ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Earlier this week I had alerted you to the imminent release of Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 their fray into the netbook market. Some of the early reviews are in and most have been very favorable. The base Dell Inspiron Mini 9 ships with the 1.6-GHz Intel Atom processor, and a tailored version of Ubuntu, starting out at $349 dollars. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 can be customized and built to order on the Dell website which includes having Windows XP installed, adding a larger hard drive and more memory. The introductory price with XP installed is around $399. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 has a glossy 8.9-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel resolution screen which will provide high quality viewing and can be configured with a webcam. Two speakers are located at the bottom of the screen. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9, features three USB 2.0, VGA, and Ethernet, as well as a headphone and a microphone jack. It also has a 4-in-1 memory card reader. According to the reviews the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 measures 9.1 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches and weighing just 2.3 pounds and is one of the lightest netbooks on the market. One of the factors to consider with the netbooks is that the keyboards are smaller which may not be that much of a problem for students but could be a hindrance for adults. From the pictures that I have seen the charging unit is on the small side which should not add much extra weight to the total package. It sports a 4 cell battery which should give users about 3 hours of use. Based on what I have read the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 could be an ideal netbook for students who need access to a computer that they can comfortably carry between home and school.