A Netbook Review: Dell Mini 9
So I’ve owned a netbook for a while now. I bought the Dell Mini 9 a while ago. It was half gadget lust and half a need to carry something lighter than the MacBook.
I had operating system issues. I bought it with Ubuntu with the intent of installing OS X on it, but because of hard drive space (I only have 16gig) I ended up moving on. I used a series of Linux operating systems like Ubuntu, Moblin and Jolicloud. Jolicloud was the most fun to use because it gave a nice balance of Ubuntu, a custom skinned front-end, and “applications”. It was really buggy and I couldn’t deal with the system crashes leading to reboots. I never got Moblin to work because the network card required some funky drivers that I couldn’t install, but it looked like a nice OS for a netbook. Ubuntu, although functional, is ugly as fuck.
Eventually, I installed Windows XP. I have to admit, for this netbook, is the best operating system. Everything worked, and I got all my tools working properly. I even ended up ordering a touchscreen for it (arrives next week from the time of this writing). The form factor of XP still requires you to have an external mouse
That being said, I still don’t know what to do with it. I can’t code on it without getting early onset carpal tunnel. I can’t flip it around and turn it into a tablet because I’m too scared to tear the case apart. Document writing is tricky and you eventually hit a wall with the inferior trackpad (maybe the touchscreen can help out). I started watching a movie on it and it was fine until it started working with bigger HD files and then it got really choppy.
So what would I use it for? I would say that it’s a glorified notebook (like the paper kind) / mp3 player and video player maybe a torrent downloader in its spare time.
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