From an unknown source, but it looks good to me! A lttle high on price perhaps but that Dell brand-value will carry them through i’m sure.

Full specifications in the portal.

Update: Dell Mini 9 microsite is now live. (U.S.)

Update 2: Its all official now.

You may recall the leaked spec sheets and rumored August 22nd release date that popped up a few weeks ago. Well August is now over and Gizmodo is reporting a new release date. September 5th, this Friday. With no info on the source and the note that this release date is not "concrete", this could be just as wrong as the previously rumored date. Luckily time is on our side and one way or another, we’ll get to September 5th and find out whether this is true or not. No word yet on pricing, but let’s all hope the Inspiron 910 hits the $300 target price. 

Spotted by a reader over at Eee PC news, this looks like a report about the official specifications of the Dell E which the site is referring to as the Dell Inspiron 910. New information in the post includes 3G options at purchase time and also confirms the lack of Fn-Key row which many people in the target audience won’t miss.

As is par for the course on these info leaks, there’s no final price or availability date and in this case, no source quoted.  I’ve updated the database with the latest details. If anyone can read Portuguese and spots something that Google translator didn’t, let me know!!

I’ve just bought a new Dell desktop. Why? Because it was easy and comfortable to order it from the website. Its a brand I trust well enough and I didn’t want to spend any time researching a purchase. The same is going to happen, possibly millions of times, with this netbook.

Source odontopalm.com (Brazilian translation)
Via: Eeepcnews.de Thanks Sascha.

One of the stories appearing last week that deserves a little bit of attention  is the news via Engadget (unknown source) that the Dell E will come in both 8.9 and 12" configurations. The 8.9" device is marked up as as a Mobile Internet Device due to it fitting into  Dell’s 30-minute Web experience pigeonhole.

We love multiple definitions of the same term here. It really helps the customers…not!

It will be Atom Diamondville based, come with a fairly standard-set of netbook features (multiple SSD options, colors, Linux and XP options, BT on high-end model) but will have two interesting features. Firstly, Dell will aim to make a V1.5 with 3G or Wimax for some markets. Secondly, they will build it around a 35wh battery which is nearly 50% more than the one you’ll find on a Wind and could return over 4 hours. A real ASUS EeePC 901 competitor in terms of battery life. Target weight is 1KG with dimensions around the 230x170x30mm mark. About the same size as the Eee PC 901. Maybe a tad thinner.

Target launch date is August at a starting price of $299 with the V1.5 models coming along in Oct. Penciled in for Q2 2009 is V2.0 but there’s no information about that yet.

No doubt there’s a heavy element of marketing included in this product so expect to see it advertised everywhere in the run up to Christmas!

Source: Engadget.

More details and links for the Dell E here.

Engagdet got a nice little present yesterday – details on the Dell ‘E’ PC. Very interesting specs, a large standard battery and a range of SSD configurations. It hardly looks like its for ‘developing countries’ though! More the Eee PC killer methinks. There are going to be three versions of the 8.9" version, all with different SSD sizes and with the possibility of a webcam and Bluetooth. Prices will start at $299 and the launch target is, as we heard before, August.

This will certainly compete well with the HP, Acer, ASUS, MSI and ECS and if battery life and mobility is your concern, it looks like one of the better choices.

We’ve entered all the details in the product database and will be adding links and information as we get it. For a quick comparison of all 16 of the 8.9" netbooks in our database, click here.

Thanks JKK for the heads-up. Engadget have more pics and some interesting comments.

That apple-red Dell netbook you may have spotted a few weeks ago is expected to be hitting the market in August, but its keyboard will be lacking a dedicated row of F-keys. For certain users this is nearly preposterous. However for some, such as myself, it isn’t that big of a deal. I personally could live without a dedicated row of function keys. I don’t use them frequently enough to justify a whole separate row. That being said, they should still be accessible through a modifier key which at this time APCmag is saying that is not the case.

It’s true that the alpha keys are all of a good size, although others are noticeably slim, and the function keys have been dropped altogether: the Fn modifier activates hardware-related shortcuts mapped onto the keyboard, with no facility to call up the usual F1-F12 keys. [my emphasis]

It’s one thing to remove the row of keys entirely, but not providing a way to press them at all is a peculiar decision on Dell’s part. It may have something to do with the target audience. While tech enthusiasts will inevitably end up buying the Dell netbook if it turns out to be a quality product, Dell says it is targeted toward students and first time computer users. If Dell’s audience for this netbook is truly first time computer users, removal of the row of function keys makes a bit more sense. First time computer users are certainly not acquainted to keyboard shortcuts and only a small percentage would make use of them. So why not remove these keys and be able to make the rest of the keys more finger friendly? Sounds logical to me at least.

The yet to be named 9″ Dell netbook is predicted to feature Intel’s Atom, and knowing Dell, XP and Ubuntu will most likely be choices for the OS. Specs have not been announced yet but Dell says they will bring the product to market “…later this summer”, expect to specs in the next few weeks.

What is everyone’s opinion on big companies (HP , Sony, Dell) getting into the netbook explosion?

Update. New Pics and a few lines of confirmation in a Dell blog

Spotted by Gizmodo at the ‘D’ conference, Mr Dell and his mini notebook.

Very little information was given by Michael Dell to Gizmodo when they, apparently, bumped into him at the All Things Digital conference. Apparently it’s for developing countries but it looks a bit too shiny for that.

The smart money is on an 8.9″ screen, Atom and the usual set of mininote specs. Modified image below shows the screen frame and web cam. Battery design looks like a 4-cell job. I guess we’ll hear more about this very soon. All images and story from Gizmodo

Read the full story

I really do hate using question marks at the end of titles. Its a sign of doubt and that’s not what a blogger should be presenting to the readers. However….this one really is a question mark and worth discussing.

As usual, its a two-liner in an article about more general ‘computing’ subjects. This time its from Forbes who have just run an article on Michael Dell’s return to Dell. Credit also to Gizmodo who have picked up on it in their blog.

Dell and Quanta are rumored to be cooking up a smart phone together, the first real production from Ron Garriques and company. It would likely include video, an MP3 player and Internet access and be unleashed on the world early next year. Officially, there’s no comment on this product.

Internet, video, audio. All sounds good. But then there’s the ‘smart phone’ part.

When you say ‘smart phone’, ‘video’, ‘mp3’ and ‘Internet’ you’re usually saying ‘3 inch screen with style and pocketability’ and not only is that a tough market to succeed in now but if you want to talk about real Internet and advanced video for 2008 customers, you have to do some seriously advanced hardware and software engineering. The only way to get the right screen and thumboard size is to drop the keyboard behind the screen via a slider (N810 – I love that design!) or clamshell (Psion 5 – I love that design!), or have it as a touchscreen element as Apple have done. Then, you have to tackle the problem of the processor requirement by putting in a fast processor and/or developing extremely efficient code. Add an HSDPA modem, some storage, wifi, BT and the now obligatory GPS (my Wife is seriously getting into her HTC Trinity’s GPS) you have a big battery life, size and heat issue that really, no-one has solved yet. The N810 and iPhone are very close but they lack the final 3G component, some more software and that little bit of extra speed that is needed to make them ready for a 2008 customer.

Either Dell are looking at a new platform (Snapdragon, Menlow, Mobile-ITX?) some very specialist code (Android?) or they’ve basically thrown a few buzzwords together to get suckers like me to spread the word. I fear the later!