DELL mini 9 netbook

I bought and installed my first netbook for a DELL mini 9 netbook for a customer recently and I was not impressed. It seems to me that these netbooks are a bit of a fashion item especially for the young and not an effective IT appliance at all.

This was the more expensive Windows XP model with 16Gb solidstate disk drive. It took an age to install Windows not it and I had to use an old external CD writer drive to install additional application software. The 9" screen is too small for me to see properly so you either have to bend over to look at it when it is on your desk or hold it one hand and peck at with the other instead of resting it on your lap. The processors (Intel Atom N270) seems quite slow and it becomes warm to the touch underneath after a while.

My other concern is they quickly get expensive. I see that you can get a similar hardware spec Acer Aspire One running Linux lite for just over £160 and this is probably worth the money. But if you want Windows, extra data storage and a 10" or 12" screen the prices quickly rise to well over £300. For this money you can begin to get a proper laptop with larger screen, hard and optical disk drives, etc.

I think that I'll pass on these for now.