Where would netbooks be without Windows XP? Probably nowhere, so why have Dell decided to combine the low-power Atom Z-series with Windows Vista on their new 12" laptop? There’s two reasons.
1 - To save a few watts/degrees/mm
2 - To enable a high-end video experience
The one thing that hasn’t been tested yet is video. The Poulsbo chipset offers hardware decoding for a number of video encoding formats and maybe Dell want to use this as the main feature but from what I can see, there’s no HDMI or composite output so they are obviously not aiming the device at media fans, especially with that relatively slow and small 60GB, 1.8" 4200 RPM drive they’ve put inside. No, it looks like they wanted to go for the smallest, quietest and lowest power build and Menlow/Vista was probably the only choice. Many people are aware that XP drivers just don’t seem to be materialising for the Menlow platform so it looks like Dell made the choice to push out a Vista version rather than wait.
The problem they have now is that the first reviews will stick in the Internet search results and poison any future release of the same model. They also poison the Menlow platform. The Dell Mini 12 is a big mistake. They really should have waited until Windows 7 was available.
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