Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Dell seems to be continually offering new options on their Inspiron Mini 9 and the latest is sure to make plenty of people happy—an option for built in 3G.  The 3G option is unfortunately just for new orders and is only available on Windows XP based Mini 9s.  As for pricing, it will set you back $125 for the upgrade, which also requires you to sign up for AT&T’s DataConnect service.  The service is priced at $60 per month and requires a two-year agreement.  Of course, on the positive side, by signing that agreement you will be able to get $120 back in the form of a mail-in-rebate.  It is nice to see 3G begin to makes its way into netbooks here in the US, however at $60 a month I would prefer to have a tethering plan on my phone or just have a USB 3G solution, at least that way I would not be limited to just using the access on one notebook.

Product [Dell]

• Micro Center’s Black Friday 2008 weekend sales
• Black Friday deals round-up [updated]
• Sprint’s Cyber Monday deals: free Centro and 5 others

Dell has continued to improve upon the Inspiron Mini 9 with new colors along with new features.  We saw those new colors hit the US market just a few days back, and now Dell has followed up with an even more welcomed addition—an optional 32GB SSD. 

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As Black Friday is coming closer and closer, more and more sales are made available for the public.  The guys over at BFads have put together a nice piece about how to buy a HDTV and more importantly, what sales will be taking place.  Keep in mind that these sales are the best deals and not all of the deals taking place on Black Friday.

HDTVs Under 26 inches

The cheapest HDTV under 23 inches was Dynex’s 19 inch 720p LCD HDTV.  This comes with a contrast ratio of 800:1, a response time of 5ms, 1 HDMI input, Energy Star certified, 2 speakers, a maximum resolution of 1440 x 900, comes with a stand, and has a 4 star rating on Amazon.  Right now, it is priced at $229 at Best Buy, but will be on sale for $199.99 at Best Buy. 

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This is for the folks who had their hearts set on grabbing an Inspiron Mini 9 or Mini 12 netbook from Dell, but were not really feeling the black or white options.  Rest easy, because Dell has announced some new design options as well as the pink and red colors for both the Mini 9 and Mini 12. 

The new colors are officially being called “Cherry Red” and “Pretty Pink” and sadly they are both coming with a $25 premium.  Hopefully, Dell will have a change of heart on that added cost.  If you remember back, the Apline White originally had that same premium, but it was quickly removed.

As for the artwork options, there are five designs available, all of which are from artist Tristan Eaton.  As for that extra cost involved with the artwork, these designs add an additional $50 to the purchase price.  Keep reading to check out some images of the five available artwork designs…

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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]

• Asus Eee PC 1002HA now available with US retailers
• Dreamcast modded into a Windows PC
• Who’s On Crack in tech: Black Friday ‘08 edition

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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