If I were to describe the Dell Insperion Mini 9 in one word? Small, diminutive, and tiny come to mind. I think Dell got it just about right with Mini, however. For me, miniature seems more appropriate.
I decided after hearing Andy Ihnatko rave about his Mini 9 hackintosh a few weeks ago on Macbreak that I needed one for myself. I have always wanted an Apple laptop (I’m not greedy, a unibody 13” Macbook would be great for me). But raising a family of 4, and soon to be 5, on one income is a challenge to say the least, and my wife would not hear of it. Besides, I already had a 15” cheapo Toshiba, right? After assuring her that I could make the hackintosh happen for what I could sell my old laptop for, she finally agreed not to kill me if I picked one up.
Now, it was actually a tough decision on which netbook to hackintosh. There are more than a few options out there right now for this project. After checking out the HP Mini 1000 series at Best Buy, I had all but decided that the HP was for me. Who needs sound or ethernet anyway? Two reasons helped me reach this crazy conclusion. One, they have it in stock at Best Buy. Second, the Dell, a far easier machine to install OSX on, was a three week wait. And I am not a very patient man.
Miracle of miracles, I found this little guy on craigslist the next day. Now, it wasn’t as loaded up as I would have liked, but I couldn’t really see myself needing a camera or bluetooth built in. Ok, that bluetooth part is a lie, as I can see myself wanting it down the road. The measly 4 gig SSD will need to go, and I will be ordering a 32 gig Runcore SSD tonight. And the 512mb or ram will turn into 2 gig by the end of the week. For now, I am leaving it as is so I can give everybody a good look at what a base model Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu Linux is all about.
The first thing that I would like to point out is that this thing is little. Have I said that yet? When it is closed, well, I have honestly cooked steaks bigger than this thing. It doesn’t weigh anything. It’s easy to handle. The lines are sleek, and it looks nice in the basic black. Everything is great.
The first thing you notice when you open it up is the fact that it looks like a Dell. Only things seem a little strange. The keyboard is missing something. Or a few something’s. Is that a trackpad, or what exactly is that? It is a bit recessed and textured, but actually part of the same plastic the body is made out of. While it is easy to accidentally hit the trackpad and your cursor ends up somewhere else, I have already adjusted to that. And forget dedicated function keys or a number pad. It’s all about small in here. As I type this, I am constantly hitting the enter key when I want to put an apostrophe somewhere. Turns out that key is now on the bottom row beside the left arrow key. But hey, the key is there, right? While the keys are pretty cramped for my fat fingers, I can still type pretty darn well on it. Also notable is the fact that the key reaction feels just as good as any full size laptop keyboard I have used. But you know what I just noticed? It has a windows key. How ironic, as this thing will never come close to running windows.
The screen looks pretty darn good. It is all of 8.9”, and while the 1024x600 resolution screen may not be perfect for watching HD video, that’s not exactly why you get this machine. As I sit typing this, it seems pretty nice. Of course, I have pretty good eyesight. For the time being of course.
Booting up for the first time brought me face to face with Linux for the first time. While I have heard the word Ubuntu many times, I never imagined I would ever be using it. My first thought was “Here I go again”. After going through no less than 8 operating systems on two platforms in my computing history, I guess I should have been more prepared. Seems like my last OS switch to OSX 10.5.whatever really helped me to get used to not having to constantly “fix stuff” on my computer. Or tweak settings. Or figure out what the darn MAC address is for the wireless card in the computer. I won’t insult the Linux community by trying to describe Ubuntu. It is pretty cool, but it takes a little time to get used to. It’s not nearly as polished as some OS’s, but it looks and feels good, and it’s kind of nice to get off of the Microsoft and Apple grid for a little while. All said and done, Ubuntu seems pretty darn solid. But that still doesn’t help me figure out what the MAC address is of the wireless card.
What is included on the OS is what is really cool. I have been singing the praises of open source software to my family for the past couple of years, and this is really helping me practice what I preach. Internet Explorer? Yeah, I don’t think so. Free trial of MS Office? Nada. This is Linux, baby! You get “Web Browser”, which is Firefox, and Open Office. While I am a Firefox evangelist, and I force everyone I know to use it, Open Office is a new experience for me. And you know what? It seems like the same thing as MS Office. Maybe a power user could tell the difference, but for the other 95% of us that just use it to type the occasional letter and make a spreadsheet to help us “balance the budget”, it is just great. Ubuntu comes with plenty of other software, having open source solutions for everything from games to photo editing. Dell also feels that it is necessary to put their own interface over the top of Ubuntu. Bad move Dell. While Ubuntu is not Windows XP, it isn’t that much different. A little time messing around and you will get the hang of it. And the Dell interface can be turned off. Thank goodness.
Digging inside, you will find an Intel Atom 1.6 ghz processor. Matched with 512mb of ram, it seems to sufficiently powered. This thing isn’t going to Handbrake your videos in real time, but do you really need that much power to run your web life? The ram is expandable to 2 gig, and the hard drive can currently be upgraded to 64 gig via Runcore, but that seems like it might be a little overkill for this thing. It has built in wireless, and it can include a webcam and bluetooth as well. It has 3 USB 2.0 ports, a multi card reader slot (SD-MS/Pro-MMC), ethernet, monitor output, mic and headphone jack. Pretty expandable, really. Should do more than most people will need, but very, very handy.
All in all, this is a pretty decent machine. I’m not going to lie to you, this keyboard is killing me right now. After all of this typing, I think my next reviews may be back on my Mac Mini (just got the irony myself). But if you need a little computer to do little tasks, this is a perfect little companion.
3 years ago
