Dell undercuts Netbook competitors with the $299 Mini 10v
Dell has released a revamp of its Mini 10 Netbook, that "delivers on value," says the company. Accordingly, the new product's name is the Dell Mini 10v. Starting at $299, the Mini 10v is a bold shot across the bow of the competition, notably Acer's $349 Aspire One. We've seen talk of $199 or cheaper Netbooks bundled with mobile phone company contracts, but nothing this inexpensive as a stand-alone product.
The $299 base price Mini 10v includes An Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, a 3-cell battery, and Windows XP. That makes for a perfectly serviceable Netbook experience, and Dell's cost-cutting seems to revolve around replacing the Intel Atom Z520 and Z530 processors used it the previous Mini 10 systems with the more common N270 (which is found in virtually every other Netbook). Interestingly, you can swap in Ubuntu Linux instead of XP, but the cost is the same.
Trading up to a $350-399 system from HP, Acer, or others would get you a 160GB hard drive and a 6-cell battery, and Dell offers those as options as well (brining the total cost to $354). The base model is Obsidian Black, and other colors (Alpine White, Cherry Red, Promise Pink, Ice Blue, Jade Green,and Passion Purple) add $40.
According to Dell's online configurator, the preliminary ship date for the Mini 10v is June 2.
New York native Dan Ackerman, a former radio DJ turned journalist, has written about technology and music for publications including Spin, Blender, The Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today. He hosts the weekly Digital City podcast and the New York edition of Editors' Office Hours. Dan's new album, Tales Out of Night School, is available now. E-mail Dan. 
I'm glad to have the z530. It's more power efficient, with a lower TDP. What I'd like to see is n280 (1.66 GHz), z540 (1.86 GHz), and z550 (2 GHz) in netbooks. That would be quite a selling point.
If you compare specs of an aspire or asus head to head with dell or HP they are a MUCH better value. If cracking 300 is that important, than buy and earlier model asus. The 1000ha or something.
- by safemode55 October 20, 2009 2:06 PM PDT
- Can you upgrade the RAM memory to 2 gig easily or not?.
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