[Ben]

http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/2008/10/13/Dell-Inspiron-Mini-9-Netbook-on-Vodafone/p1

If you want a "connected" netbook then the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 on Vodafone is your best bet right now. Available for free on some attractive contracts, it's the only netbook to offer integrated HSDPA. That it's found inside a cohesively designed, attractive and highly portable chassis only adds to the appeal.
This is what I'm talkin' about! :D HSDPA finally arrives on a laptop (netbook) that might sell in great number to ordinary people. This is the sort of enabler we need to a) improve 3G coverage and performance and b) cement the mobile networks' future as the de facto mobile broadband provider.

Considering you can get the netbook for free from Vodafone.co.uk on contract I can't see how this offer will fail to be attractive (despite the increase in tariff cost). If the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 is also available in Vodafone stores, which I assume it will be, then it could find it's way into the hands of a great many people.

"Hello Student! Free laptop with built in broadband?"

[bsrjl1]

It looks like a great netbook, and I'd get one now if it wasn't Vodafone. I've been using a mobile connect card provided by work, and it's been completely useless. As soon as you go inside a building it seems to drop back to GPRS. Often find myself sitting by the window in a hotel room, moving the laptop around to find a sniff of 3G or HSDPA.

And when it is on HSDPA, it's still quite slow especially during the evening. A couple of colleagues got T-Mobile sticks & they seem pretty good, although they've had problems recently with no connection/throughput. A straw poll of ~50 people at work seems to show that 3 seems to have the best coverage & reliabilty. Strangely no-one has got an Orange or O2 modem....

[Hands0n]

Before anyone contemplates a 3 mobile data card look elsewhere on this forum for issues with 3's DNS. If it goes flaky 3 have it locked down so you cannot use another working DNS. Then the fun starts when you try to convince 3's Customer Services that there is a fault.

Vodafone is a strong network, but like all of them, not without holes and possibly a victim of its own success. The [lack of] investment in the 3G/HSPA networks in the UK is astonishing. Led by misguided and inappropriate financial constraints the companies want to see profits before they'll plough a single penny into the network. Forgetting completely that it is the network itself that is their core business. No network, no money. Inadequate network, inadequate income!

I think the idea is to check out which network best serves the area you are going to live, work and play in. No one network has comprehensive coverage, no matter what they say.

[gorilla]

This is a good sign, i.e. that telecom companies and manufacturers have finally spotted a market for mobile broadand.

What grieves me though, is the expense involved, the lenghty contract etc. Let's make it simple.

Oh and another thing, what's the download limit? Doesn't windows churn out some pretty big patches and bug fixes?

I'm a fan of both netbooks and mobile broadband, but they still seem expensive and flaky at the minute.

But to end on a positive, I do like the Dell :)

[getti]

there are 2 deals. 3GB and 5GB

[Hands0n]

Interestingly, when you take off the contract value the Inspirons are costing the mobile network operator nothing at all. There is no subsidy, in fact there is undoubtedly a profit to be made. The monthly fee for the Netbook covers not only the retail price of the laptop but also the cost of funds to support the up-front cost to the mobile network operator for the 24 months.

In essence, with these deals, you are merely buying the Netbook on the never-never.

Do me a favour? No blooming chance.

[miffed]

Interestingly, when you take off the contract value the Inspirons are costing the mobile network operator nothing at all. There is no subsidy, in fact there is undoubtedly a profit to be made. The monthly fee for the Netbook covers not only the retail price of the laptop but also the cost of funds to support the up-front cost to the mobile network operator for the 24 months.

In essence, with these deals, you are merely buying the Netbook on the never-never.

Do me a favour? No blooming chance.

Agree totally ! on another forum someone had posted up deal offered with an Advent/ three Broadband as "too good to be true ? " the guy was convinced he was getting a great deal , paying £35 per month for 18 months and getting the notebook "free"
.....Until I pointed out that the Three offer the same 5GB deal of £15 Per month to anyone who wants it - and the laptop could be bought for £260 at PC world !
Meaning that he'd be paying FULL PRICE for the laptop , FULL PRICE for the Broadband PLUS £100 on top for good measure - there is nothiing remotely "too good to be true" about it !!!!!

How come people don't see this ? it is like their brains go into "Homer Simpson" mode , and the simply see the words "free laptop" and ignore the details !

[Ben]

I suppose the networks would justify the extra long-term cost as they're providing the laptop for 'free' up front. I, too, think that such pricing is madness - the networks should be using subsidy to make these devices cheaper to own, not more expensive.

Given the current economic climate they may well have to make their offers more enticing. Of course, as is always the case with our mobile operators, they'll milk the early adopters and wait for sales to slow before slashing prices.

Still, I think this Dell machine in itself is a fantastic proposition. Dell have bucked up their ideas lately, and by all accounts this is a good machine.

[chaslam]

The way to think about it is like a mobile phone. You get a phone contract, you get it for £20 a month. You get it with a phone, it cost £35 or £40 a month, simply because your getting a free phone, its the same sort of proposition. You get mobile BB by itself, you get it at £15 a month. You want it with a laptop, it costs you £30, but you get £300 off the laptop, or possibly a free one.

[miffed]

But thats the whole point ! - Normally there is something to GAIN by buying the Phone on a contract (unless the customer has been very reckless !)

i.e. Total cost of ownership is usually =
In fact a few of my "bargains" have even gone as far as the total cost of ownership being cheaper than the SIM free handset PERIOD !! (this was common practice for Three for a while !)

But as Handson points out , these deals are taking it to another level - they are not simply dropping the subsidy , they are actually factoring a PREMIUM into the deal !

[Hands0n]

miffed has it 100% The mobile operators are effectively selling you the laptop at street price plus charging your something like £100 on top, which is effectively the cost of funds (check out a £350 loan at your local bank/building society) across the three years. That is a whopping 30% roughly. The banks and building societies must be looking on in green envy, they'd never get away with such funding costs.

Handsets are an entirely different proposition. The mobile network operators do not pay the SIM-free price for a handset. The wholesale price they pay, say Nokia, would make you weep. For a N95 think a few tens of pounds, not the £350+ it would have cost you when first out. How can they subsidise so wildly? Easy, their actual cost of voice/data/sms is miniscule, fractions of a penny - even if you factor in the termination rates they charge each other, these effectively nett off over time.

No, ladies and gentlemen, if you go for one of these so-called "deals" you are being royally ripped off.

[chaslam]

But you also have to factor in that the Mobile BB market are still in early days. As time goes on, much like mobile phones, the market will become more saturated, and therefore stamp down the price of the mobile BB market. Do you remember when a mobile phone cost over a grand a year for a contract? Ok, its not exactly the same, but its similar.

But yes, i do agree with you lot, its a bad deal, and at the moment, effectively its similar to financing a laptop and taking mobile broadband on top, but all in one package. And lets me honest, the quicker the average joe cotton on to this, the quicker the price will go down.