Well, part of the somehow is that the default $450 configuration uses a Celeron processor and comes with Ubuntu. You don't play in Windows land 'til you hit $600, and don't reach ULV Core 2 Duo brains—which ain't exactly heavy duty—until you drop $650.

The V13 is a collision of high end—the design, angled and thin, heavily echoing the original Adamo's silhouette, and build quality, as sturdy as any non-unibody laptop we've tried to bend—and low rent—the keyboard is straight off Dell's budget Inspiron line and well, I already told you what's inside (there's other spec sparseness as well, like 2GB RAM, VGA out and 2 USB ports, one of which is a combo eSATA number). The 13.3-inch, LED-backlit, anti-glare display is nice enough though, at a resolution of 1366x768. The 6-cell sealed battery is rated for 4 hours and 42 minutes, according to Dell, but expect less actually using it, obviously.

Still, at $650, let alone $450—netbook level—you expect some compromise, and if it wasn't at the expense of the design and materials, it had to cut somewhere. (Conversely, you can buy raging monsters from Asus, filled with blistering silicon, but it's powering machines that are ugly, bloated plastic.) Un-compromise is expensive, but the V13 straddles the line fairly skillfully, erring on the side that most don't, and that's something that's commendable. If the Adamo was Batman's laptop, this more human and vulnerable rendition for suits is Bruce Wayne's.

[Dell]

The V13's puny 3.5 pounds may include eSATA, Ethernet, USB and a card reader, but we'll just have to wait for confirmation on the details. [Electronista]

Update: The V13 may be aimed toward business travelers, but based on the details, it wouldn't be bad for the rest of us either:
• 13.3-inch screen
• An ultra-low voltage Core 2 processor
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM pre-loaded
• Bluetooth and 802.11g/n
• An integrated webcam and microphone

Not bad, though it looks like folks in New Zealand are getting the short end of the stick for some reason, since the expected price there converts to about $850. [PC World]

Granted, it's not hard for Dell to roll out a BIOS update that bumps cooling fan RPMs, so it makes sense that they would cover their ass in this way. Although more fan means more noise and less battery life, so the update is not without its costs. Either way, Dell is taking the issue seriously, which makes it seem like the the problem is a little more serious than what Nvidia is saying.

The update is for the following systems: Inspiron 1420, Latitude D630, Latitude D630c, Vostro Notebook 1310, Vostro Notebook 1400, Vostro Notebook 1510, Vostro Notebook 1710, XPS M1330, and XPS M1530

[Direct2Dell via Laptoping]

Vista Business and Vista Ultimate—the two more expensive versions of Vista—are the only two available for downgrade, and only to XP Pro. So in order to get XP on a Vostro 1000, you'd have to install Vista Business first, which costs $99 over the default. Then, you're down another $50 for the downgrade for a total of $149. That's quite a kick in the nards, Microsoft. Then again, Vista is fine and should work fairly OK on pre-built machines if you want to save $149. [Computerworld]