After watching the mini-notebook war from afar, Dell barges into the arena with its own Inspiron Mini 9. It sports a rounded lid with a glossy finish that extends under the hood with a smooth-coated, silver palm rest and screen bezel. The Mini 9 is the lightest and smallest among the 8.9-inch mini-notebooks in the market. It has a travel weight of only 2.6 pounds including the AC adapter. The glossy 8.9-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel resolution screen provided bright colors and good viewing angles. The keyboard was comfortable, though several keys were awkwardly placed, making touch-typing a problem until the user adjusts. The touchpad is decently sized and gave a nice textured feel. The Mini 9 has the usual ports found on a mini-notebook. It uses a tailored version of Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix for its operating system, with Dell’s Launcher at the heart of the customized OS. The 1.6-GHz Atom processor and 1GB of RAM provided enough muscle for multitasking and speedy boot times. The four-cell battery of the Inspiron Mini 9 provided juice for 3 hours and 12 minutes with Wi-Fi on. Tiny but sturdily built, the Inspiron Mini 9 is an excellent choice for Linux users.