As you perhaps know from our previous reports, Dell has a new 10″ netbook in development. Things were looking very promising with a display and hardware supporting 720p video playback. Dell has now revealed specifications and official availability date. We have to say though, that the computer fails to deliver on parts promised back at CES, which will make it a lot harder for this netbook to stand out from the large crowd of already available netbooks.
On February 26 it will appear at Dell’s online shop. Black will be the default color, but (most likely) you can pay an extra cost to get it in white, pink, red, blue and green. For the heart of the netbook you can choose between two Intel Atom processors; Z520 or Z530. The difference is that the former operates at 1.33 GHz while the latter works at 1.66 GHz. With a 3 cell battery (delivering about 3 hours of battery time) it will weigh 1,3 kilo (2.87 lbs.), a bit high perhaps due to the 160GB mechanical harddrive.
Other specifications that are included: 1.3 megapixel web camera, 802.11g wireless network, 4-in-1 card reader. Another thing worth mentioning is that it only has one HDMI output for video out, which could be for better and for worse.
We said earlier that this Dell mini 10 doesn’t quite live up to expectations and this is mainly because of two things. The high resolution display seems to have been postponed and instead there will only be a regular display with 1024×576 resolution. This is the exact same as the rest of the bunch. The other big drawback, or non-existing advantage, is that the computer will initially (for how long is uncertain) will only be available with just 1 GB RAM, with no upgrade possibilities.
The recommended price will $399 with Windows XP pre-installed. Dell says that the high resolution display, and Ubuntu 8.04 will become available later on, but no estimated time was given and we can only hope that Dell will hurry, since this is the version most people was actually waiting for. Below is a video Dell has released:
