Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dell will soon launch a low-cost laptop with a base price of approximately $399. With all that’s been happening in the world of cheap mobile computing in the past year, it’s not really surprising that Dell wants to have its own share of the cake. Since Asus and HP have already released their own low-cost ultra-mobile solutions recently, Dell doesn’t really have much of a choice but to release a similar product if they want to remain in the game.

The only details we’ve been able to get so far are that this notebook will feature a 8.9-inch display and be manufactured by Dell’s Taiwanese sub-contractor, Compal.

Dell’s new mini-laptop could be available for purchase as soon as June 2008.