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The Dell Mini 10 is due to be released in the UK on February 27th, 2009!

I’ve been following the slow trickle of information released about the Dell Mini 10 for about a month now, and got a little fed up of clicking my bookmarked link to Google with the keywords “dell mini 10 release date”.  So, I clicked on over to dell.co.uk and pulled up a seat in their live chat.  To be honest with you, I didn’t expect them to give me the time of day, never mind the answers to the questions I was about to ask.

After a few seconds, a Dell agent named Avinash came in and 2 lines of pasted text appeared.  Not a good start I thought.  Please excuse the lack of proper formatting as this is not a copy/paste from the original log.  The original log is displayed at the bottom of this post.

Paul Synnott: Initial Question/Comment: Hello, I am waiting eagerly for the release of the Dell Mini 10.  Is there any hint of a release date?  A general ball-park ….
System: Avinash_K_Kumar has joined this session!
System: Connected with Avinash_K_Kumar
Paul Synnott: A general ball park date would be appreciated so I can plan my finances thank you
Avinash_K_Kumar: Thank you for contacting Dell sales chat.  This is Avinash, your Sales Advisor.  Please give me a moment while I review your query.
Avinash_K_Kumar: In order to Help you better can you provide me with your email address and Telephone number in case we get Disconnected so I can either come back to you by phone or email

However, things very quickly got exciting when after asking me to wait 2-3 minutes for the details to my question, he says:

Avinash_K_Kumar: So Paul the mini 10 is being launched on 27th of this month!!!

You read it right, the Dell Mini 10 is being released on February 27th, 2009!!  Wow.  A clear, concise answer to my question.  I was speechless, but not for long!  I quickly got a few more questions in before Avinash came to his senses:

Paul Synnott: I have a question about the power cable that will come with it… as you know, compactness is the key for the Mini, will the power block be the tiny one like the Mini 9, or a huge block like the other laptops?
Avinash_K_Kumar: its going to be the smaller one like the mini 9

Awesome.  No huge power block to carry around.  Winner.  Onto the next question:

Paul Synnott: one last question, I’ve seen the “leaked” slide about the specs, I’m a little disappointed it shows 2 HDDs and no SSDs for the storage options.  Are SSDs definately not being included as an option?
Avinash_K_Kumar:  We are working on that.. we sure feel that SSDs are a must for any compact machine.. but pricing also comes into picture if we include SSDs.. so will have the info in the last week of this month..

Understandable.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Dell can do some magic.  Ok, now for my actual last question:

Paul Synnott:  (oh, forgot to ask, any prices for it yet? )
Avinash_K_Kumar: Prices have not been decided yet but its going to be around the price of the Mini 12.. slightly cheaper though..

So, around 300-350 pounds I’m guessing.  Reasonable.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.  It looks like a great machine and I’ll be first in the queue to buy it.  Full chat log below, made public with Avinash’s permission.

Dell Mini 10 release date chat log