David Flynn14 May 2009, 1:00 AM
As tipped last month the new Mini 10v shaves the sticker price on the popular 10.1 inch netbook. Now let’s see how much cheaper it is in Australia...
Dell’s leaked
roadmap predicted we’d see a budget build of the Mini 10 sometime in May, and now that ever-more-affordable netbook has arrived.
Codenamed ‘Bear’ but christened as the
Mini 10v (the suffix stands for ‘value’), the specs are almost identical to the
Mini 10 which has recently gone on sale in Australia. And what differences there are beyond the US$50 cheaper price tag could even work in Dell’s favour.
Dell's new Mini 10v... pretty much like the Mini 10 but with a faster chip, a higher RAM ceiling and US$50 cheaper!
The original Mini 10 uses Intel’s 1.3GHz Atom Z520 ‘Silverthorne’ processor which can’t support more than 1GB of RAM due to a limitation of the chipset. The Mini 10v, however, employs Intel’s peppier 1.6GHz Atom N270 ‘Diamondville’ engine with a chipset which permits an upgrade to 2GB.
Storage is trimmed from the 160GB of the Mini 10 to 120GB in the Mini 10v, but the rest of the specs look identical – the same 10.1 inch 1024 x 576 panel, 802.11g wireless, with a three-cell 24WHr battery rated for up to four hours between charges. Alas, the Mini 10v also retains the Mini 10’s HDMI port without the appearance of the more common VGA output.
In Australia the Mini 10 currently sells for $849 so it remains to be seen how much cheaper the Mini 10v will be. US$50 equates to AU$65, so a $799 sticker could be feasible.
There’s also the issue of Dell’s not insignificant local markup. Configuring a Mini 10 from Dell’s US site to match the up-market spec set of the Australian model (we get the faster 1.6GHz Z530 processor, 802.11n and Bluetooth as standard fitout) delivers a final price of US$449, which equates to A$592.
Add in the GST and you’re still sitting around A$650, which indicates Dell pockets an extra $200 margin on the Mini 10. We’ll watch with interest to see how the Mini 10v’s price stacks up against the Mini 10...