Dell Inspiron Duo coming in December for $550

[Emil]

The Dell Inspiron Duo should go up for pre-order sometime soon and start shipping out the first week of December, according to Engadget. The base model, which includes a dual-core Intel Atom N550 processor, 2GB of RAM, a Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator, 250GB of storage, two USB ports, one audio jack, and Windows 7 Home Premium, will start at $549 (£449). If you want to configure it with a larger hard drive and add the JBL speaker-dock we saw in the amazing teaser video, the price will go up to $649 (the price of the dock itself is unknown).

Announced two months ago, the convertible netbook has a 10-inch capacitive touchscreen (1366x768-resolution) with an interesting swivel mechanism: the screen flips vertically inside the bezel. When the panel is facing inwards, you have a normal netbook that you can open and close as you normally would. When it's facing outwards, you have a tablet with a hardware keyboard underneath.

In other words, the device has an entertainment mode and a productivity mode. When you go from the latter to the former, the device automatically launches Dell's Duo Stage UI layer, which provides access to Dell's MusicStage, VideoStage, PhotoStage, and BookStage applications.

The timing for the launch is perfect: just in time for this year's holiday season. On the other hand, what do you think of the price; is it too high, too low, or just right?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/41191-dell-inspiron-duo-coming-in-december-for-550.html

 

[bioflex]

i wish i could afford one of these elegant netbooks, and i think the price is just right if you ask me

 

[Nima304]

Argh! Stop producing netbooks, OEMs! They look awesome, but if I'm not going to buy them, what's the point?

 

[Emil]

Nima304 said:
Argh! Stop producing netbooks, OEMs! They look awesome, but if I'm not going to buy them, what's the point?

The point is OEMs sell to more people than just you.

 

[princeton]

Nima304 said:
Argh! Stop producing netbooks, OEMs! They look awesome, but if I'm not going to buy them, what's the point?

See above. Your not the only person on the planet you know.

 

[Psychodan]

The price sounds like it is close to what it should be, but I think we will be able to decide better once we see how it performs in some real world test. I for one will be watching this closely.

 

[vangrat]

So $550 in the states equates to $999 in Oz..because you know the Australian dollar isn't at parity or anything...ffs.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

This is cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Tab at the moment... with more power, memory, AND Windows 7 instead of free Android OS. This looks like a win-win to me. I'm not convinced on the "convertible" concept yet, i'll have to try it in person. I appears like it could be clumbsy and subject to reliability issues if not babied and cared for. Those twist-able micro ribbon cables only last so long before a lead breaks and your SOL at that point.

However if the price will be decent or even lower, and it has a good quality display with good viewing angles, I could see this in my hands over many of the tablets that will be coming out.

And sorry for you folks in Aussie land... that's no good. Perhaps you need to get hired by a company that frequently needs to ship you over to the states for a week or two.

 

[Vrmithrax]

I think it's a good price point - above the low end netbooks, below the full-fledged notebooks, and on parity with the reported pricing of many tablets hitting the market. However, you can't judge cost effectiveness until we get some actual operation specs like battery life and general speed. Need to know if it's zippy and lasts long enough to be useful, before I know if it's worth the $$. I still think I'll wait a generation and see if they throw together a system powered by either Intel or AMD's new APUs. Now THAT could be a nice little package

Oh, and @IAMTHESTIG - As someone who has had nightmares with heavy-handed employees who manage to keep breaking the "spin and flip" hinge on some current convertible tablets, I can relate to your quality concerns. But, as an engineer, I can't help but be happy there are 2 pivot points for stability now. I think the main issue with this design will be people getting careless and flipping the thing too hard.