Dell exits the netbook market

PC giant Dell has ceased offering the firm’s range of Mini netbooks effectively exiting the netbook market in favor of upmarket mobile devices such as the Dell XPS 14z.

While Dell said the firm was "committed to the highly portable space," the XPS range doesn’t offer anything smaller than 14 inches, leaving a considerable gap between the 10-inch netbooks and the 14-inch upmarket portables.

Dell’s US website now only offers an 11 to 14-inch notebook category but even 11-inch models like the older Inspiron 11z don’t feature so the category may as well just say ’14-inch notebooks’ for now.

That said, Dell is expected to shortly add at least one model of Ultrabook and this will most likely be fractionally under the 14-inch size such as HP’s recent 13.3-inch Folio ultrabook.