The third in Dell’s netbook series, the new Inspiron Mini 10 arrives to snuggle between the previous Mini 9, which is perhaps too small, and the Mini 12, which is perhaps too big, to arrive right in the middle, which I endorse as being “just right”. It offers some new tricks, including multi-touch gesture controls for its touchpad and an HDMI port so you can connect your HDTV to watch YouTube videos and other stored content on your 160 GB hard drive on the big screen, but its best appreciated simply for its well-balanced offering of price, performance, and polished design.

In design, the Minis look much the same as their larger cousins, Dell has merely scaled down their traditional laptop shape, offering the same style of keyboard and chassis, but with a more reinforced hinge and a more polished finish and glossy display that gives it a touch of elegance.

The speakers are built into the underside, which may seem strange at first, but it works, and the webcam embedded into the top of the display where it remains out of sight. The only odd feature is the power light, an incredibly bright, white-hot LED that I’m sure could be used to flag down rescue planes in case of an emergency. I don’t know if Dell has fielded complaints in the past about their power lights being too subtle, but it’s certainly not an issue here.

The 10.1” “edge-to-edge” display offers a 16:9 ratio and a maximum resolution of 1024x576, but without a built-in disc drive, you’ll need to rely on downloaded video clips to make proper use of it instead of DVDs.

Since Dell kept the scale of their regular laptops, the keyboard is quite comfortable although the keys themselves are quite flat and could have used a bit of a raised surface to help distinguish them. Dell says that they keyboard is 92% the size of one of their regular keyboards and that feels right.

The touch pad is a single unit, with the left and right buttons built in. The gesture-based controls allow you to use two finger tips with a spreading action to zoom into pictures and scroll through documents. The results are just as mixed as most touchpads which can often be activated by a casual swipe of your hand. I expect most users will switch to a USB mouse like myself, so it’s not a major plus.

The Mini 10 uses Windows XP Home Edition with Intel’s Atom Processor. Dell of course, offers the option to customize the Mini 10 with a wide range of component upgrades, but comes standard with 1GB RAM and a 160 GB Hard drive, much larger than what most netbooks offer.

The test unit I was supplied with came with a 1.6 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM which gave it a quick boot-up speed and enough pep to easily run simultaneously several applications including Google Earth, Picasa, and iTunes.

To test out the battery life I ran my standard test of turning off the power management settings, leaving the Wi-Fi on, and running a music track on an endless loop and it delivered two hours, which matches other netbooks that I have tested.

A bit of surprise, Dell has included both Ethernet and Wi-Fi, which helps with Dell’s efforts to market the Mini as a laptop for kids, many of whom might not have easy wireless access, but one odd omission is the Bluetooth connection which is only available as an upgrade feature.

In terms of ports, Dell has your needs well covered, offering three USB ports, a 4-in-1 media card reader, both headphone and microphone jacks, and HDMI, which seems like it was just tossed in as a fun bonus.

With an HDMI cable connected, I was able to display simple web pages and streaming YouTube videos onto my television, but the moment I tried to stream content that was offered in High Definition, the Mini 10 quickly choked, making the usefulness of the HDMI debatable. The Mini 10 makes for a poor media centre PC.

Dell includes their own support center software, offering online support links and digital manuals for those with limited computer knowledge and their own webcam and video chat software which is surprisingly sophisticated, offering a range of visual effects and playback settings operated by slider bar controls.

Dell offers plenty of upgrade options, none of which I have tested, including the choice of Ubuntu and Vista operating systems, an internal TV tuner and HD resolution, Bluetooth, Wireless WAN, internal GPS, larger storage and memory capacity plus the option for solid state over hard disk drives. All upgrades, of course, raise the price tag and the real strength of the Inspiron Mini 10 is as an inexpensive mini-notebook. At a starting price of $480, you’re best to stay with the standard configuration as its well-balanced performance, style, and features make it an ideal travel companion or utility laptop. Its faster than its size lets on, and that’s the only feature you really need.

Note: The Dell Inspiron Mini 10" will go on sale through Dell.ca on February 27th.