That’s right, you read that correctly. The folks over at Dell UK (DellUk) were running a competition on Twitter, the micro-blogging web site. I have to say this is probably the first thing worthwile that I’ve won in a competition ever, pretty much. So I’d like to thank them very much for giving me the opportunity to win something worthwile, and helping advertise my account on their web site for the duration of the competition.

Now to the nitty gritty. I recommend that you watch the video available here: Introduction – That someone has already made up for the Dell web site, but which I based most of my inital reactions on.

My first reactions were very similar: wow this looks good, and wow this is light. Mine came with Windows 7 Starter pre-installed. So after I’d plugged it in, and switched it on (as per the instructions) it was asking me final configuartion options, language and the details for setting up the account – people in the industry would say it had been ‘sysprepped’ ready for first use. In all fairness nearly all Mac/Windows computers, come ready for action.

After turning on, I realised how slow the damn thing seemed to be running so stripped off every piece of trial-ware or lame software I wouldn’t need. Including the Dell online back-up software (which I found would expire in 12 months unless I paid for the renewal), so that came off too.

I installed Panda Cloud Anti-Virus which works a treat and have left Windows Firewall and Defender et al active. I’m going to be using the netbook for all things web/web related so this should be more than enough for the time being.

After a bit more tweaking, and fiddling about, I found the netbook ran a lot faster, and is really a  rather enjoyable piece of kit.

I haven’t had a chance to play with the webcam yet, but it does come with one.

I learnt that Microsoft removed the functionality to change your desktop wallpaper at all in Starter, so I found a small app that lets you do this (If I get enough interest will post links/upload myself for people to have access to.)

If you have any questions feel free to ask – for someone that primarily uses Mac though, this bit of kit is great! And the battery life is second to none.

(And yes, I wrote this from the Mini)

Update 1: I have now upgraded the netbook to Windows 7 Professional, slightly slower, and battery life isn’t as good as before (I think) but still working well.