Despite being one of the most recently arrived players on the netbook market, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell appears to have grown quite fond of the newly emerged PC category. After launching its 9-inch, Atom-powered Inspiron Mini 9, designed to compete with similar netbook systems on the market, the company has now taken things to a new level. The next step for Dell was that to a 12-inch portable system that provides the basics in portable computing technology, namely Internet access, music and video rendering, and office-related applications, all packed in a small, lightweight form factor.

 

Rumored as on the verge of being launched since early last month, the new Inspiron Mini 12 netbook has now been released in Japan by the systems vendor. The first of its kind, in the sense that it is built with a 12-inch widescreen display, which can output images at a maximum resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels, the new Inspiron Mini 12 netbook is also based on Intel's Atom platform. The only difference is that it features a few changes over all those 9-inch and 10-inch netbooks on the market, including Dell's very own Inspiron Mini 9. Aside from the larger display, Dell's latest netbook can be equipped with either the Atom Z520 processor, running at 1.33GHz, or the 1.6GHz Z530 Atom CPU.

 

It would appear that Dell decided to change some of the specifications on its most recent netbook, thus distancing it from all the other Atom-powered devices of the kind. Aside from the different processor, users will also get a different integrated graphics solution with the Intel GMA 500. Other specifications include a 60GB 4200RPM SATA hard drive, 1GB of DDR2 memory, and built-in Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g wireless connectivity. The netbook can be powered by either a 3-cell battery or a 6-cell battery priced at $79, the latter being said to deliver up to 6 hours of power.

 

The netbook is expected to hit the States sometime next month with a starting price tag that will settle under $600. Another detail worth mentioning is that the 12-inch netbook will be shipped with Windows Vista Home Edition, which, given the system's specifications, might not provide the required performance experience.