Dell Inspiron 13 Announced

Today Dell released the newest addition to the Inspiron family of PCs: a sub-$700 13-inch laptop. The new Dell Inspiron 13 arrives just in time for back-to-school shoppers and will be available starting next week at Wal-Mart.

With a starting weight of less than 5 pounds, the Inspiron 13 combines "a simple and clean design encased in glossy Pacific blue with black trim." Key features include a 13-inch LCD, touch-sensitive media buttons, 8-in-1 media card reader and slot-loading DVD drive. Optional features include built-in broadband wireless networking, built-in webcam and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity.

A special $699 configuration of the Inspiron 13 will be available at Wal-Mart in the U.S. starting August 3rd. Fully configurable systems will be available worldwide on the Dell website later in the month.

The big news here is that Dell is expanding the Inspiron notebook line to include smaller notebooks. The previous Inspiron releases in the US have focused on 14-inch, 15-inch, and 17-inch notebooks and this is a more travel-friendly solution for students and casual consumers.