Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Remember that red colored Inspiron Mini 9 that Michael Dell was spotted carrying around during the All Things Digital conference this past May?  Well, it appears that some customers will soon be able to grab an Inspiron Mini 9 of their own in red, and also pink.  Dell has just released both new models, but sadly, as of now, they are available only in Japan. 

Additionally, and perhaps a little more exciting than the new colors, is the option of a larger SSD.  Customers in Japan can also now choose to get the “platinum package” which includes a 32GB SSD.  The Mini 9 with the larger SSD is retailing for ¥54,980 or about $565 US and also includes the standard 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM and Windows XP.

Hopefully, we will see the new colors make their way over outside of the Japanese market, or at the very least that larger storage option.

Via [PC Watch]

• Japanese Import: Hori Classic Controller for Wii
• Microsoft to offer free virus protection
• Same old same old nebooks again

Dell has officially made their latest Inspiron Mini available in the US.  Customers can now visit Dell and purchase the Inspiron Mini 12, but sadly the configurations seem a little limited and may not be ideal for everyone. 

Dell is offering the Inspiron Mini 12 in three configurations, which begin at $549 and go up as high as $649.  The main drawbacks are that (at least for now) the maximum amount of RAM that you can add is 1GB, and the only option for an operating system is Vista Home Basic.  Personally, I would like to have seen some more RAM as 2GB is becoming more and more of a standard nowadays, but more important is that the only OS available is Vista Home Basic and that is sure to turn some sales away from all those Vista haters.

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Black Friday, the day when consumers can generally expect to find some good deals, is thankfully just about upon us.  With a few weeks before Thanksgiving here in the US, it seems now is about the right time for the deals to begin making their way into the public eye.  Sadly, although Dell has plenty of deals listed for Black Friday, it seems that some are not as exciting as one would hope for. 

To begin with, Dell is planning to offer the Inspiron Mini 9 for $299, which offers a $50 savings from the regular $349.  The specs for that model include a 1.6GHz Atom processor, a 4GB SSD, 512MB RAM an 8.9-inch display and running Ubuntu 8.04.

Other notebooks that are on sale (and some that will offer a much greater savings) will be the Inspiron 13 for $699 (a $329 savings), the Studio 15 for $699 (a $245 savings), the Studio 17 for $799 (a $349 savings), the XPS M1330 for $1,029 (a $319 savings) and the XPS M1530 also for $1,029 (a $319 savings).  More deals after the break.

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While on a quick shopping trip to Staples to replenish ink for my printer (which apparently is filled with gold at the prices they charge) I was handed a sheet of paper listing some trade-in discounts for a myriad of products.  From routers to printers to laptops, the trade-in value was significant, enough to make me think, “Hey I’ve got an old router somewhere.“

Why is Staples hoarding old tech gadgetry?  Do they just reprice them and sell as new or is something else going on here?  Follow to find out.

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Looking to get an Eee PC for less than an iPod?  Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?  Well, in its quarterly investors earnings call, Asustek announced a great number of things, including the fact that the baseline Eee PCs will be lowered to $200 by the end of 2009.  It seems 1.7 million Eee PCs were shipped last quarter, and Asus is expecting 1.8 million to be shipped this coming quarter.  There is some bad news for some, though.

Along with the price announcement, Asus announced that the 7” and 8.9” models will soon be phased out in favor of the 10-inch models.  That’s somewhat sad to me at least.  The 8.9” is the perfect size I think, especially if the screens on the 8.9” and 10” are the same resolution.

More after the break.

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Yet another case of the few ruining it for the many.  Due to “at least 40” reports of laptop batteries overheating and causing fires as well as potential property damage, Sony is recalling 35,000 Lithium Ion batteries in the US and another 65,000 in other countries.  In a stroke of genius, none of these batteries were actually put in Sony laptops.  Instead, most of them (32,000) are in HP Pavilion dv model and Compaq laptops, and to a lesser extent Toshiba Satellite and Tecra laptops (3,000) and only 150 Dell Latitude and Inspiron laptops.  The batteries were made way back in October 2004 to June 2005.

More after the break.

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So, Dell comes out with a new netbook.  At first, the Mini 12 was just a rumor, but it is all official.  It comes complete with a 12-inch display (up from their earlier Mini 9 model), although it is pretty much geared for the same crowd.  According to Dell, it is super for “teens, tweens, travelers and ‘Tweeters’ to surf the Web, chat with friends, blog, stream content, upload photos or enjoy online videos, music and games.” 

Keep reading to find out when you’ll be able to get one and what this thing is running.

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This is where we call out by names the actions and companies that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack.  Technology is an odd realm where PR speak doesn’t hold a lot of water if the 1s and 0s don’t line up.  This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity.  Here is what caught my eye this week:

Check out my mockery of:

• Cell phone carriers
• Dell
• Asus
• Motorola (yet again)
• the gaming industry

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Whenever you buy a PC, you probably are annoyed with all the programs that are installed on it; some of which you just leave on because it’s a hassle to remove.  Dell seems to think that people would like to have music preloaded on their PC for only a little bit extra. 

By teaming up with giant music company UMG, Universal Music Group, Dell has been able to recently load computers with music of your choosing.  Starting at $25, you can opt to receive either 50 songs or 100 songs for $45.  The nice thing about this pre-loaded music is that it’s basically half the price you would normally pay for the same amount of music, so it’s a pretty sweet deal.  All music comes DRM-free and will be able to play as soon as you start up your PC. 

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While most likely not their only game plan, Intel ponied up to the netbook game by buying netbook.com.  By combining the grim economic outlook with one part of tech that continues to boom, Intel is hedging their bets that netbooks will continue to thrive, perhaps even more so in the run up to the holidays.

But what’s a netbook?

Find out by clicking more

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