battery option, added pizzazz

by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 23rd 2009 at 1:54PM

Dell's Mini 10 netbook has been a bit more of a work in progress than some early adopters may have hoped, but it is at least getting increasingly more usable, with Dell now finally offering the oft-requested six-cell battery as a selectable option. That'll set you back just $30, and should give you a sizable boost over the stock three-cell battery, which is lucky to get three hours on a charge. If you're looking for a little something extra, you can now also now get the netbook emblazoned with some of the snazzy designs seen on other Dell laptops, although those will set you back up to $60 extra compared to the basic black or white options.

[Via Portable Monkey]

Video: 128GB SSD slotted into Dell's Inspiron Mini 9

by Darren Murph, posted Apr 6th 2009 at 8:16PM

Considering just how cheap Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 gets on occasion, there's practically no doubt that the SSD portion of this mod will run you more than the computer itself. For those wild and wacky DIYers who couldn't honestly care less, jkkmobile has put together a video (along with a gallery of images) showing exactly how the process works. For what it's worth, we're told that the whole ordeal was a simple matter, but you can judge for yourself after jumping past the break and mashing play.

Continue reading Video: 128GB SSD slotted into Dell's Inspiron Mini 9

How would you change Dell's Inspiron Mini 10?

by Darren Murph, posted Apr 3rd 2009 at 11:13PM

After a rocky, if not comical launch, Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 is now shuffling out in full force to legions of soon-to-be netbook owners. For those of you who already bought in -- via QVC or the more traditional street corner vendor model -- we're wondering what you'd do differently if magically given a mythical Do Over token. Would you simply offer up the options (TV tuner, for one) promised during the machine's announcement? Would you tweak that trackpad at all? Add a little bulk in exchange for a beefier battery? Paint the whole thing fuschia and make it reek of week-old bananas? Feel free to get as crazy as you'd like in comments below; who knows, maybe Round Rock's tuning in to just see what you have to say.

Dell finally adds 720p LCD option to Inspiron Mini 10

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 30th 2009 at 5:55PM

So far as we can tell, Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 was supposed to have a 720p screen option from day one, but after the ridiculously weird launch, we're not at all shocked to see that said selection is just now being offered. Starting right about now, prospective Mini 10 buyers can upgrade that stock 1,024 x 576 display to one with a native 1,366 x 768 resolution, or plenty to watch bona fide 720p content. The pain? Just $35 -- but you'll have to keep waiting if you're looking for inbuilt GPS, a TV tuner or a certificate of authenticity autographed by this guy.

[Thanks, JC]

Dell revises Inspiron lineup, adds octuplet of color options

by Ross Miller, posted Mar 30th 2009 at 12:00PM

Dell's putting on the neon lights for its new line of Inspiron desktops, and as usual, customization's the key here. In addition to two body types -- slim (pictured) and mini tower -- there's eight different colors to choose from: Piano Black, Pure White, True Blue, Formula Red, Tangerine Orange, Spring Green, Plum Purple and Promise Pink. That last one's tied to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure program, which the company currently donates to for every Promise Pink laptop it sells. Processor options include Intel Celeron, Core 2 Duo, and Core 2 Quad, and AMD Sempron, Athlon X2 and Phenom X4. Other specs include six USB ports (two in front, four in back), up to 8GB RAM on select systems, integrated Intel graphics or ATI Radeon GPUs, and up to 750GB HDD for slims and 1TB for mini-towers. If you're currently in the market for a new PC, you might want to hold off just a tad longer. These new Inspirons are due out this Spring for US and China and start at $299 for the lowest of the low-end models.

Gallery: Dell revises Inspiron lineup, adds octuplet of color options

Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 dissected... in official service manuals

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 2nd 2009 at 8:22AM

Dell's all too elusive Inspiron Mini 10 is finally getting a bit more full frontal with us thanks to a fresh set of service manuals hosted up at the outfit's website. In the read link you'll find a Technology Guide, Service Manual, Setup Guide and Tech Sheet, all of which give you a closer, more intimate look at the one computer Dell decided to sell via QVC first. Curiously enough, this also means that Dell is the first to dissect its own machine, though these images aren't nearly as titillating as those sure to be hosted up soon by a curious early adopter.

[Via jkkmobile]

Dell's Inspiron 1410 spec bump is too mild to notice

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 1st 2009 at 3:42PM

Okay, so maybe the newest Inspiron 1410 internals are something to celebrate if you're really looking for low-end, but you'll be hard pressed to find a real tech enthusiast that's jazzed about a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T6400 processor within a 14-inch laptop. At any rate, the aforementioned machine has been juiced (we're being liberal here) with 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 14.1-inch WXGA display, 250GB of hard drive space, a DVD burner, Intel's GMA X3100 graphics, 802.11b/g WiFi and a sweet, colorful lid. Oddly enough, both the customize and buy links are currently dead, so it looks like you'll need some patience in order to buy one without talking to an actual human.

[Thanks, jediclinto]

Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 drops to a delicious $199

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 27th 2009 at 10:31AM

Been brushing the idea of a netbook off for months now? Let's see you ignore this. Hot on the heels of the Inspiron Mini 10 going on sale, Dell has lowered the barrier to entry on its marginally smaller Mini 9 to a rather amazing $199. For under two bills, you can now grab yourself an Obsidian Black 8.9-inch netbook with a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, WiFi, a 4-cell battery, GMA950 graphics, 512MB of RAM, a 4GB SSD and a copy of Ubuntu Linux. Of course, that price heads up a hundred bucks if you just can't live without Windows XP, but if there's ever been a time for learning how to deal within an open source environment, we'd say this is it. Good luck with that whole "resisting the temptation" thing.

[Via technabob]

Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 finally up for order, starts at $399

by Paul Miller, posted Feb 26th 2009 at 9:10AM

It's been a rocky road, paved with hardship and confusion, but Dell's finally ready to let us at its colorful collection of Inspiron Mini 10 netbooks -- at least the order page. You can (slightly) configure them to your hearts content, but any color outside of black comes with a $30 price premium. We upped a Mini 10 to "Jade Green" and threw in a 1.6GHz Z530 Atom processor (1.33GHz is standard) and ended up at $479, but there's no expanding beyond the 1GB of RAM or the 160GB HDD, as per the international netbook treaty. The order page is quoting a "preliminary ship date" of April 2nd, up from the March 31st we saw two days ago, so we hope that's just a rough estimate.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Gallery: Inspiron Mini 10 finally shows up at Dell's website

Inspiron Mini 10 finally shows up at Dell's website

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 20th 2009 at 9:43AM

In one of the most bizarre sequences of events we can recall, Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 has finally arrived on its maker's website. And this is after being briefly (and we stress "briefly") unveiled in a 3- x 3-foot cubical at CES, being impersonated at Tecso by the smaller Mini 9 and showing up early on QVC. Yeah, weird. At any rate, we knew that the Round Rock powerhouse was looking to offer this pup up for sale starting on the 26th, so we figure now is a perfect time to host up a holding place in order to get people informed. As we'd heard, it'll sport a 10.1-inch display, 802.11b/g WiFi, optional Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI out, an external DVD drive, upwards of 160GB of HDD space, 1GB of RAM, a keyboard that's 92 percent the size of a standard laptop (that's the same as on ASUS' Eee PC 1000HE, by the way), a multitouch trackpad, 720p media playback, optional WWAN, an internal TV tuner and your choice of a 3-cell (3 hours) or 6-cell (6.5 hours) battery. Yummy!

[Thanks, John]

Gallery: Inspiron Mini 10 finally shows up at Dell's website

Dell's Mini 12 dissected for your viewing pleasure

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 1st 2009 at 8:04AM

It's taken quite awhile for someone to gather up the courage to do it, but at long last, Dell's cutesy Mini 12 has been stripped of its dignity and dissected for the world to see. Honestly, there isn't much in this netbook that you haven't already seen in similar alternatives, but those unable to resist the allure of undressed gadgets will still want to give the read link a visit. Or two, depending on your level of self-restraint.