Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

It seems we are not even going to have to wait for the Inspiron Mini 9 to get in the hands of consumers before we begin to learn about the inside. Dell has gone ahead and posted a the service manual for the Mini 9, and it contains more than a few pictures of the internal guts. And judging from what we can see, the Mini 9 is going to be fun to play with, and seemingly easy to upgrade on your own.

Just by removing a simple panel from the bottom, users will have access to the SSD, Wi-Fi card, the RAM and even an unused mini PCIe slot. Of course we also see that SIM card slot located behind the battery. Keep reading to check out some of the images, courtesy of Dell…

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This story is a little sketchy at best, but it seems that some of the team behind the MSI Wind may have been doing a little playing around during the process of building out the disk image. According to the details, some of the initial shipping delays that we saw with the Wind were caused by the fact that screener copies of movies along with some personal family photos found their way onto the netbooks. According to the reports the hidden files are “mostly corrupt” and need some extra effort in order to be played or viewed. Still playable or not, movies can take up a decent amount of space, anyone with an MSI Wind may want to do some digging around and check for some large files. You may be able to free up some precious hard drive space.

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With the launch of the Inspiron Mini 9, it seems Dell has decided to hold back the details on what most would consider a pretty important feature. The fact that the Mini 9 already includes an integrated 3G card. According to Dell spokeswoman Anne Camdenm “there’s a hidden bonus, however: an integrated 3G card.” Of course the first reaction is nothing more than, Very Cool! However you cannot help but wonder if that “hidden bonus” added any additional cost that may go unused by lots of buyers. Could Dell have shaved a few extra bucks off the pricing? Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, as of now, Dell has not announced (other than Vodafone) which wireless carriers would be picking up the device. This could mean for some slow initial sales here in the US. Personally I was planning to purchase the Mini 9 for myself, but I may wait for some carrier announcements with the hope of seeing a subsidized version become available.

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Microsoft has invested about $300 million dollars in a new advertising campaign featuring comic legend Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, but their first foray, which aired September 4th, is questionable at best. 

The ad features Jerry Seinfeld going to a store known as Shoe Circus, which is presumably not a real place of business.  He happens to meet Bill Gates there, and helps him try on shoes. 

That’s about it.  The only mention of a product is at the end, where Jerry suggests that Bill make computers out of cake so we can “eat while we work”.  I’m still waiting for the punchline, or at least one funnier than that. 

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Some of you may remember when we reported that select Sheraton hotels were getting a Microsoft Surface table in their lobby.  Well, I happened to be in Seattle for the Penny Arcade Expo last weekend, (you can read more about that at Gamertell.com, our sister site) and so I had a chance to sit down and try it out for myself. 

I took a video of my findings which you can check out after the jump, or you can read my quick summary of what I discovered with the three functions of CityTrips, Sheraton Snapshots, and Sounds of Sheraton.

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Perhaps the once king of the netbook market, the Eee PC 701 seems to have been losing some popularity with all of the new introductions. However that may be coming with some good news because according to some reports that will be driving the price down even further. The Eee PC 701 from Asus may not be the most full featured netbook, but its certainly a good option for those looking to do some basic browsing and have something that is lightweight and easy to carry.

UK based online retailer Expansys has just lowered their pricing for the Eee PC 701, which now sits at £158.99 (around $280 US). Not bad for a model that first came to market less than a year ago and was retailing for $399. If you remember the lead up to the Eee PC 701 release, Asus was promising a sub-$200 model, and while we are not at that point yet this is one step closer to reaching that goal.

Of course on the flip side, these drastic price cuts are most likely hurting the resale value for those that were early adopters and since moved on to other netbook models, but I would imagine that is only a small group of people.

Via [Liliputing]

Vodafone and Dell have announced a partnership that will make a special broadband ready version of the newly released Dell Inspiron Mini 9 available. The 3G-equipped Mini 9 will be sold in Vodafone retail stores, online and directly from Dell, and allow users to connect anywhere they may be.

Availability is expected to come in late September, however an exact release date has not yet been announced, but that along with pricing is expected to be announced in the coming weeks. Sounds like Vodafone has a winner on its hands.

Its still early to tell, but so far it seems Dell is really pushing their Mini 9 in the right direction, they needed something to set them apart from the rest of the netbook crowd. I can only hope that a US carrier, possibly AT&T will pick up the netbook with a similar offering for those of us in the US.

Read [CNN Money]

Just sending a quick reminder in case you missed the earlier announcement, our contest to giveaway a set of Axiom AudioByte computer speakers ends tomorrow, the official deadline for entry is Friday (September 5, 2008) at 11:59pm EST, which also happens to be just 24 hours from the time of this posting.

Remember entry is simple, just leave a comment on the original announcement posting (link above and below) with a picture of the speakers you are hoping to replace.

You can check out the full contest post including the rules here, and don’t forget to check out our full review also.

Remember two years ago when all these laptop batteries kept overheating, and there were laptop-based fires around the nation?  Apparently, Sony does not want this fad to begin again as they have recalled 73,000 Vaio TZ laptops. 

According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, the reason for the recall is a possible manufacturing defect that may cause them to overheat.  This defect relates to the wiring at the TZ laptop’s hinge. 

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It turns out the earlier reports were indeed accurate, and the ‘Give One Get One’ program will be making a return later this year, and it will be handled by none other than Amazon.com.

This information comes courtesy of Matt Keller who is the director of Europe, Middle East and Africa at OLPC and he has confirmed that Amazon will begin selling the XO laptop in late November with sales running through the end of December. Keller also went on to clarify their reasoning behind Amazon handling the sales, stating that they are just “a small group of people,” which hopefully will put an end to the shipping issue complaints that we saw last year.

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