$199 notebook

I haven't purchased one yet, but they seem to be pretty good "Dell" quality in comparison to the Acer model and a few other micro-laptops.

Sams has the Mini-9 with 8GB and 1GB RAM for $249 with free shipping.

http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/naviga ... tem=425662

Also, Dell is coming out with the Mini-10

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... nspiron-10


My original plan on our CD22 was to purchase 2 of the Mini-9 and use one as the backup/internet/tv/etc -- but for now I plan on using my Inspiron 9300 with a remote monitor.

Looking at the Dell Mini-9 at Best Buy -- I was impressed.
 
I've got one and love it. So does Bill (Da Nag). It boots up in about 22 seconds from a cold start (I run XP SP3). I bought a mini 80GB external 1.8" hard drive for extra storage, the internal solid state HD is only 16GB but even with MS Office and lots of other stuff there, I still have 5GB left for storage.

The built in camera is great too...

Charlie
 
We picked up the Acer Aspire One a month ago and we love it. PC Magazine rated it the best of the "mini's" and at least at the time it had one of the largest hard drives and the most options for memory sticks. Ours came with XP. It has a built in web cam and microphone that I have used for synchronous meetings.
 
Our trusty old Averratec laptop that Patty had sitting on the counter to get substitute teaching jobs on Sub Online crapped out (what's up with that, I expected it to last a little longer than 6 years!), so we needed something else. We got an Acer Netbook with 8 gb solid state drive and two 8 gb SD cards, I also have a 250 gb Western Digital Passport external USB drive for that is barely bigger than a deck of cards for documents, music and pix, so storage is a non-issue. I would have preferred a Dell Mini but when I was looking, I didn't find any buys nearly as good as those above. Fry's had the Acer Netbook for $299, so we just ran down to Renton and picked one up. I guess a few bucks over time is not a huge deal, the price difference doesn't amout to one good dinner out, and the Acer has performed great so far. The one big plus to Dell over Acer apparently is battery life - Acer only goes for about 2 hours, I heard Bill saying the Dell got what, 4 hours?

It came with XP Home, and the next task was to get a decent OS installed, but the Acer Netbook (and the Dell Mini as well) lack a CD drive. Ubuntu however comes with a really neat little system tool to make a jump drive bootable (of course you need Ubuntu installed on a desktop or laptop with a CD/DVD drive to use it) - you stick an Ubuntu installation CD in the slot, stick a jump drive in a USB port, fire up the tool, and in a few minutes, it has formatted your jump drive, made it bootable, and copied the installation files over. Modern computers (last five years or so I hear) have BIOS settings to boot from a USB drive, the Acer actually has F12 set to select a boot menu. So I booted from my jump drive into the live session (the live session runs a LOT faster from the jump drive than from a CD, so this is a great way to try Ubuntu out), hit the "Install" icon on the desktop, and we had the Acer booting Ubuntu from the SSD shortly. Everything worked out of the box except the wireless connection. So Googled "Ubuntu 8.10 Acer Netbook wireless" and up popped a couple of articles on the easy fix to get wireless working, plus a few other useful tweaks.

So all in all, I can say if you miss a great deal on the Dell Mini, you should not be afraid to get an Acer Netbook.

 
Well, up until today, I loved my Dell Mini-9. The 16GB solid state hard drive just gave up the ghost... finally got through to the India parts guys/gals and after a few dropped calls, find that the only replacement HD is a refurbished one (my computer was originally refurbished) that costs $174.99. that's nearly as much as I paid originally!

I have an external USB HD that is 80G that I'll use for awhile, probably go with another, newer mini in awhile. I use it all over the house, have really gotten to depend on it.

I know others have gotten the mini, any of you have problems?

Charlie
 
I recommended the thumb drive b/c it is smaller and more portable
Either way you need a bootable XP disk and an optical drive or
a bootable thumbdrive, Nero or other disk utilities
You can install a Linux based OS instead of XP and they are versions off the shelf bootable from CD/DVD, or open it up and determine the SSD HD specs and find on eBay with the OS already installed

How did you determine the SSD hard drive was at fault was my first thought?
What error message was posted? Missing NTDLR? just plain dead in the water, BIOS error, ??
 
FWIIW
At home, we have whole house and 100' perimeter WiFi coverage. I use my iTouch more for email, surfing, notetaking, vehicle logs, shopping list, checking weather and stocks,text messages, watching movies, listening to music and audiobooks (just completed Bob Dylan's book), etc than the HP mini netbook amd it fits in my pocket
I use Google Docs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and now online any type of file storage
 
Brent":39exnt5i said:
I recommended the thumb drive b/c it is smaller and more portable
Either way you need a bootable XP disk and an optical drive or
a bootable thumbdrive, Nero or other disk utilities
You can install a Linux based OS instead of XP and they are versions off the shelf bootable from CD/DVD, or open it up and determine the SSD HD specs and find on eBay with the OS already installed

How did you determine the SSD hard drive was at fault was my first thought?
What error message was posted? Missing NTDLR? just plain dead in the water, BIOS error, ??
Click to expand...

It says "SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0 STEC PATA 16GB PM" and then warns me to back up data immediately before it fails..

Too late. It failed.

I've got an original XP PRO installation disk. Will try to get that on the new 80G external HD. Probably not worth it though, don't want to go around with a mini with an external HD hanging on it, no matter how small it is (which it is, cig pack size and USB powered). I think I'll just take this pig down to the creek and see if it floats...!

Charlie
 
I think SMART is disabled in my brain! After MUCH looking on the internet, I found a new replacement for my SSD at Amazon which says it's a drop in replacement for the one in the MINI 9. Less than half as much as DELL wanted for a "refurbished" replacement. I've ordered that and will put it in. They really are tiny!

After I get it up and running, I'll back the whole SSD up to a thumb drive periodically. I know how to get it to boot from an external device, so that'll be my fallback if this one fails...

Thanks for the help Brent, you must sit at your computer as much as I do. I work here at home and always have two laptops on line, one for fun and the other for work!

Charlie
 
Yes I do
I cant do any work and reporting without one
I have 2 PCs at work for business plus the ITouch but a slew of others for dedicated tasks plus provide live tech support in-house and work with the off-site support teams which saves us time and money and the off site guys travel time

At work, they call me Computer Bob
:lol:
Dont understand it and I like my name
 
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