Dell Inspiron 1018 mini now priced at $430

While recent trend has seen important producers been pushed more towards smart-phones and tablets rather than laptops, Dell is hanging on to its reputation and recently released the new Dell Inspiron Mini 1018. This doesn’t mean that the tablet/smart-phone path will be completely ignored, taking into consideration they’ve also launched the Dell Streak, which perfectly puts together the advantages of a phone and those of a Pad, but costs a whooping $500. Still, the Inspiron series, although not the high-end one, has been selling amazingly well these year, so there’s really no surprise to see another piece of the puzzle thrown on the market.

The Mini 1018 is practically the new version of the already existing 1012 model and is based on the latest Atom processors and provides support for DDR3. The exact Atom model is the N455 which has a frequency of 1.66GHz an it’s connected to an NM10 Express chipset, having an integrated 3150 graphics media decoder. As stated, it offers 1GB of DDR3 memory, a fair figure taking into consideration the dimensions of the device and the fact that many of the other similar products unfortunately still run on DDR2. Furthermore, the 1018 can be equiped with a dedicated Broadcom media accelerator, that enhances the multimedia experience.

The very portable computer, as we may call it, also has an integrated 0.3 MP webcam and microphone and obviously comes with support for 802.11 b/g/n wireless tech, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi and MicroSD cards. There are no surprises when it comes to software either, the newest Inspiron being pre-loaded with Windows 7 Starter Kit.

The official release date for the Dell Inspiron Mini 1018 hasn’t been announced for every country in part. Instead it is already available in stores in some European countries and it will gradually reach all Dell dealers during the upcoming fall. For the moment, it comes with a price tag of $430, a good price/quality ratio. In conclusion, it definitely isn’t the appropriate product for those looking for very high performance, instead it’s one of the best devices of the kind one can choose in order to get high portability, combined with the innovative features and good support Dell provides its buyers with.