Laptopmag received a Dell Mini 12 and decided to put it through some tests and find out what was so good about a 12″ netbook.  The verdict isn’t as good as you’d like it to be.

On the positive side, with a larger screen you have space to surf the web, read email and all of the other great things you’ll be doing with your netbook.  Instead of the usual 1024 x 600 resolution, you’ll be browsing at 1280 x 800.  As you’d imagine it’s thin and light.  Maybe not Apple Air thin, but then again it also doesn’t have a $1,500+ pricetag.

The biggest disappoint is Dell’s decision to put the ailing Vista operating system on the machine.  It may be true that since the unit is 12″ in size it isn’t available to have an XP license since XP was extended for ultra portable machines.  At any rate Vista runs on 3Ghz machines with 4GB of RAM, which tell you ahead of time that having a 1.6Ghz processor, and 1GB of soldered RAM isn’t going to do much.

In fact, they report that it took the computer over 2 minutes…..120 seconds for the computer to boot into Vista.  This compares to the 25 seconds Windows 7 is reported to take to boot on test netbooks.

If this is the best Dell can do, they’ll be hurting as they end up in number 3 with Acer making smart moves to make HP take notice.

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2. The Real Reason Dell Stopped Selling The Mini 9

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4. Netbooks To Keep XP Alive

5. More Details On Windows 7