Breaking the 10-inch screen size barrier of mini-notebooks is the new Dell Inspiron Mini 12. It's the first “netbook” to sport a 12-inch screen, and shares the same design with its smaller counterpart, the Mini 9. It has a similar glossy black coating, smooth silver palm rest and screen bezel. The 92-percent full-size keyboard is spacious and void of any flex. The touchpad is also large and has a slightly textured surface. It comes with the requisite ports, including 3 USB ports, VGA, as well as a 3-in-1 card reader. The 1280 x 800-pixel resolution glossy screen provided ample workspace, and the horizontal viewing angles were good. One major caveat with the Mini 12 is the hardware restrictions, such as limited support pegged at 1GB of RAM and a less common PATA/ZIF interface. During benchmark testing, the system lagged when multiple applications were open. The hardware also had a bit of trouble keeping up with Vista. On the other hand, the six-cell battery of the Mini 12 lasted an impressive 5 hours and 20 minutes. While the Dell Inspiron Mini 12 is indeed groundbreaking, you might want to wait for the Mini 12 with Windows XP for better performance.