Dell on Tuesday added a 12.1-inch ultra-portable laptop to its line of Vostro small business PCs.

The Vostro 1220 fits between the Vostro A90 netbook with an 8.9-inch display and the 1310, a thin and light laptop with a 13.3-inch screen. The 1220 is roughly a pound more and a pound less than the A90 and 1310, respectively.

The latest Vostro weighs 3.36 pounds and is equipped with a 2.2 GHz Intel Celeron processor and a DVD drive. The system is available in obsidian black or deep cherry red and features up to nine hours of battery life. The PC comes with Wi-Fi support or optional mobile broadband for connecting to a wireless carrier.

The 1220 is also available with up to a 320 GB hard drive or an optional solid-state drive. Other features include up to 4 GB of system memory, a Webcam and microphone. The system ships with Windows Vista Home Basic, but is available with Vista Ultimate.

The Vostro 1220 comes with a one-year limited warranty and has a starting price of $799.

Ultra-portable laptops such as the 1220 have a starting price that's typically within $200 to $300 of a top-of-the-line netbook, but pack a faster processor and features that make it a fully capable laptop. Netbooks typically run on Intel Atom processors, which are best for basic computing functions, such as checking e-mail and Web browsing.

Computer makers prefer to have customers buy netbooks, which carry low profit margins, as a second computer. Market researchers, however, have found that many cash-strapped consumers are buying the systems in lieu of mainstream laptops in the economic recession.

Dell's top-of-the-line Vostro A90 netbooks starts at $479.

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