Dell is planning to announce a new mini-laptop computer according to a source inside the company. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Dell Inspiron 910 Mini netbook should launch this Thursday.

The Dell "mini" would be a low-priced computer that is two-thirds the size of full-featured laptops, which will put it into competition with the Eee PC from Asustek and other rivals in Taiwan and Japan. Selling for under $400 the machine will have a screen size under nine inches, and run either Windows or Linux.

It had been expected that Dell would respond to the craze for mini computers.  The Eee had been doing extremely well among heavy computer users who want full-access not just to e-mail but to Web pages and business documents while outside of their offices.

More here.