I recently purchased the Asus EEE 904HA and am in love with this computer and would suggest checking into it if the Mini 9 is what you are looking for. Newegg has my current model for $349, though I ended up paying about $240 due to mirosoft live search and a free upgrade from the EEE 900HA. This computer is more along the lines of a regular laptop IMO because it weighs about 3 lbs, has a 160gb HDD, and Windows XP. The battery lasts about 6.5 hours, the speed isn't an issue since I bought it for the specific purpose of being a low powered notebook and it is fine for the internet, movies, music, and wordprocessing.

The one real benefit of going with the EEE 900HA or 904HA is the harddrive which makes storage a non issue, Windows XP comes standard(home fits my needs on this computer), and there is no tax outside of CA or NY. Currently Dell has the base Mini 9 selling for $350 with a 4gb SSD and 512 ram, unless you are getting one for a deal with a Dell laptop, skip it and go with one of the Asus EEEs

No problem. At the end of the day, you should buy what you want. Not what anybody else thinks you should buy.

-David

Great price ,
what is microsoft live search ?
and how does it work

thanks

Rally

http://search.live.com/cashback

It gives you cashback for searching and buying items via above link. Also you can check www.evreward.com if a merchant that you want to purchase from participate in any reward program and what is a cahsback or point value per dollar spent.

Does anyone have the air card with theirs? I just bought my dell and I love it, I would love to have wireless with it but just curious... anyone have wifi?

They all come with wifi built in.

The OP is talking about a 3G cellular modem.

-David

Im confused, maybe I asked wrong - I have the Dell Mini 9 and I would love to hook up to the internet. I was told that I needed an aircard... Does this make sense?

Wifi if I am corrected is usable only if the place I am at has wireless right?

Correct. WiFi requires you to connect to a base station that is generally very local to your location. An AirCard will allow you to connect anywhere the carrier you are using has cellular coverage.

So if you want to get online at Starbucks you can just use the on-board WiFi radio. If you want to use it while driving down the highway you'll need an AirCard of some persuasion.

thank you very much and what I can see there is no built in air card per se in the Dell Mini 9. With that said does anyone have any input as to the best plan/aircard for the Mini 9?

You are correct that there is not one built in unless you spec'd your model to include it. There is an option for an internal HSDPA (ATT) AirCard for the Mini 9. If you want to go with Verizon, TMo or Sprint then you'll need to buy an external one. I prefer the USB models but that becomes very much a personal choice.

First day of use and I love it!
I will upgrade the space to a 64gb SSd for $200 and 2gb RAM for $20 later on. Aparently the UMTS card has GPS even so that will be very cool to use on the road!

Wirelessly posted (dell axim: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

It's really annoying that if you won't buy the Mini 9 on contract (ATT in US, Vodafone in Europe), not only is it not 3g enabled but the internal aerial is left out, leaving you unable to add a SIM of your choice later.



Integrated would be much cleaner than a USB stick modem.

?
I bought mine from a duty free store in UK and it has the 3g modem in it and I don't have a contract. Paid 298GBP for the 8gb 3G model.

Wirelessly posted (dell axim: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

Interesting!

Seems like buying from Dixons Tax Free is a loophole, it's on their website at �279.

Will be going through Heathrow in Jan, v tempting.

Have you tried to use any other SIM cards in it? I presume you can download generic drivers to "unlock" it?