Dell ships Vostro 1200 budget portable first in Japan

Continuing with a series of releases, Dell on Tuesday released the Vostro 1200 first to a Japanese audience. Bucking the trend created by the AMD-based Vostro 1000, the 1200 switches to Intel-based processors and uses Intel's GMA X3100 integrated video in place of the Radeon X1250 dictated by the AMD platform in the original. The new 12.1-inch Vostro also packs an unusually large 160GB hard drive as standard and comes with full-size ExpressCard and 3-in-1 memory card readers.

A starting system is priced at the equivalent of $911 after tax in the country with a 1.86GHz Celeron M; the option of a 2GHZ Core 2 Duo exists as well as up to 4GB of memory, a DVD rewriter, and 802.11n WiFi. The system is available today in Japan and should be available shortly worldwide with exact configurations and price levels likely to vary in each market. [via Laptoping]