Dell to Produce 8.9 – 9-inch Mini Notebook

Dell Mini Inspiron Update: May 28, 2008 – it is now called the Dell Mini Inspiron. The HP 2133 Mini-Note PC and Acer’s upcoming Aspire offering won’t be the only small/ultra-portable laptops joining the Asus Eee PC 900 and Fujitsu LifeBook P1620 in the 8.9 – 9-inch range for netbooks/subnotebooks

Dell appears to be on its way to producing a machine in this range – lost in the hoopla over HP’s indtruction of the 2133 Mini-Note this week, are a few tantalizing bits of news coming straight from Michael Dell himself.

The Austin-American Statesman reported that in reference to Asustek’s Eee PC and Hewlett-Packard’s Mini-Note, CEO Michael Dell said yesterday, while on a trip to Israel, that Dell would be producing a similar model sometime in the next three-six months and that it would be running Linux.

San Jose Mercury News quoted Michael Dell as saying:

“We will introduce a similar laptop…We do see opportunities for very interesting products that are smaller and lighter and address the more mobile users in a very cost-effective way….”

“Stay tuned……We will have some interesting products coming in that space over the next two quarters.”

Update: CNN Money/Dow Jones Newswire are reporting that Compal Electronics Inc., a Taiwanese company, mentioned that they will be producing low-cost notebook for Dell, will be available as soon as June, and that they plan on shipping 1-2 million of these notebooks to Dell in 2008. This could very well be the device.

Sources:
Austin-American Statesman
San Jose Mercury News
Dow Jones Newswise/CNN Money