Welcome to this weeks edition of the Weekly Netbook Roundup. Lets see the interesting things that have gone on in the netbook space since we last spoke.

• Special edition Samsung NC10 with larger battery available for preorder — Looks like Amazon is selling a special version of the NC10 with a larger trackpad and battery (5900mAh 6-cell) which Samsung says will last for 9.4 hours. The screen on this version will be glossy unlike the original matte version. You can pick one up for $499.

• Sony Vaio P (VGN-P588E) performance and benchmarks — Jenn from Pocketables.net takes the VAIO P for a spin and shows us lots of good stats on how the computer performs. Some people don’t think the VAIO P is a netbook, but for some reason we included it here in the WNR. Controversy!

• Hands on with the Acer Aspire One D150 – Video — Sascha from netbooknews.de has a good hands on video of the Acer Aspire One D150. He doesn’t seem to be thrilled with the keyboard and says he is disappointed at the quality of the Aspire One D150 considering how successful the original Aspire One was, and that this is a second-gen netbook.

• Dell’s Mini 9 selling for just $249 — who needs a subsidy? — Looks like Dell has cut the price on its Inspiron Mini 9 [Portal page] netbook. You can pick up the lowest-speced Mini 9 which has 512MB of RAM, Ubuntu, and a 4GB SSD. Add $50 and you’ll get another 4GB of storage and Windows XP.

• Netbook growth leads to surge in Windows XP sales — Despite many netbook makers offering Linux flavors of their netbooks, XP is hugely popular, effecting OS sales charts on all PC sales, not just netbooks. “In December, 13.7% of all laptops sold, and 11.2% of all computers were running Windows XP.”.

• More rumored Dell Mini 10 details, colors surface — More information on Dells upcoming Mini 10 netbook. Apparently some leaked information (which isn’t confirmed to be true yet) has indicated that the Mini 10 will be available with two different display options, 1024 x 576 and 1366 x 768. Also contained in the leak is the option of 1.3GHz or 1.6GHz CPU, 3 or 6-cell battery, and something referred to as a “DVD slice” which sounds… interesting.

That’s all for this week. Tune in next time to the Weekly Netbook Roundup next monday!

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.

[Liliputing]

We’ve seen it done to several other netbooks in the past and now it is the Dell Mini 9’s turn. Jkk points us to a video of a Dell Mini 9 [Portal page] that has been modded with a touchscreen. He says that any of the common 8.9" touchscreen kits can be used with the mod, but connecting the necessary components could be tricky. Check out a short video below:

Maybe in honor of jkk’s ‘SSD week’ last week, Dell has recently put an option into their Mini 9 configuration interface that allows customers to select 32GB of SSD storage (previous max capacity offered was 16GB). It will add $100 to your price if you jumping up from the 4GB option, but that price isn’t too bad as long as the speed of the SSD is decent. Be sure to stop by jkkmobile for lots of good info on SSDs with good price:speed ratios. If you are the hardware type, it may be more effective to buy the cheaper 4GB SSD option on a new Mini 9, and upgrade it yourself.

[Engadget]

Asus was the first to offer a quality notebook down in the sub-$300 range and it looks like Dell is following their example. Apparently a leaked advertisement shows that Dell will be offering the Inspiron Mini 9 [Portal page] netbook for just $299 on Black Friday. The most likely thing that you will find is the lowest end model which is configured with an 8GB SSD, 512MB of RAM, and Ubuntu as the OS (check the Portal page for additional specs). Buying a model that is configured with those specs today would run to $349. Happy shopping!

[Liliputing]

For those of you who love OSX, but also love low cost netbooks, it might be your lucky day. Liliputing is linking to a very handy guide for putting OSX on a Dell Mini 9. Over at TUAW, Steven Sande has put together a nice guide compilation that shows everything you need to get Leopard running on the recently released Dell Mini 9 netbook. Sande calls it the "Little Leopard Laptop", which could made the funny acronym of LLL to compete with the EEE.

If creating a Frankenstein’s monster of PC and OSX components scares you, patience may provide useful as Sande says he is "…sure that Apple will announce a low-cost netbook soon", though in all probability that is just speculation.

Jkk has uncovered some additional information regarding the type of SSDs used in the Mini 9, and the 3G situation.

When it comes to SSDs, it seems as though the performance will depend on the capacity. Jkk (who certainly knows something about these SSDs) notes that the 16GB Mini 9 will use STEC’s (fast) SSD module, while the 4/8GB models will use a (slower) Intel SSD. The STEC SSD apparently has a read/write of 85/25, while the Intel module sits at 38/10, which is the same SSD used in the Acer Aspire One.

As for 3G, we know that there is a SIM card slot behind the battery, and room for the WWAN unit, however it looks like some of the models are lacking the WWAN module (and the PCI-E connector) until they announce carrier locked 3G units. Jkk’s recommendation: wait before ordering! Head over to jkk’s blog for more info and some good pictures.

As most of you know by now, Dell launched the Inspiron Mini 9 netbook yesterday. Jkk has come across the service manual for the unit on Dell’s site.  The manual shows some good internal pictures and there is a lot of talking in the blogosphere right now about how easy it could be to upgrade the unit’s hardware (never a bad thing).

Vicente, a UMPC Portal reader, wants to know whether the SSD in the Mini 9 has 100% high speed flash storage, or if they will pull and Eee and have a small part of the storage be high speed, but the majority of it much slower. I asked netbook guru jkk if he had any insight, and he says it isn’t clear yet. Apparently some of the review units that made their way to some of the larger tech sites don’t all have the same SSD. No one is sure exactly which will ship with the unit so it seems as though we’ll have to wait and see.

A lot of info about Dell’s entry into the netbook market has been uncovered in the last day or two. The Inspiron 910 Mini 9 has gone official a day before Gizmodo’s predicted date. Now we have all the details about the new netbook, and reviews are already up on the nets. Lets have a look, shall we?

Info directly from Dell’s site shows us three model tiers. All models share an 8.9" 1024×600 display and a 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU and the usual bevy of ports (full specs can be found in the Portal), but they differentiate in RAM, OS, webcam and SSD size. The least in terms of specs and price starts at $349 and comes equipped with 512MB of RAM, no camera, 4GB SSD, and Ubuntu, apparently with a custom Dell interface. The next model up will run you $399 and has 512MB of RAM, 0.3MP webcam, 8GB SSD, and Windows XP Home. The most costly of the three is $449 and has 1GB of RAM, 16GB SSD, 0.3MP webcam, and is also running Windows XP. Keep in mind, these are just pre-configured machines. You can mix and match the different specs (RAM/OS/webcam/SSD) and get exactly what you want. Oh and don’t forget that you can pay an extra $25 for a white model instead of a black one, if you feel so inclined. Buyer beware, none of the models come with Bluetooth, you need to add that yourself (+$20) when you customize the machine.

Strangely enough, Dell is offering ‘Instant Savings’ of $40 and $55 on the middle and top end models respectively; effectively negating any price break for taking the Ubuntu OS. Anyone care to theorize why they would want to get XP machines out the door rather than Ubuntu?