[KieranD79]

Hi all,

I've been browsing the forum for a year or so and it's great!

I've currently got a 10v but I'm thinking of upgrading to a 1012 with an HD Screen and Broadcom Crystal HD chip but have a couple of questions.

Is the Broadcom HD chip easy to setup and use to its fullest benefit?

Does the UK 1012 come with SRS Surround Sound as standard on the HD model?

Will it take the 2Gb RAM upgrade I bought for 10v so I don't have to buy another one?

Hope somebody can shed some light on this for me.

Thanks,
Kieran

[Lightning Blue]

About the only question I can answer is that yes you can reuse your memory!

[abdidas]

I got my one today, yes it's the HD version with broadcom card.
My experience so far is dissappointing, the broadcom card does not really do what is says it will especially flash is horrible, sometimes I think a regular netbook would do better. Really strange, I hope it can be fixed by software otherwise it is a huge let down.

other than that it is good, keyboard is nice but the track pad can get a little annoying especially when it drags when u dont want it to but that is quite minor. Screen is nice and roomy since its higher resolution than standard netbooks. Windows starter so far is crappy I dont like it because there is no aero and it feels slow.

Youtube is pissing me off, it has some hickups and non-smoothness on 360p even :S

I installed the lastest flash and latest drivers still letting me down.

cpu gets overloaded quickly and goes to 100% usage when not doing anything stressful.

I would not recommend as of now because of the box I am not so happy with it, but if its at a bargain the screen is worth it.

[culthuu]

The Broadcom card has no options you can adjust. All you can do is load the driver. It makes playing HD video a lot better. The reason Flash is bad is because of the Adobe player. Face it, this kind of computer is dog slow and there’s nothing you can do about it. Put 2 Gigs of memory and get rid of the bloatware and don’t expect miracles. Believe it or not my unit with the better screen and the Broadcom card can play 1080P videos over a wired network. It handles regular Divx and Windows Media just fine over the wireless N connection. The sound is the regular Realtek HD audio. Mine shows an ‘Advanced Audio FX Engine’ but I believe that’s part of the webcam software. The sound is no better or worse than any other small netbook. I have put an SSD in mine and it makes a world of difference in making the unit feel faster. Programs open immediately and it boots up in about 30 seconds. But it won’t help much otherwise. And yes, the trackpad is absolutely terrible and it’s compounded by the 1366X768 screen. The icons are so small it’s hard to hit them. I’ve got a Dell XPS 1330 and the trackpad on that is lightyears better than this one. Use the HP trackpad driver that is shown elsewhere on this forum and it tames the trackpad somewhat but the only real solution is a Bluetooth mouse. But honestly the Dell is no worse than all the other Atom netbooks out there. I bought it for the TV tuner so I can watch TV when the electricity is out down here in Florida during our numerous hurricanes. With a halfway decent HD antenna I can pick up about a dozen channels without having to rely on the electricity or the cable.

[Kiki]

The BCCHD card is great, can play 1080p movies even from Youtube. Needn't any setup just require Flash 10.1. Other Flashes except Youtube won't be accelerated by BCCHD.
SRS is all modell standard, but do not expect bass sound.
I like the touchpad with the HP driver, just configure it and works great.
2GB Ram is a must have upgrade I think.
The HD screen is excellent (but a calibration is necessary), it has 250 cd brightness.

[KieranD79]

OK, that's all good to know, we've just bought two at Work and I find the design looks a bit more modern compared to my Mini 10v.

Does anyone think it's worth waiting for the Mini 1018 to get the HD stuff and would it really be a better netbook?

[Kiki]

IMHO not. Just an upgraded processor with DDR3 support, worth nothing to wait.

[KieranD79]

Well I was thinking the same thing. I presume that the 1018 is going to kind of be the same as the 10v was to the 10. Where the 10v was design to be the value model.

Am I right in the line of thinking?

[rrfranczak3]

Originally Posted by KieranD79

Well I was thinking the same thing. I presume that the 1018 is going to kind of be the same as the 10v was to the 10. Where the 10v was design to be the value model.

Am I right in the line of thinking?

not quite, the 1018 is just a different color and a slightly faster processor and the change of DDR2 to DDR3 type memory..not all options are available yet for the 1018 (TV Tuner,HD screen..etc)

the 10v and 10 were a lot different in where you could upgrade the memory on the 10v and NOT on the 1010, also the processors and graphics card were totally different between the z520/z530 processors and the GMA500 graphics (which is NOT compatable with OSX) on the 10 and the n270/n280 processors and the GMA945 graphics (which is compatable with OSX) on the 10v..also with the 10v and the 10 the 10v had VGA out where as the 10 had HDMI out...also the 10v did not have an HD screen or TV Tuner option where as with the 10 you could get the TV Tuner and HD (1366x768) screen

In the case of the 1012 and 1018 both have the same GMA3150 graphics and both have VGA out only..no HDMI option and both have upgradable memory..the difference in the processors n450/n455 for the 1012/1018 is practically the same as the z520/z530 for the 10 (1.33ghz vs 1.6ghz) and the n270/n280 for the 10v which is very small just about .006 ghz (1.6ghz vs 1.66ghz)

Personally if I was buying a new one now, I would wait for the 1018 to have all options available....I wanted the HD screen,TV tuner,Bluetooth..etc..and a unit thats ALL one color....I hate the white bottom and diffrent color top on the 1012, the only way you are ok is if you order white then the whole unit is white..but if you order black, you get a black top and white bottom which looks like hell..the 1018 is ALL black which looks great


PS. I also hear that on the 1018 they changed the touchpad to actually have REAL buttons as opposed to just click areas which has been the case on EVERY Dell Mini ever made so thats a major change also

[Isthmus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but everything I've read says that Dell is intentionally slotting the 1018 below the 1012 and there are no plans to offer the 1018 with the HD screen or the Broadcom Crystal HD media accelerator (Is bluetooth available in the 1018?).

Check out the fourth paragraph down in this Dell Blog:

Hot out of the oven

Has this changed and will the 1018 eventually be replacing the 1012?