On the plus side — it is a very attractive unit, it is small enough to easily fit in a briefcase, it is quite light, the battery life is good, and the screen is very crisp and clean. When making my decision to purchase, I was concerned that the keyboard would be too small to be type on, but this has proven unfounded — despite fairly large hands, I don’t find it difficult to touch-type. I did install Microsoft Office and actually find that typing documents in Word is pretty good, especially when working space is tight — this is the only laptop I have ever owned that I can actually do useful writing in the coach seating of a plane, for example. Since it has a very good battery life, you can actually do some serious work on a long trip (if you are very patient, that is).

Cons:

The tiny screen and sluggish performance, coupled with erratic mouse control make ANY kind of work a challenge. The problem starts with the fact that the screen is very tiny and most software applications assume something much bigger. By the time you allow for the controls at the top and bottom of the screen, as well as sometimes to the left and right, one often finds one is working with inches of screen to display what one is interested in. I thought I would find this unit great for answering emails, for example, but it is instead quite aggravating for such use — trying to scan the inbox in Outlook or Thunderbird, for example, one finds there simply isn’t enough screen size to allow both the inbox list and the messages to be on the screen at the same time — it’s like trying to do everything through a keyhole. Since you can’t get all that you need on the screen at one time, it is critically important that you be able to fluently navigate around the screen. This is where the Mini 10 really disappoints. Despite every attempt to find reasonable mouse pad settings and and learning how to use the controls effectively, after two months of determined use, I still spend most of my effort just trying to position and size the screen so that I can actually see the things I’m interested in. The mouse seems highly erratic and often has a mind of its own — things fly around unpredictably and something that should be as simple as scrolling down a page of text becomes an adventure. I stated above that it is a plus that I can do useful word-processing in confined spaces. Even that is an adventure, however, and I have to be alert to the possibility that the cursor will decide to begin inserting my text somewhere that it chooses. You CAN write, edit, or read a document on a plane, for example, it’s just a lot harder than it should be.

I’m simply appalled by how sluggish this computer is. I’ve been using computers since the mid 1960s, and have never used anything this unresponsive before. Web browsing takes forever, and with the mouse doing random things, it’s really an adventure to navigate. Click on something and nothing happens for a very long time — so you click again, and then suddenly you’ve opened the screen twice. In a typical browsing session I spend one fourth of my time trying to get something to open, one fourth of my time closing unwanted things that opened, and about one fourth trying to position what I DO want so I can read it. That leaves only one fourth for doing something useful.

Though the screen is sharp, a lot of things are displayed really tiny. It’s good that the unit is small since, unless you have really eagle eyes, you’ll spend a lot of time holding the screen close to your face so you can see what that tiny text in the headers and entry boxes says. For example, the URL line that’s currently at the top of this browser page is about 1/16th of an inch tall — much too tiny to read at typing posture. You really don’t appreciate how many things are displayed at small font sizes until you use one of these. (There is a “magnifier” feature, but it is really cumbersome to use.) Eyestrain is a real problem for me with this unit.

The TV tuner I bought with this unit was money wasted. It takes forever to scan for channels, and I’ve never yet found a site where I can get more than one or two channels that aren’t constantly broken up. It doesn’t work at all in my car while it is in motion (though oddly, it picks up a little when the car is stopped at stop lights, etc.)

The bottom line for me is that I still haven’t found any good justification for having purchased this unit. It’s not even good for playing solitaire, since the mouse works so unreliably! I don’t know if other small models by other manufacturers are better, but I wouldn’t recommend this one to anyone. My wife gave up on it after a couple of tries. I now avoid it whenever I can. It’s a real disappointment and I’ll probably be replacing it soon.

I was worried about the touch pad, but have found no problem with it.

It does tend to get a little hot so a cooling pad would probably be a good purchase.

I pick up 26 digital channels at home and they show beautifully. I am totally impressed with the digital tv tuner.

I am also loving the HDMI. I believe this is the only netbook of this size that has a HDMI.

The 6 cell battery sticks out a bit under the computer. It helps raise it up so that it stays cooler.

It boots up fairly quickly.

I find no faults at all with this computer.

All in all, for someone looking for a small sized machines, Dell Mini 10 should be the best choice.