After recently adding a 32GB SSD option, Dell appears to be the first in the US to sell a netbook in the with a 3G radio and an actual data plan through a carrier. While some carriers in other countries are subsidizing the entire netbooks bundled with a 3G modems, you won’t get that sort of discount here. At least it won’t cost you much extra, provided you sign up with a 2 year contract from AT&T. It looks as though the modem can only be added to a Mini 9 configured with XP at this point.
Adding the HSDPA modem to your Mini 9 [Portal page] configuration will also add $125 to the bill, however you can reclaim $120 of that through a rebate if you sign up with AT&T. So an extra $5 for a 3G modem doesn’t sound bad right? Unfortunately it isn’t the hardware that makes up the real cost, it is the data plan, which will run you $60/month from AT&T. Brad from Liliputing points out that for some, it might be more cost effective to use an AT&T 3G USB dongle if you own more than one mobile computer. It would cost the same amount per month, but offer the flexibility of using one piece of 3G hardware on more than one computer.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Very nice price actually, and you should be able to swap over the SIM card too even if not as convenient as a plug and play USB unit, surely it has benefits due to not having something sticking out on the side of the netbook/laptop!
The smaller the device the more annoying something like that would be in my humble opinion!
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November 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
There’s 3 things I want in a netbook:
1) Vendor supported Ubuntu
2) Convertible Tablet with Touch Screen
3) 3G for persistent network connectivity (that I don’t have to hack into it).
The Everun Digital Note appears to have 1.5 of those (touch screen, but not convertible tablet). This appears to have 1 of the 3 (since there isn’t an Ubuntu version of it yet).
I’m really hoping that someone puts all 3 into one device at some point in the near future.
(on the Digital Note front: mine arrived at work today … but I’m on vacation this week, so I wont get to play with it until next week)
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November 27th, 2008 at 10:58 am
The real downside here is that it is a Dell. Dell, as a company, is horrible. Their machines are sub-par at best. To call their customer and tech support lackluster would be a high compliment. Having dealt with Dell, I would not take another Dell computer if they handed it to me along with a check for $10,000.
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November 27th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Scott,
I am not sure what Dell you’ve dealt with but as a matter of fact customer service and prices is what has brought Dell to where it is today. Since they never had any retail stores they HAD to offer a even better customer experience than the competition.
Now I’ve dealt with both their retail and refurbished side and on products from the Dell X51V up to the XPS M2010, and whereas I too had very strong presumptions on both their product and service I now strongly recommend them to friends and family ever so much after Sony stopped offering “real” desktops. Now I will say I have never called their customer service when it comes to technical questions (aside from warranty) so I don’t know how competent or not their staff (or bought phone answering people?) are on that matter.
But when it comes to figuring out anything about an order, status, changing it, returning it, refunding it, and warranty I have nothing but OUTSTANDING experiences with DELL and trust me I’m not one to commend people or companies very often. I had some issues with one refurbished computer and called on Friday they were going to send out a local technician to try to fix it, he called Monday and said he was ordering the part “today” (that was a Monday) and could have it by Wednesday, he actually came the next day with the part and replaced it all free of charge, I still had the option of returning the computer, which I actually ended up doing.
So yes I still am a bit reluctant (not sure if I have any grounds to be really) on Dell products (except for the discontinued AXIM PDA lineup) but when it comes to customer service I sincerely give them A+ or five stars or 10 or whatever your unit of measurement is
The only Dells I have now is I still have my X51V (need to sell that thing really now that I use my iPhone instead) and the two 24″ Ultrasharp screens, have so far served me fantastically at around $350/ea.
You know Scott I think your last sentence speaks for itself it’s one of those “online claims” that when/if faced with the reality of such a situation I’d dare to bet that you’d accept that check, but not I don’t really bet so…
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November 29th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I just went through the order process, both on the ‘Home’ and ‘Business’ sides, and never was given the option to upgrade to 32GB of storage. Am I doing something wrong.
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