Dell outs reworked, Pine Trail-based Mini 10
updated 10:35 am EST, Mon December 21, 2009
New Dell Mini gets up to 9.5 hour battery
Dell on Monday leapt fully into Intel's Pine Trail Atom-based platform by launching a new version of the Mini 10. The new version makes use of a 1.66GHz Atom N450 to extend its battery life past the original and, in a version with a 6-cell battery pack, can last for up to 9.5 hours on a charge. It also gets the new option of a Broadcom HD video decoder.
Ergonomics changes are in store through a new palm rest and sculpted keys in addition to primarily cosmetic changes to the design.
The pricing won't be available until the system gets full details in early January (likely the 4th), but Dell is promising many of the same specs and optional upgrades as it offered for the original Mini 10, including 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive as standard. The HD accelerator comes before the end of March, while a 1366x768 display, GPS and HDTV tuning will be available in "coming weeks." Unusually, Dell not only plans to offer Windows 7 Starter and Ubuntu Linux but to keep Windows XP Home.
