Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Reviewed: Refining the Netbook Market

Expansion: More than a MacBook Air

Even today, whenever I pull out my MacBook Air I still get people amazed at how small it is, but it's the thinness that gets them - the footprint of the notebook is no different than your standard MacBook. Hold a netbook up to it and the MacBook Air starts to look rather large:

Apple MacBook Air (on bottom) vs. Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (on top)

You give up the thin profile of the Air, but you get something that's more comfortable to carry around (despite being more of a pain to type on). A side effect of the thicker chassis is that there's actually room for some expansion on the Mini. You get three USB ports, a 4-in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC/MMC/MS), VGA out and built in 10/100 Ethernet.

Unfortunately there's no room for an optical drive, and while Dell offers an external one you're better off saving the money and using the network or USB drives to get data on/off the machine. The hardware is fast enough to watch DVDs, but there's no hardware H.264 acceleration so most high resolution/high bitrate HD content (720p/1080p) is out of the question.

Below is a quick spec comparison between the Eee PC 901 and the Inspiron Mini, as well as the MacBook Air just for kicks.