Well I’ll be—the Dell Mini-Inspiron doesn’t look half bad. Gizmodo broke into Dell headquarters, beat up the security guard, and stole the full spec sheet for the Internet’s enjoyment. That, or some dude just e-mailed a copy to Rothman. Either way, the specs are now out there.

The raw: 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, up to 1GB of RAM, a solid state drive (4 to 16GB), 8.9-inch display with a 1024×600 resolution, Wi-Fi and three USB ports.

A four cell battery rounds out the package.

The best part? It comes with an Ubunutu configuration. Set up a lightweight window manager and you could have yourself a fine “I’m going to Starbucks, might as well surf the Web while I’m there” computer. Might be handy when covering trade shows, too.

They’re finally starting to shed some weight, though, so the company can expect to see sales spikes in the low teens thanks to an increase in word of mouth endorsements between me and anyone asking for “a good, cheap laptop” and then saying that someone in their office just bought a Dell. At that point, I know I’d be wasting my time trying to talk them into another brand, so Dell it is.

Dell’s Inspiron line, ever the bastion of moderately priced, decently-spec’d notebooks, will finally break the five pound barrier with the impending “Inspiron 13”, set to hit Wal-Mart stores August 3rd at $699 and Dell’s site toward the end of August. It’ll weigh “just under five pounds” and will come in Pacific blue or black. You’ll get a 13-inch LCD (not sure about the resolution yet) and, oooh, a slot-load DVD drive.

[via NotebookReview.com]

The root of the problem lies in the laptop’s colorful outsides. The black models are apparently easier to produce than the candy-apple red they’re selling, mostly due to economies of scale and the ability to produce a good finish on a comparatively less popular product. While it’s nice to get a pink laptop in the mail — and the ads that have been running for the past month (”A vegan didn’t buy the green laptop” or some claptrap) are giving a personalized cachet to what is, at this point, a commodity product — you don’t make money selling 1,000 pink laptops a day. You make money selling 100,000 black laptops a day. Lots of companies, Sony included, are doing the same customization thing, apparently with fewer issues but here’s a reason MacBooks come in black or white.

That said, this snag is really tearing Dell down. The margins on laptops are very thin. If I can go to Best Buy and pick up a clunker for $400 then Dell can’t be making much off of their goldenrod laptops.

At this point in the game, a laptop is a laptop is a laptop. I’m reminded of the scene in the Simpsons where they go to the Springfield peer and order food at four different food stalls. All of their meals are pumped out of one central kitchen and onto their trays — it’s all the same food. Apparently Taiwan OEMs is now able to promise colored laptops with few defects, which is why you are seeing them right now. Unfortunately, Dell got caught out in this new “custom” supply chain and is now paying the price.

I know this is frustrating for customers but it’s also frustrating to see the company that bravely launched a “premium” gaming laptop — the XPS — fall into the “let’s just make it a different color” trap. This problem will shake itself out eventually, but I’d like to see more innovation. Thinking outside of the box isn’t any good if the next box you jump into is just filled with crayons.

Latest on the XPS M1330 Notebook [Direct2Dell]

Let this be a lesson to all of you. Dell struggles when it comes to shipping things in a timely manner and who really wants a bloated 7-pound laptop? This time around it’s the XPS M1330 and Inspiron laptops. Over at Notebook Review, an XPS delay dedicated thread already has 9,000 comments. The Inspirons aren’t experiencing the massive delays, but it all depends on what color you want.

* Black, white = no delays
* Brown lid = 5 days extra
* Yellow lid = 6 days extra
* Blue lid = 8 days extra
* Red, green, pink lid = 11 days extra

You’re totally not getting a Dell, on time.

Shipping “Dell-ays” [Notebook Review]

Earlier today we introduced you to the new of Inspirons and now we have a few snaps of what they, and the XPS notebooks look like up close.

Although the new additions to the XPS line are elegantly designed, it looks like the Inspirons got the short end of the stick when it comes to visual appeal.

M1330 with fingerprint reader and LED back-lit display

The XPS M1330 comes in several different configurations one of which includes a 2MP Webcam option that is only available with a CCFL-lit LCD (pictured above). If you’re OK with sacrificing some video quality and switching to a VGA camera, an optional LED backlit LCD will shave a few millimeters off the overall thickness and save some battery.

Your eyes don’t deceive you, that’s HDMI out. (CCFL display)

The matte finish is attractive and resistant to fingerprints and smudges.

Options/Features

- Up to 4GB of RAM
- 120 – 250GB HDD, 32GB SSD
- 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Discreet graphics: GeForce Go 8400M GS
- HDMI out
- Under 4lbs

Product page

Next we took a look at the 17-inch Inspirons, the 1720 and 1721.

These behemoths come with full-size keyboards and numerical pads. They are extremely comfortable to type on.

Other features include an insane 500GB of storage space in RAID, up to 4GB of RAM, 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, high-end graphics cards and integrated wireless broadband.

Comes in eight colors.

Back-lit media buttons

Product page

Dell’s revamped monitors and new Inspiron desktops also made an appearance.

Mmm, brushed aluminum.