Dell’s latest netbooks, the Mini 10 and Mini 10v, were released in July of 2009. These cute little laptops come in 7 colors (Black, White, Pink, Red, Ice Blue, Jade Green and Purple) and as usual, when you buy one of their pink laptops, Dell donates $5.00 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

At first glance, they seem to be identical, but we have taken a look at how they differ, and the configuration options available.

As always with Dell’s computers, you can customize them – a nice feature which is pretty rare in the world of mini laptops. And in addition to the regular upgrades available, there are a few interesting extras offered such as an internal GPS and digital TV tuner. Neither one has an internal CD/DVD drive, so you would have to get an external drive if you want to install programs from a disk, or burn things yourself.

Both the 10 and 10v come with the option of Windows XP or Ubuntu (Linux) as an operating system, and the customization options vary a bit depending which OS you choose. If you are used to working in Windows and plan on using Windows programs (such as word, excel etc.), you’re better off going with the Windows XP OS.

Dell recommends Ubuntu for more advanced users who do not use windows applications and are “interested in open source programming”. Well, I’m a Windows user and I would definitely choose XP over Ubuntu.

Here are the rest of the specs for each (XP) system:

The 10v is the smaller (10.26×7.19×1.06-1.11″), slightly lighter (2.5 lbs with a 3-cell battery) and least expensive of the two, but there are still some good upgrade options available. The base configuration ($299 + $40 for pink) comes with:

• Intel Atom Processor N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
• 10.1″ Widescreen Monitor
• 160GB, 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
• Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
• Intel GMA 950
• 3-cell Li-Ion battery

Optional upgrades available for the basic model are:

• Intel Atom Processor N280 (1.66GHz/667MHz FSB/512K cache) ($20)
• 16GB solid state hard drive ($30)
• 6-cell Li-Ion battery ($35)
• Wireless 802.11g/n (1510) Mini Card($35)
• AT&T built-in mobile broadband ($125)
• Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR ($20)

If you added all the upgrades and extras, the final cost would be $594. Upgrading to the N280 will make your system run a little bit faster, and I would definitely recommend getting the larger battery.

The Mini 10 measures 10.28×7.19×1.0-1.1″, weighs 2.6 lbs with a 3-cell battery and come with a few more upgrade options.

The base configuration costs $344 (+$40 for pink) and comes with:

• Intel Atom Processor Z520 (1.33GHz/533MHz FSB/512K Cache)
• 10.1″ Widescreen Monitor
• 160GB, 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
• Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
• Intel GMA 500
• 3-cell Li-Ion battery

Optional upgrades available for the basic model are:

• Intel Atom Processor Z530 (1.6GHz/533MHz FSB/512K Cache) ($50)
• HD Widescreen ($75)
• 32GB solid state hard drive ($75)
• 6-cell Li-Ion battery ($35)
• Internal Digital TV Receiver (ATSC) ($50)
• Wireless 802.11g/n (1510) Mini Card ($25)
• Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR ($20)
• Verizon, Sprint or AT&T built-in mobile broadband ($125)
• Built in GPS with Navigation Software ($70)

Note that if you want the digital TV receiver, you must upgrade your processor to the Z530. If you were to select all these upgrades and options, you would end up with a price tag of $799. Again, I would definitely upgrade the processor and battery, but I’m not so sure about the other bells and whistles on this one.

It’s all about personal preference of course, but if I had to choose one of these, I would go with the Mini 10v and upgrade the processor and battery and leave it at that (resulting in a price of $394). Why? Well, the N280 is a faster processor than any of the other options, I prefer a larger hard drive to a “drop proof” one, a larger battery is never wrong, and Bluetooth, HD, GPS and watching TV are not things that are important to me the way I use my netbook. The only thing I wish I could add is more memory. It would have been nice to be able to upgrade to 2GB.

A mini laptop (also known as a subnotebook or netbook) has a 10.2″ or smaller screen size, weigh less than 4 lbs and is usually priced somewhere in the $200-$400 range.

These lightweight mini laptops are obviously much easier than their larger siblings to take along just about anywhere, but they’re not for everyone. In order to make the mini laptops so small and light, features such as an internal CD/DVD drive are often left out, and you won’t be able to do any heavy graphic design or image editing on them, nor use them as gaming laptops, because of the smaller, slower hard drives and memory (“RAM”) as well as integrated graphics cards (as opposed to “discreet”, i.e. separate from the CPU).

Having said that, they’re still great for those who need an inexpensive mini notebook to take to class, on the road, or mainly use their laptop for word processing, email and internet browsing. And if you  need more space, you can always add an external harddrive.

So who makes pink mini laptops? Quite a few companies. With their increasing popularity (and advancements in technology), more and more are popping up on the market all the time.

Here are the ones currently available in pink (in alphabetical order by company):

• Acer Aspire One A150
• Asus Eee PC 1005HA
• Asus Eee PC 1008HA
• Asus Eee PC 1008P
• Dell Mini 10
• Dell Mini 10v
• HP Mini 110 XP
• Lenovo IdeaPad S10
• Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2
• MSI Wind U100-018US
• MSI Wind U100-280US
• MSI Wind U100-427US
• Samsung NC10
• Sony VAIO W
• Sylvania G Netbook Meso
• Toshiba Mini NB205-N313P

As far as the specs, they are all very similar and pretty clear cut, with few customization options. The notable exceptions to that are HP’s Mini 100XP and Dell’s 10 and 10v (click for full specs).

They all come with Windows XP Home and 1GB of RAM.

Most have a 160GB hard drive, the exceptions are Dell’s Mini 10v with 120GB (but you can upgrade it to 160GB or to a 16GB Solid State Drive), HP’s Mini 110 XP with a 16GB Solid State Drive (with upgrade options to a 32GB SSD or 160GB SATA), and Sylvania’s G Netbook Meso with 80GB. Dell’s Mini 10 can be upgraded to 250GB or a 32GB Solid State Drive.

Intel Atom N270 (1.60GHz, 512KB L2, 533Mhz FSB)
Acer Aspire One A150
Dell Mini 10v
HP Mini 110 XP
Lenovo IdeaPad S10
Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2
MSI Wind U100-018US
MSI Wind U100-280US
MSI Wind U100-427US
Samsung NC10
Sylvania G Netbook Meso

Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz, 512KB L2, 667Mhz FSB)
Asus Eee PC 1005HA
Asus Eee PC 1008HA
Sony VAIO W
Toshiba Mini NB205-N313P

Dell’s Mini 10 has an Intel Atom Z520 (1.33GHz/533MHz FSB/512K L2Cache) which you are able to upgrade to an Intel Atom Z530 (1.6GHz/533MHz FSB/512K Cache).

You can also upgrade Dell’s Mini 10v and HP’s Mini 110 XP to Intel Atom N280.

All come with an Intel GMA 950 except for the Dell Mini 10 which has an Intel GMA 500.

None has an internal CD/DVD drive.

3-cell Li-Ion
Acer Aspire One A150
Asus Eee PC 1005HA
Dell Mini 10 (optional 6-cell)
Dell Mini 10v (optional 6-cell)
HP Mini 110 XP (optional 6-cell)
Lenovo IdeaPad S10
MSI Wind U100-018US
MSI Wind U100-427US

4-cell Li-Ion
Sylvania G Netbook Meso

6-cell Li-Ion
Asus Eee PC 1008HA
Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2
MSI Wind U100-280US
Samsung NC10
Toshiba Mini NB205-N313P

Sony does not give you a number of cells, they describe their VAIO W battery as “standard capacity” and claim it lasts up to 3 hours.

8.9″
Acer Aspire One A150
Sylvania G Netbook Meso

10.0″
MSI Wind U100-018US
MSI Wind U100-280US
MSI Wind U100-427US

10.1″
Asus Eee PC 1005HA
Asus Eee PC 1008HA
Dell Mini 10
Dell Mini 10v
HP Mini 110 XP
Lenovo IdeaPad S10
Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2
Sony VAIO W
Toshiba Mini NB205-N313P

10.2″
Samsung NC10

In the interest of saving space, we’ll just list the lightest and heaviest here (the others fall in between)

Lightest
A tie between the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 and Sylvania’s G Netbook Meso, both at 2.2 lbs.

Heaviest
Toshiba Mini NB205-N313P at 2.93 lbs.

Again, we’ll just list smallest and largest here:
Smallest
Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 at 9.8×7.2×0.7″

Largest
Sony VAIO W at 10.5×7.1×1.3″.

As you can see, all these mini laptops are pretty similar. If you’re looking for the smallest and lightest pink laptop available, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 is the way to go. Asus and Toshiba get high marks for battery life, and the Champagne Pink MSI Wind U100-018US and HP’s “Pink Chic” Mini 110 XP (a dusty pink with pink and white flowers) win in the looks department (in my opinion at least).

As a follow-up to my Dell Inspiron Mini post, I thought we’d take a look at how Acer’s Aspire One compares to Dell’s Mini 9. I’m comparing it to the least expensive, basic configuration of the Mini, since that is the model most similar to the Aspire One.

The Aspire One is available in two display sizes: 8.9″ and 10.1″, but only the 8.9″ comes in pink. It’s what I would call a “happy shade of pink”, Acer calls it Coral Pink: either way, it’s very pretty. It’s not customizable, but you can find a few different configurations online.

Below are the specs for the most widely available system. I have listed the same specs, in the same order as for the Dell Minis for easy comparison:

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition
Processor: 1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512KB L2 cache Intel Atom
Screen: 8.9″
Hard drive: 160GB SATA
Memory: 1GB (512MB onboard, 512MB SO-DIMM)
Wireless: 802.11b/g
Graphics: Intel GMA 950
Battery: 3-Cell Lithium-Ion (optional 6-Cell Lithium-Ion)

Size: 9.8 x 1.1 x 6.7″
Weight: 2.19 lbs with the 3-cell battery, 2.78lbs with the 6-cell
Cost: $299.99

So how does this compare to Dell’s Mini 9 apart from the different operating systems (Windows XP vs. Linux)?

Similarities

• The processor, screen size, wireless and graphic cards are the same.
• Neither one comes with an internal CD/DVD drive.
• The price, size and weight are almost exactly the same.

Differences

• The battery options do differ a bit, a 4-cell is the only option on the Mini, whereas on the Aspire One, you have the option of upgrading to a 6-cell.

• The Aspire has more memory (although you are able to upgrade the Mini to 2GB for $75).

• The hard drive is where you see the big difference: Aspire One’s 160GB (SATA) vs. Dell’s 4GB (solid state). You can upgrade the Mini to a 32GB SSD (for $100), but it’s still smaller. Having said that, if your laptop has to endure a lot of shaking and the occasional drop, you’re better off with a solid state drive.

On a separate note: Tomorrow, April 7, Acer is having a huge event in NYC, where they will be launching five new product lines. I don’t know yet if any of them will be pink, but stay tuned! Update: Acer did announce several new notebooks and a nettop PC but nothing in pink.