Dell Inspiron M101z Laptop Is Light Weight and Cheap at $449

Dell has added a new ultra-portable laptop to its Inspiron line, the M101z. Calling it a mix of brains and beauty, the consumer-geared PC pairs color and aesthetic flourishes with Advanced Micro Devices processors and subtle design touches meant to add additional stability to a device small enough to be thrown into, per Dell, “a handbag or backpack.”  

Th M1010z weighs in under 4 pounds, features an 11.6-inch display — a TrueLife HD glossy WLED, with a resolution of 1,366 by 768 —and offers a choice of AMD Athlon II Neo single and dual-core mobile processors with integrated ATi graphics. The new Dell laptop offers a number of different Microsoft operating systems, including Windows 7 Home Premium.  

Dell imagines it a fit for busy students, say, or moms on the go, and either is likely to appreciate that the keyboard here is full size. There’s also 4GB of DDR3 (double data rate) memory at 800MHz, for helping with multitasking, and a SATA hard drive up to 320GB. That’s enough, Dell says (thinking of the film student, anyone with a flight delay or the mom entertaining kids in the car?) for 142 hours of DVD-quality video, 38 hours of HD video or 80,000 songs. You’ll have to charge up a few times, though — battery life is 6.5 hours with the standard 6-cell battery.  

Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity options are included, as are a 1.3-megapixel Webcam (Skype comes preinstalled), three USB ports, an HDMI port for connecting to an HDTV, a 7-in-1 card reader, a VGA port and two 1.5W speakers — though portable USB speakers are an optional addition, as is an external DVD/RW drive.  

The M1010z features a “hinge-forward design” that reportedly moves the display closer to the PC’s body to “help enhance strength and durability,” and users can choose between four colors — Clear Black, Peacock Blue, Tomato Red and Promise Pink — and add little designs on the palm rest. Preinstalled Syncables Desktop software is said to make it easy to sync data such as music, video and data files with another PC, and there’s also an app for organizing family schedules.  

"Finally, people can get premium looks, a big display, a full-width keyboard, long battery life and a powerful processor in a laptop no bigger than many netbooks," Brian Pitstick, director and general manager of Dell’s ultra mobile products, said in a statement. "The Inspiron M101z is an affordable, on-the-go companion that can be easily customized to handle individual needs from simple e-mailing and Web surfing to HD video playback and editing or watching a favorite TV program."  

The Dell Inspiron M101z is now available at dell.com, with a starting price of $449.