Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 is a very promising netbook. It's part of the new generation with an Intel N450 processor. One of the biggest selling features of this processor/chipset combination is improved battery life of the older N270/280 CPU and the Mini 10 does deliver excellent battery life in real world testing.

The Mini 10 can be ordered in six different colours. We tested the glossy black version and the first thing we noticed was that the shiny finish showed fingerprints at the slightest touch. The same can be said for the bezel around the 10 inch display.
One of the things that separates the Mini 10 from other netbooks is the unusual body. The screen section is smaller than the main body giving it a distinctive profile when the lid is closed.

Ports and Connections

The USB ports are positioned sensibly. The two ports on the left side are far enough apart to allow chunky memory sticks or USB 3G modems to be used without blocking the adjacent port. The VGA D-SUB port is also on the left side.
A third USB port is on the right side along with a pair of 3.5mm sockets for a microphone and headphones or external speakers. The ethernet port rounds off the wired connectivity options.
Wireless is covered with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth. Windows 7 makes establishing connections easy enough although we were surprised with WIndows 7 warning us that our Bluetooth wasn't discoverable. Typically, Bluetooth is kept "invisible" for security reasons.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Mini 10's keyboard was comfortable to use although the keys weren't as "clicky" as we like. However, that's a persoanl preference. We always recommend trying before buying of possible as keyboard feel is objective.

On the other hand, the touchpad is definitely poor. While others bemoan the lack of distinct buttons on the trackpad, this isn't a big deal for us. We just found that it was imprecise and it was very easy to accidentally tap the touchpad while typing causing the cursor to jump.

Display

The Mini 10 we tested came with a glossy 1020 by 600 screen. However, Dell is planning an optional upgrade to 1366 by 768. In other words, it'll be able to handle 720p HD video without any scaling.

Like the rest of the casing, the Mini 10's screen retained fingerprints at the slightest touch.

Real World Test

Windows 7 Starter Edition is a good choice for netbooks as it's able to work well with the 1GB of memory that the Mini 10 ships with. Boot up time from a cold start didn't leave us waiting for long. It also handles suspend/resume smoothly so we didn't have to go through the entire reboot cycle every time.

Once we were up and running applications launched swiftly. The Mini 10 ships with Microsoft Works - the Seattle Motheership's entry level productivity suite. While the apps look like their Office equivalents from a generation or two ago, they support the latest Office file formats. Although they aren't feature equivalent with their Office 2007 brothers, they're good enough for reading and editing most documents.

Battery life was impressive. After a couple of hours of typing, web browsing and email retrieval over WiFi, the battery meter recorded a loss of a mere 30% of the total battery life. Even after four hours, the Mini 10 boasted that there would be sill five more hours of charge. A full battery rundown, playing a video back in fullscreen with WiFi and Bluetooth on and the display at maximum brightness ran for 5 hours. That's an outstanding result and indicates that a day of browsing, email and other regular work will be well within the Mini 10's capability.

Video playback from YouTube performed as expected. Standard definition movies were fine but HD movies were unwatchable. However, locally stored HD movies in Micosoft's WMV format played back without any hassles. We had samples in both 720p and 1080p and we watched both without any stutters or other hassles.

Specifications

• New Intel Atom N450 processor at 1.66 GHz
• 10.1-inch display with standard (1024x600) or High Definition (1366x768) option
• Built-in speakers with available SRS Surround sound
• HDTV tuner and location-aware GPS configurations options 
• Bundles with Broadcom Crystal HD for smooth HD playback coming in Q1
• Built-in 802.11 b/g wireless with available Bluetooth and Mobile Broadband
• 1GB DDR2 memory at 800MHz
• 160GB or 250GB hard disk drive storage
• Choice of 3 or 6-cell integrated battery with up to 9.5 hours of battery life (Inspiron Mini 10 mobility bundle only). 
• Choice of Windows 7 Starter, Windows XP Home or Ubuntu operating system options
• Lightweight: Starting at about 2.75 - 3.1 pounds with a 3-cell battery

By Anthony Caruana