Buffalo Technology are the latest manufacturer to jump into the booming netbook components market by producing a 16GB and a 32GB SSD for the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook to accompany their recently announced 32GB and 64GB Eee PC SSD’s.

The official product page for the “after-market” drives, states that the 16GB SSD will be priced at 4,800 Yen (around $52 US, although on the announcement page the price is stated as 5,300 Yen which is around $57 US) and that the 32GB solid state drive will cost 9,400 Yen, approximately $101 US). That’s around the same price that Dell charge for the 32GB SSD upgrade when you purchase a Mini 9 from them now, so Buffalo are presumably aiming their product at current owners of the Dell netbook that wish to boost their Mini 9’s storage capacity.

Both drives are available from early this month, in Japan. There is no news on whether Buffalo will roll the SSD’s out to the rest of the world as yet.

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Via: Crave

M1, a leading mobile communications provider in Singapore, is offering a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook to subscribers to one of their service plans.

The Mini 9 in question is the model which has an internal HSUPA modem which gives users internet access and coupled with one of the M1 packages, you’re all set to surf the net with the Dell netbook.

Plan details are pictured below, along with pricing information:

To get yourself a free netbook, it’s going to set you back $78.33 (Singapore $) a month, not cheap but, you do get a decent package for the price, with 10Mbps fixed and 2Mbps mobile broadband access.

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Words on the streets are saying that Dell seems to be prepping up a new notebook/netbook called the Dell Inspiron Mini 1210. A service manual and setup guide pages sitting right on Dell’s official site revealed this Inspiron Mini 1210.

Based on the leaked documents we are looking into a 12-inch notebook powered by Intel Atom processor which is common among netbooks. So, this raises the question whether Dell will market the 1210 as a netbook or a regular notebook.

Anyway, here are the key highlights of the Dell Inspiron Mini 1210:

• 12-inch display
• 1.33GHz Intel Atom CPU
• 1GB RAM
• Intel GMA 500 Graphics
• HDD
• WiFi
• VGA port
• Optioanl 3G
• 3-cell/6-cell battery
• Ubuntu Linux /Windows Vista OS

NetbookTech have come across details of the latest Dell promotion in the form of it’s ‘10 Days of Deals’ sale which began on the 14th of October and for anyone looking to buy an Inspiron Mini 9, mark off the 16th in your diaries - that’s the day the Mini 9 will be one of the deals on offer.

The image above shows the promotional page and as you can see, the offers on day 3 of the sale include a Mini 9 and a Mini 9 plus desktop bundle. There are no prices shown so presumably Dell will release pricing details on the deal day. Dell deals can be good deals though so this is definitely one to watch.

Steven Sande from The Unofficial Apple Weblog has posted up the steps he took to install OS X on a Dell Mini Inspiron and it’s an interesting, comprehensive guide for anyone with a desire to use the Apple operating system on their Dell netbook which however, as the guide states, clearly violates the licensing agreement stating you must use OS X on Apple products only.

OS X doesn’t run perfectly on the Mini Inspiron, there are a number of driver issues, ethernet doesn’t work and sleep mode doesn’t work either but, if you can cope with those problems, this guide will help you through the whole process of installing the OS.

It looks like as of this early, Dell’s much anticipated netbook, the Inspiron Mini 920 might get a further delayed release. This is due to the fact that it’s chassis supplier, Compal Electronics is experiencing tight supply of in-mold roller (IMR) treated chassis.

If the shortage in supply of the IMR will not be resolved the soonest time possible, Dell might not be able to ship its projected target of one million units of the said netbook. The target might be reduced to only 700,000 units, according to a Digitimes report.

Let’s see which gets the first 700,000 units of Dell’s Inspiron Mini 910 netbook.

Incidentally, tomorrow I was invited to attend the product launch of the Inspiron Mini 910 in the Philippines. I’m wondering if I would be able have a brief hands-on with the netbook considering that Dell is having this problem.

So, make sure that the first time you see the first sign of pre-order listing for the Dell Inspiron Mini 920, grab it as quickly as you can. The next shipment might come in as late as next year.

Dell have started shipping the Inspiron Mini 9 out, but don’t get too excited, it seems that only certain versions are being shipped out at the moment. The Inspiron Mini 9 with a 16GB SSD has already began shipping, where as those who ordered the 8GB are still waiting for it to start shipping.

You’re also be unable to pick the Mini 9 up with linux up if you’re outside the US. Dave Marples from the UK has already received his Dell Mini, with XP on. He’s also taken some pictures to share with everyone still waiting for theirs to arrive.

Via: Liliputing

European Mini 9 owners have all the luck it seems. Dell have already announced that Vodafone will be teaming up with them to provide 3G mobile broadband support for the Mini 9. For US owners however, there is no such deal yet.

A spokeswoman for Dell has confirmed also that there is no chance of just placing a 3G module into your Mini 9 either:

“The Mini doesn’t have the internal antenna infrastructure needed to support mobile broadband”.

Basically, to include the necessary internal antenna would increase the cost of the Mini 9 way beyond it’s list price of $474. Dell won’t be fitting antenna’s to your Inspiron Mini either, when 3G is available the only way to use the service is to buy a brand new Mini 9 that will support it.

Not the best of news for anyone that has already ordered one of Dell’s first netbooks.

via: Gearlog