Dell: "By the way, your Inspiron Mini secretly has 3G" (update: not)

Friday, September 5th, 2008

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More


People have found that their little Minispirons are sporting 3G capability that was unadvertised and is at the moment unsupported. I don’t know whether this is sketchy or cool. On the one hand, they’ve included a part in a computer that has no functionality and you have to assume that you’re paying for it. On the other hand, they didn’t BS the world and try to sell it up when they don’t have a service ready for it. Either way, it’s nice that the thing is there, but I think we can all agree it would have been better if they had A: been honest and B: made use of the 3G from the start.

They say they’ll “be announcing [the 3G card] in a couple of weeks.” Dell, the horse has left the barn, you may as well leave the door open.

Update:
Apparently the Minis being sold in the US don’t have the 3G radios. I guess the quote from the general manager of small-screen devices &mash; “There’s an integrated 3G radio that we’ll be announcing in a couple of weeks” — is Europe only. Kind of misleading!

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