Hands On with the Thin Dell Inspiron 11z

What does the "z" in the Dell Inspiron 11z stand for? Z-height, and Dell's intent to create the absolute thinnest laptop available for that screen size.

And, as the name suggests, the 11z has an 11.6-inch widescreen and is the first Inspiron laptop to bear the "z" moniker (the "z" parade started with the Dell Studio 14z). Note that it doesn't have the "Mini" brand: Dell is not calling this a netbook, even though 11-inch netbooks like the Asus eeePC 1101HA and the Acer Aspire One A0751h are already shipping. The 11z's biggest differentiator is that it runs a 1.2-GHz, Intel Ultra Low Voltage Celeron processor instead of the more commonly found Atom. Everything else, however, smells like a netbook.

Like all Dell Inspiron models, the 11z can be customized with up to 7 colors; the one we played with was draped in Alpine White. The 11z is slightly wider than the Inspiron Mini 10v and almost as thin. It weighs about 3 pounds with a 3-cell battery (a 6-cell will be offered at a later date), which is slightly heavier than the 1101HA and the A0751h, whose frames include 6-cell batteries at about the same weight.

The best part about an 11.6-inch widescreen is that you don't have to suffer the 1,024-by-600 resolutions found in 10-inch netbooks like the Toshiba mini NB205 and the Mini 10v; the 11z, like the A0751h and the 1101HA, has a 1,366-by-768 resolution. Its keyboard, unfortunately, is not full sized like that of the A0751h. At 92 percent of full size, it delivers a typing experience touch typists can adjust to, though, similar to the 92-percent ones found in the 10v and the 1101HA. The large touchpad is like that of the 10v, in which the mouse buttons are concealed within it.

Feature-wise, it has what the 1101HA and the A0751h lack: an HDMI-Out port. This handy port allows you to stream all those downloaded videos to an HDTV (or larger display) that supports the format. It also comes standard with a 250-Gbyte spinning hard drive, which is impressive when most netbooks standardize on 160 GB. Otherwise, the three USB ports, Ethernet, and a media card reader are consistent with those of a netbook. (full Story)