back to article Dell Inspiron Mini 10v netbook

In the 18 months since Asus rocked up with its Eee PC 701 and kicked off the whole netbook malarkey, we've seen the number and types of devices that are nominally included in the category expand almost exponentially. As Ms Streisand so appositely noted, it was all so simple then. Dell Inspiron Mini 10v Dell's Inspiron Mini …

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  1. Nigel Wright

    As a Mini 9 user...

    I was interested in this, but the loss of screen real estate and the diffiulty with upgrading the RAM makes it a no-go for me. It doesn't seem to popular with the community either.

    See here for more details: http://www.ubuntumini.com/2009/06/what-was-dell-thinking-with-mini-10v.html

    Good price mind :-)

  2. Neill Mitchell

    No SSD as far as I can see

    Just been on Dell's UK site. When I go to customise the 10v it is listed with a 160GB 5400rpm SATA drive "included in price". No SSD option is listed.

    Still, it is still a nice machine.

  3. ratbert
    FAIL

    Battery life

    I liked the look of this review - i'm tempted to get one for my g/f - until i got to the battery life comparisons. The 10v has a battery pack upgrade while all of the other netbooks compared in the graph have standard batteries.

    Update the graph to level the playing field or get rid of it.

  4. K
    Thumb Up

    These rock!

    I bought one of these to use as a media streaming server, they're rock solid pieces of kit and feel very high quality. The only thing that lets it down is the track pad which have integrated buttons and can pressing one of them can cause the cursor to go flying off - But given the price, I think dell have done an absolutely superb job.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    TV screen

    "Exactly why Dell has eschewed the more normal 1024 x 600 – the 10v's perfect 16:9 ratio notwithstanding - is anyone's guess"

    Its a Manufactured as a TV Screen not a computer Screen Hence (no Patent Fees!) has TV dimensions and as its mass produced so cheaper...

  6. Andy 97
    Thumb Up

    Looks fine

    Hmm, looking to upgrade my eee right now.

    Looks like a good option.

  7. Dr Richard
    Thumb Up

    oooh green ...

    I like the green one but my bet is that 'er indoors would want a brown one which does not appear in the piccy as a choice 8-(

    Good price ... actually excellent price considering the price hikes on SCCs for the last year.

    And being Dell kit it is probably very easy to Hackintosh it .. although loss of pixels is annoying.

    My Acer Aspire One with SSD still looks good though and very functional ... not as nice as my new shiny Macbook Pro 13" though but slightly more portable and 700 quid cheaper 8-)

  8. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    No SSD in The Netherlands either

    What are they thinking at Dell?

  9. Neil 47

    Ubuntu version has SSD as standard

    @ Neill Mitchell :

    On Dell's UK site the Ubuntu version has the 8GB SSD as standard, with the option of upgrading to a 16GB SSD or either a 120GB or 160GB HD. The XP only has the 160GB HD available.

    Regarding the screen resolution, on www.mydellmini.com, there's talk of people receiving the 10v with a 1024x600 screen recently, even though the website still has it listed as 1024x576.

  10. Scott Mckenzie

    Mini 9

    Is still available in the Outlet store... priced at £150.

    Much better machine :-) Oh and you can run OS X on it too :-)

  11. northern monkey
    Thumb Up

    I like mine...

    ...but took off the dell desktop thing and replaced it with the proper ubuntu UNR desktop thing which in my opinion is a lot smooth and a lot more useful. With a few tweaks you can minimise firefox's screen hogging habits (not just by using F11!). I'll upgrade to 9.04 when I can be bothered/when I need to.

    When I bought SSD was an option (the standard) but I opted to stick in a proper hard-drive just because I need the space.

    All in all it's a pretty good example of what an SCC should be!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    No SSD in Aus...no 10v either!

    This was looking interesting as the Sammy NC120 didn't get the best of reviews anywhere but the 10v doesn't seem to available Down Under.

  13. James McGregor
    Coat

    "After all, what's 24 pixels between friends?"

    Since that screen resolution is 1024 x 576 instead of 1024 x 600, that's actually 1024 x 24 of goodly pixel action you're missing out on. Of course, determining whether 24,576 pixels between friends is a possible issue is rather less easy to quantify.

    Mine's the one with the TI-92 Plus Graphing Calculator with the 240 x 128 pixel screen in the pocket ...

  14. Big Bear

    RE: TV Screen

    AC, would you happen to have the part number of this screen available? I’ve busted a 10.6 inch Vaio subnotebook screen and can’t be bothered spanking £250 for a replacement, and would be happy to downgrade from the 1280x768 part to one with lower resolution to get the thing up and running… even with gaffer tape around the screen for the 0.5 inch drop in size…

  15. spittenkittens
    FAIL

    Dell Mini 10v=JUNK

    What a poor review ! You failed as most do about the short comings off this pathetic pile of junk thats supposed to be a netbook. Did you not notice there are no leds? or that you have to push the power button 3 or 4 times to turn it on. I bought one and returned it the next day After 11 transfers with Dell crappy support team. I hard a hard time getting a usb flash drive in and it felt like something would break. The lan cable just falls out,it works fine on other computers. I unlocked both battery locks but could not get the battery out almost ripping my fingernail out. Because there are no leds the cap indicator is a crappy looking poorly made software icon. What happens when you change OS"s and you have no led to let you know its on. This netbook is not up to snuff or even close. There is no comparison in quality between the ACER ONE D150 AND the dell mini 10v.

    If the acer one is a 10 the dell mini 10v is a -5. Save your money and look elsewhere you will be happy you did.

  16. NogginTheNog
    FAIL

    Close, but no cigar...

    I've been scouring the small netbook/laptop myself recently as I need a second machine, something portable and easy to cart around (which rules out all the bottom end "true" laptops as they all seem to think that 15" screens are what everyone longs for!).

    I was close to getting one of these, until I did some preparatory research on memory upgrades, and discovered that the 1GB you get is the limit that the device will take! Sorry, but I'm looking for something I might keep for a good few years: no upgradability = no sale :-(

  17. Neill Mitchell

    No SSD version in the UK?

    @By Neil 47 Posted Monday 29th June 2009 13:14 GMT

    @ Neill Mitchell :

    On Dell's UK site the Ubuntu version has the 8GB SSD as standard, with the option of upgrading to a 16GB SSD or either a 120GB or 160GB HD. The XP only has the 160GB HD available.

    Hmm. I can't see the Ubuntu SSD version on the UK Dell site. The 10v is listed as an XP machine.

  18. Neil 47
    Thumb Up

    SSD definitely in the UK, and RAM can be upgraded

    @ Neill Mitchell

    The SSD is definitely listed at:

    http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/Laptops/laptop-inspiron-10/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-inspiron-10&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

    Are you sure you're not looking at the 10 instead of the 10v? Daft naming convention, if you ask me. If you go in to customise the 10v and the select hard drive button, it shows the storage upgrades (16GB SSD, etc.).

    @ NogginTheNog The 10 is limited to 1GB (I think it's soldered to either the motherboard or the processor daughterboard), whereas the 10v has the RAM in a socket. The only drawback is that you have to disassemble the whole machine to install more RAM. Putting a trapdoor in the base of the machine would obviously been too easy for the Dell designers.

    I don't want to sound like I work for Dell - it's just that I've been looking for a netbook for a while, and was getting fed up with the increasing prices from the likes of Acer, Asus, etc. The 10v looks like a decent price - they had £20 off it a few days ago, and if you use Quidco you can get even more discount.

  19. Al Taylor
    Alert

    @spittenkittens / UK ordering

    We did mention the fact that the only LED is the power-on light. The light works now with Ubuntu 9.04 as it did out of the box with 8.04 though clearly we can't comment about a machine that for example has XP swapped out for another OS. Addressing your other issues, our 10v powers up at a touch of the button with no problems whatsoever. Similarly USB sticks and SD cards slide in and out with no problem. We do actually test this stuff - we stuck USB sticks in all three ports to make sure they were working as God intended, hooked up the VGA port to an external monitor etc. If we had come across a problem - like the SD card jutting half way out - we would have mentioned it. Finally the battery clips on our machine work just fine as does the LAN socket. Again, had we come across a problem, we would have noted it in the review.

    I'm not for a moment disputing your claims, but we can only review a device as it is supplied to us.

    The 10v has now replaced my Aspire One as my own day-to-day netbook and do I miss the AA1's status LEDs? To be honest no.

    In regards to ordering, I am looking at the Dell UK order page:

    http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/Laptops/laptop-inspiron-10/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-inspiron-10&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

    right now, and it lists three model 10s - the 10v Linux, 10v XP and 10 XP.

  20. Peter 44

    Like for like comparison

    @ratbert

    @spittenkittens

    Like many I'm after a sub-£200 netbook, but a like for like comparison with an Asus 1000HE brings the Dell up to £361 compared with £305 for the Asus (at Amazon). Perhaps I need to change my plan and spend £100 more and get a better spec'ed netbook?

  21. spittenkittens

    Dell Mini 10v=JUNK

    I have read several reviews about the dell mini 10v before I ordered it and not one said anything about the missing leds considered standard on any notebook or netbook. It is my opinion that dell cut every corner they could to make this netbook. I have read other people having problems with the power switch. Yes the dell is pretty compared to the acer one and does have a better keyboard but thats where the compassion ends in my mind. Xp probably cant even use the 1gb ram included but if you a different os that can use my ram you have to void the warranty ( im not sure but I would almost bet money it would.) Maybe mine was a lemon but it should not of left the factory and if you have ever delt with dell they are the absolute worst unless you have a business machine.

    I felled to mention my 10v crashed constantly even after I flashed the new bios and there where 2 new bios update already meaning it was not ready to be sold.

    I didnt mean to offend anyone but at least some reviews are more impressed with looks than function and Its a waste of time because there short on the facts. I like the the lan switch and light on the acer one . Not having the leds would be a deal breaker for me, some people like you dont care but its nice to now.The acer one has both a larger hdd and a larger battery capacity. I would be interested in seeing some more benchmarks. They are basically the same inside so they should have the same numbers.

  22. spittenkittens

    @ratbert

    I have only looked at a couple of these netbooks so its hard to compare plus I am from the U.S so im not sure about pounds. I spent $329. for the acer one with free shipping and $300. plus $8.00 for the Dell 10v, but the acer has much better specs for the extra $21.00 dollars.If you can buy from Amazon the then compare the Asus and also the Samsung nc10. Too me the most important issues are hhd size and battery size and I would assume they have normal Led indicators for keyboard functions. Sometimes spending a little extra money is worth it. When I got my acer I called tech support about a questions and I got through in a couple minutes and they were very helpful.

    When I call dell I am always transferred numerous times and they a very unhelpful.

    The Asus looks good and I would buy it if I had the extra money.

  23. tempemeaty
    FAIL

    It's a graphics world now...

    Intel Video chipset...uhhhh...no.

  24. David Gosnell
    Gates Horns

    Famous last words

    The Linux version appears now to have vanished without a trace from Dell UK's site.

    Arm-twisting from the beast of Redmond?

  25. David Gosnell

    OK, it's back on the Dell site now

    They do hide it rather though....

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