Today, the Inspiron Mini 12 was officially launched in the United States after it had its initial test run in Japan. The 12” notebook is a combination of a netbook and an ultraportable notebook. It does not have the performance of the Mini 9, but costs more at $549. The 1.33 GHz Atom is complemented with 1 GB of memory, a 40 GB hard drive, and Windows Vista Home Basic. The Mini 9 has 512 MB memory, a 4 GB flash drive and runs Ubuntu Linux.

If you need your Mini 12 to pack a little more punch, there is a $654 option ($599 promo), which offers a 1.6 GHz Atom chip, a 60 GB hard drive and a six-cell battery. To take this small PC to the max you might want to purchase the $758 ($678 promo) version that ups the capacity to 80 GB and extends your warranty to 2 years. All versions come in either black or white and will begin shipping in early December.