In the case of the Free Dell Mini 9 offer from Vodafone, its not a normal mobile phone tariff that you are signing up to, but a mobile broadband contract. As long as you sign up, you get a netbook for free.

A Dell Mini 9, when you buy it from Dell costs £199. For this you get the netbook. Nothing more, nothing less. If you are thinking about being connected to the Internet when you’re not at home – you can use Wifi. Lots of places offer wifi (wireless LAN) connections when you are on the move, either for free or for a small price. If this is all you’ll ever want and need, you’ll be better off just buying the netbook outright, rather than signing up to a mobile broadband contract.

If you need more than this that you’ll be needing a Mobile Broadband USB stick, available from all the mobile operators, which you can have either on a contract, or with a ‘pay as you go’ arrangement. This will get you connected via the mobile network when wifi is not available (like on a train, or away from the city centre).

So which is better?

• Buy the netbook outright and arrange your mobile broadband yourself
• Get a free netbook from Vodafone and sign the contract

For simple calculations, lets assume that you will use mobile broadband for two thirds of the month (lets call it twenty days a month), and on average you will use it for one hour on each of those twenty days for general web-browising, e-mails etc., but you are not normally going to do big downloads.

To keep it easy, we’ll only look at Vodafone, but of course other mobile phone operators are available (but you won’t find big price differences).

There are three options:-

Buy the Dell Mini 9 yourself and add a Pay-as-you-Go Mobile Broadband USB Stick

So here the netbook will cost you (as mentioned before ) £199. On top of this a ‘Pay-as-you-Go style USB mobile broadband stick will set you back a measly £39, which includes the first 1GB of data (Vodafone have in their advertising assumed that this is enough for 30 hours web-browsing). Subsequent 1GB top-ups cost £15. Using out earlier estimates, that means that you will have top up after 6 weeks (about 9 times per year)

Let’s do the math:

• First  Year Costs: £199 + £39 + (9 x £15) = £373
• Subsequent Yearly Costs: 9 x £15 = £135
• Total cost for three years = £643 or about 59p per day
  

Buy the Dell Mini 9 yourself and add a Mobile Broadband USB Stick with a contract

Here again, you need to fork out £199 up front, and then sign a contract with Vodafone (or someone else) for the mobile broadband. If you sign a 12-month contract, Vodafone will happily give you the USB stick for free. Again using our earlier estimates about your usage, it would make sense to go for the cheapest plan, which includes 3GB per month, for £15.

This comes out at:

• First Year Costs: £199 + (12 x £15) = £379
• Subsequent Yearly Costs:  12 x £15 = £180
• Total cost for three years = £739 or about 67p per day

Get the Dell Mini 9 for Free by signing a conract for mobile broadband

The advantage here is that you don’t have to fork out £199 for the netbook. Everything is included in the monthly plan. Same usage assumptions again of course. For a 1GB per month plan

Here the costs are:

• First Year Costs: 12 x £20 = £240
• Subsequent Yearly Costs:  12 x £20 = £240
• Total cost for three years = £720 or about 66p per day

Summary

Interesting eh? The free netbook turned out not to be the cheapest over three years. Also, with the free netbook, you are committed to the ongoing costs for two years, where as with the pay-as-you-go option, you were not committed at all.

Of course, in different situations, the benefits and drawbacks change. If you were to do a lot of downloading from time to time, the pay-as-you-go option may end up costing more. Before jumping into a free netbook deal though, we really recommend to do the calculations based on how much you think you will use mobile broadband and see if it is really good option for you.

Next steps: Compare netbook prices or buy a netbook

Customers are expected to have the option of selecting an upgraded screen, 802.11n wireless and Bluetooth 2.1 cards.

Most interesting will be the screen upgrade, which offers native resolution of 1366 x 768, which should fit the 10-inch monitor nicely. Applications will have more usable real-estate as a result. 720p HD video will fit on the screen without needing to be scaled down.

It’s not yet known when (or indeed even if) these will be available to order in the UK, but it shouldn’t be long. If you are thinking of buying a Mini 10 this week, our advice would be to hold off if you can, especially as the price difference in the US is very nice at just $35.