Netbook review Dell Mini 9

A few summers ago I made the decision that I wanted to buy a new computer. I went back and forth and eventually decided on a laptop that I could game on. After a few months, and a lot of gaming, I was looking in a different direction. For one, upgrading certain components in a laptop is difficult at best (video card, processor etc.), not to mention the laptop wasn’t as portable as I wanted it to be. Eventually I swung back on my decision of “I’ll just have one kick ass laptop,” and went towards having a really good desktop PC and some laptop that is good for work. After some research I came upon the Dell Mini 9 micro PC. Six months later and I couldn’t be happier with my decision to buy one.

PLEASE NOTE: THE MINI 9 HAD BEEN DISCONTINUED!!!! DELL IS NO LONGER SHIPPING THESE. However the Mini 10v is its replacement offering a slightly larger screen, and standard or SSD drive options for the same price.

Dell Mini 9 (Shipped with Windows XP)
Cost: $300 (estimated)

Pros:

Size Matters: First of all the size is a huge plus. At my job I have to constantly be moving to test equipment. The Mini allows me to keep portable without having to lug anything heavy around. Since the screen is smaller you also get the benefit of an increased battery life (the Mini 9 ships with a 4 cell battery).

Simple is good: The designers of the Mini 9 didn’t try to make it the end all for your PC needs. VGA, USB, Micro SD card, and Network, are all you really need to get around in the work/travel environment. The Mini is not a computer that you expect to render video on, or be a major gaming platform and the designers kept it simple.

A dream for modifications: Keeping in mind this is just a laptop so you cannot upgrade/mod everything, the Mini 9 does offer you a lot possibilities. SSD, Wireless, and RAM are all instantly accessible. With a larger SSD you could conceivably run Vista fine. Moreover you can install OSX with NO compatibility issues. As I type this my summer plan is to up my SSD to 64gb, install OSX and dual run that and Windows 7… kinda nice to be able to have a MAC for under $1000

Solid State Drive: Yeah, you can purchase and SSD without a Mini, but they are pretty awesome. The stock SSD is OK (The optimal SSD to get is by RunCore) in terms of read and write speed as a firm user of 7200 RPM disks I would say the stock SSD gets a slight nudge in speed. With a RunCore SSD it is easily twice as fast as a 7200 RPM disk.



Cons:

RAM Expansion slots are limited: I guess for a space saving measure Dell choose to only to have one expansion slot which limits you to 2 Gb of ram. I would strongly recommend going with 2 Gb as soon as you get it to avoid slowdown.

Keyboard: You will definitely take some time getting used to the cramped keyboard. You also should know that for whatever reason Dell decided to remap some of the keys (the function keys are in the middle of the keyboard). While this is not a huge deal to adjust to, there are just some keys that feel out of place.

CD drive: While I am not a person that uses a lot of CDs and DVDs, but not having one in the chasis can sometimes be a pain. You can solve this with a $40 external, but again some people just cannot fathom the concept of not having a CD drive pre-installed.
Solid State Drive: While it is a definite positive, you do need some time getting used to your computer making NO noise at all when you are opening files/programs. Slowly you begin to decent into a paranoid state of “Did I click that?” all the time.

Overall if you are looking for portable computing because you travel or want something small for class, the MINI series by DELL is a definite first choice in terms of netbook computing.

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Here are a few pics:

Next to a CD for some scale.







Lid open, ready to go.

Here is the underside showing RAM, SSD and Wireless card.

Solutions for Capturing Video

Recently at my job I have had a string of people coming by asking for a DVD to edit media solution. There are a lot of students that use Mini DV tapes to record things, then have the tapes transferred to a DVD. The problem is that they reuse the DV tapes. At the end of the semester they have to put together a final DVD of all of their tapes. Therein lies the problem; how can you rip from a DVD into an editable format? While there are a myriad of long solutions (DVDx, handbrake etc., Pinnacle Media Systems has come up with a couple of great solutions that are worth the investment.




First we have the Pinnacle Media Dazzle ($49.99). Basically it is a USB compatible video input. You can take any composite (RCA) video and audio source and you can capture it to your computer. It requires a computer (PC or MAC compatible) and comes with very easy t0o use software.







Personally I prefer the Pinnacle Video Transfer ($100). This item is stand alone, so you don’t need a computer. All you have to do is plug in any composite video and audio source, then plug in your storage device. It can be any USB compatible storage! You can literally record a video onto your flash drive or a portable hard drive. It records into MPEG-4 so you can edit it as well. You can also record directly to an IPod or a PSP.



Both of these items are very good for capturing video off of you gaming system for posting/editing, and are VERY simple to use (they literally define the term plug and play). I would definitely recommend either if you are in the market for something to transfer video from VHS tapes, damaged DVDs, TV shows, or Gaming systems.