Dell Mini 10 Stuck With 1 GB RAM

Since its reveal at CES, we’ve figured the Dell Mini 10 to be one of the premium 10-inch netbooks.

With its promise of a high-res, 720p-capable display and TV tuner, the Dell Mini 10 was the netbook that aspired to do more than just casual browsing -- hoping to step into the realm of multimedia. However, whatever multimedia that it will end up doing, it’ll have to accomplish it with 1 GB of RAM.

Dell’s Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca wrote that all the initial versions of the Mini 10 will come with 1 GB “fixed” RAM, meaning it will not be upgradable. This is rather disappointing as other 10-inch netbooks such as the MSI Wind and Asus Eee PC offer ways for the user to expand to 2 GB, even if 1 GB is the standard option.

Gadget blog Boing Boing thinks that the 1 GB limit could be a restriction imposed by either Intel for use of the Atom or Microsoft for its Windows XP netbook licensing. Either way, it doesn’t seem to make much sense and is disappointing to those who were looking forward to the Mini 10 as a more media capable netbook.

Last week we saw the initial shipping hardware list from Dell about its Mini 10, which was a minor letdown as it did not feature the 720p display or the TV tuner as options. Surely Dell will eventually those features later on, but not having them at launch does paint the Mini 10 as less stellar than it could be. Hopefully RAM expandability will be on feature that comes later as well.