Dell Inspiron Mini 1012

One of the Big 4, Dell is a name not to be taken lightly when it comes to personal computing. Their netbooks; called the Mini series too have garnered good reputation, and the good thing is they have quite a few models, with varying internal specs in their lineup for consumers to choose from. Today we have the Mini 1012, a snazzy little netbook by Dell.

Design
These comes in an array of colors, our lucky color was a light bluish chassis, the name that Dell has given is Ice Blue, sort of like a summer sipper in a tall glass. That’s the outlook of the design of this model - it's fresh and light weight, very portable. The internals are not blue, thankfully, but a matte black. But black and blue are not the only color scheme

Dell netbooks have superb keyboards, and this model has a good one too. It’s almost full size, about 92 %, and the tactile feel is exactly like a regular laptop, so there is no frustrating cramped feeling. Shift and enter buttons are regular sized, and also normally positioned. This is a good thing, as some netbook models have wrong buttons at the right places, which just leads to swearing out aloud at work.

The touchpad is another story - it sucks. It's unresponsive - the surface they have provided needs more friction. The buttons too are integrated into the pad, so one does not know where the buttons begin or end, so right clicking becomes an arduous task that might need a small think tank. Getting any work done with the mouse takes some time, as it takes time to get used to the crappy touchpad.

Specs
Operating System                WinXP SP3
Display                                 10.1" LED Backlight WSVGA Screen (1024x600)
Intel CPU & Chipset             Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHZ, 512 cache, Intel NM10
Graphics:                             Integrated GMA 3150
Memory                               DDR2 1GB
Storage                               160 GB2.5” SATA2 HDD 5400rpm
WiFi /Bluetooth                    Yes(b/g)/Yes(2.1)
Camera                                1.3M Pixels
Input / Output                     1 x Mini VGA Connector
                                           3 x USB 2.0
                                           1 x LAN RJ-45
                                           2 x Audio Jack (Headphone / Mic-in)
Card Reader:                      MMC/SD (SDHC)/ MS/MS Pro
Battery                                3 cell Li-polymer battery
Dimensions                         26.5 x 19.6 x 2.55 cm
Weight                                1.25 kg

Benchmarks

Analysis and verdict
At a price of Rs. 16,800 this model has some very clear advantages besides a nice low price point; as can be seen from the results. It's got nice battery life, considering it's a 3 cell model. It lasted more than 3 and half hours in our Battery Eater Pro Classic test, and for normal usage we got about 5 hours 20 minutes. The Graphics are better with the 3150. We could watch upto 720p video quite easily, with very little issues of stutter and frame coughing. All in all it looks very cool, has a great keyboard, but not so great a trackpad. Thus one can check it out and run their fingers over the ergonomics of the thing to see personal preference, but for internal performance we can surely recommend it, especially for watching videos, besides usual Facebook procrastination  and Googling your own name.