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Remember how Dell promised to let you pick up a shiny new Inspiron Mini 9 netbook for just $99 with the purchase a full fledged notebook? Knocking $250 off the price of the netbook sounds like a pretty good deal, especially when you get two notebooks almost for the price of one, right? Well, maybe not. Engadget did a little digging and discovered that Dell is kind of, sort of increasing the price of the old school notebooks in order to subsidize the deal.

Here’s how it works. Say you want to pick up a Dell Studio 15 laptop. You can visit the Dell Fall Deals page where you’ll find the laptop selling for $699. Granted, this is a limited time promotion, not the list price. But still, $699. But if you go to the page that promises you a $99 Inspiron Mini with purchase, you’ll find a nearly identical Studio 15 configuration for $1098. Do the math and you’ll discover that you could wind up paying more to get the cheap Mini than you would if you just paid full price for the Mini and got the Studio 15 from the Fall Deals page.