while LG, HP, SamSung and Sony were out to get a chunk of the popular NetBook market dominated by Asus in 2008, Dell introduced its Inspiron Mini 12 in November with welcome results . light-weight but carrying a larger screen than your normal NetBook, it is a wonder to hold and see through the thin-ness of this machine-in-guise .

  

    • Glossy 12.1″ WXGA 1280 x 800 pixel
    • Intel Atom Z520 1.33GHz, or Z530 1.60GHz
    • 1GB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM on-board Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500
    • 80GB 4200 RPM Hard Disk
    • 802.11g Wi-Fi mini-card
    • BlueTooth Internal 2.0 mini-card
    • 3 USB 2.0 slots
    • 3-in-1 Media Card Reader
    • Standard 1.3MP webcam
    • mono speaker
    • 3-cell 24WHr, or 6-cell 48WHr Li-Ion Battery
    • Windows Vista Home
    • 299 x 229 x 27.61mm 1.236kg

 

RAM upgrade is impossible on this machine for it is embedded into the CPU . so you might want to use a program like eBoostr that uses USB or SD Card as part of its own memory . add to this a miniscule Hard Disk space and you’ve got a pretty limited operation . in South Korea the Z520 version in white is sold at independent stores while the tad-faster Z530 in glossy black is ordered through Dell’s Korean site, where it normally takes about 1~2 weeks to arrive on your doorsteps, assembled in China .

Z520 users have complained of normal movies barely running so better get the Z530, and further downgrade to Windows XP . the Windows 7 beta will have the looks of Vista and speed of XP . no complaints on this thin, light-weight wonder, but if we had more power ..