Dell Mini 10v 1011 - XP or Windows 7

Anyone here upgraded from XP to Windows 7 on their Mini 10v (1011) and can share if it impacts the speed much ?

I also wondered which version of Windows 7 you have used as I have heard that they have limited the functionality of "Windows 7 Starter" so if I do go for Windows 7 then it might be the Home Premium version.

The spec is 1Gb Ram, 160Gb hard drive and a N270 1.6Ghz cpu.

 

There're only 3 versions for Win 7. Home premium, Professional and Ultimate.

Depending on your workspace, but I believe Windows Home Premium is sufficient for most users.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

I think you can definitely go for Windows 7. It runs fine even on very low end computer. Plus, it's pretty cool

 

what about "starter" ?

 

I received the 10v 1011 with Windows 7 Starter on Friday. I purchased the system as a gift for my parents and spent about an hour configuring it.

My thoughts:

- The touchpad is very irritating. I wound up switching to a USB mouse after a few minutes of using the touchpad. In case you're wondering what caused the irritation, the touchpad has integrated left and right buttons, so it's very easy to accidentally hit one or the other. I imagine you'd eventually get used to the mouse, but it's definitely not a pleasure to work with right off the bat.

- The system is slower than I expected. It's not unbearably slow and keep in mind that this is my first real experience with an Intel Atom N270 so I have no idea how it runs with Windows XP, but the system was noticeably sluggish, sometimes even when running only a single application. Whenever the system would be stressed, the entire desktop (applications and all) would change color slightly, indicating that user interaction was disabled. This happened occasionally even while just casually using Google Chrome. Note that a browser like Chrome or Firefox is hugely advised, since Internet Explorer is a slow beast.

Having said all that, the system is more than fast enough for my parents who will only be using it for casual Web surfing. The screen isn't really big enough for them to regularly edit Word documents (their only other computer activity).

- System memory on the system is 1 GB, with between 300 to 400 free while idling. Unless I wind up upgrading the system to 2 GB, I'll probably use one of my parent's 2 GB SD cards with ReadyBoost. Windows 7 Startup supports this feature just fine.

- There was a bit of rubbish to remove from the system (things like Napster). Overall, there wasn't a lot to remove, but the system isn't shipped in a state that I'd call pristine. I fail to understand why Dell would install the Dell Dock application, consuming quite a bit of the already squeezed desktop space.

- The screen is tiny! This is to be expected and is definitely not a negative on Dell's part, just a thought. The screen quality is good, though the viewing angles weren't great.

 

Oh, random fact about Windows 7 Starter... you can't customize the appearance of Windows AT ALL. There are mildly convoluted workarounds, but you won't be able to even change the desktop background out of the box.

 

My nephew bought a mini 10 which came with XP. He upgraded to Win 7 HP and said that he felt he got better performance out of it with Win 7 vs XP. I was quite surprised but it did look like it was running quite reasonably when I saw it.