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Considering how small the typical netbook is, it’s amazing how much room there seems to be on the inside of a computer like the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 for adding extra components. It probably helps that consumer electronics components are shrinking even faster than laptops. A few days ago, we showed you how to upgrade the SSD on an Inspiron Mini 9. Today’s hack involves adding an internal GPS receiver.

A member of the My Dell Mini forum stuff picked up a USB GPS unit, took it apart, and found a spot next to the Bluetooh module where he could cram it inside the Dell Mini case.

He’s provided detailed instructions that should help you through all the tricky bits, like finding a 5v power source for the GPS module (by connecting to the power source for the trackpad, and plugging into the USB data line for the WWAN PCIe connector.

It looks like the whole hack should only cost about $30, which is how much the GPS dongle costs. But if you muck things up when you pop the lid off your computer, don’t expect your Dell Warranty to cover you. In that case, the price could actually be closer to $350 to $450 for a dead netbook.

via Engadget