Sony Vaio P swaps Vista for XP

Sony’s decision to load its stunning Vaio P Series with Vista was a bit like drowning a gourmet salmon fillet in ketchup and mayonnaise. Seemingly recognizing that Vista made it insufferably slow, Sony has now released a new model that runs Windows XP.

The Vaio P50 is sadly only available in Japan at the moment, but seems likely to make the leap to the US and Europe if it improves performance enough to see it compete with the netbooks for sales.

The rest of its specs – including a 2Ghz Atom Z550 processor and 256GB SSD – are also a step up from the current P Series offerings in the UK, but not so radical that it will necessarily remain Japan-only.

A fast Vaio P with Sony’s glorious XMB interface would definitely be a contender for the spot in our inside coat pocket. Then again, we might hang on for a Windows 7 version…