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First Reviews of the MSI Wind Ultra-Portable Laptop
Ken E. writes "UK tech website Mobile Computer has an early hands-on review of the MSI Wind — a £329 ultraportable notebook that will compete head-on with the Asus Eee PC 900. In its favour are a 10in screen, better keyboard and, perhaps most important of all, an Intel Atom 1.6GHz dual-core processor (though the site shies away from mentioning this open secret due to what sound like NDA constraints). They like it a lot — is this finally a worthy Eee PC alternative?" (£329 is about $650US at the moment.) An anonymous reader points to CNET's hands-on photo gallery of the Wind; CNET's reviewer says the MSI Wind is the first mini notebook with an overclock button. Barence adds another review at PC Pro.
Am I the only one who read the title and thought that MSI had made a wind powered laptop?
You're right that £329 is about $650 on xe.com etc today. However it's a bit misleading when it comes to product. In Blighty here we have always suffered in the transatlantic stakes - new kit is always significantly more expensive than the USD/GBP exchange rate would infer. This is frequently illustrated in the UK press as being indicative of 'Rip off Britain'. I very strongly suspect this holds in the reverse here too. Given how weak the dollar is, I seriously don't expect them to be charging $650 for it in the US - it'll be cheaper.
Ok, why the hell has every manufacturer in the business decided to eschew the pgup/pgdn buttons for the god-awful two-handed replacement? Does anyone actually like this crap or are the rest of you only reading 1 page things?
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Uh it said a worthy alternative to the eee pc, not the OLPC..
I'd generally steer clear of anything with a relic of a "Turbo" button..
I find it interesting that this laptop more or less falls right in between your standard fare laptop and an Eee PC in terms of portability and raw power, but is the most expensive of the crop.
Using the base Vostro 1500 for the "average laptop" and the Eee PC 8G we have:
I realize the comparison is odd since they all hit different intended markets, but it seems that something that is between the two in specs would be closer to either of the two in terms of price than it currently is.
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I find it interesting that this laptop more or less falls right in between your standard fare laptop and an Eee PC in terms of portability and raw power, but is the most expensive of the crop.
Using the base Vostro 1500 for the "average laptop" and the Eee PC 8G we have:
I realize the comparison is odd since they all hit different intended markets, but it seems that something that is between the two in specs would be closer to either of the two in terms of price than it currently is.
Compared to the Vostro you're paying for the size reduction. I bet that Vostro is one of those fugly and heavy cheap dells. At 6.33lbs, you can have that Vostro lead brick. UGH! Never again for travel would I use something that heavy. Once you go 3lbs for travel, you NEVER go back.Compared to the EEE, you are paying for the larger 10" screen & faster processor.
All in all, it makes perfect sense to me the price placement from your list.
I had one MSI mainboard that was DOA. No problems getting a replacement. Since then it's been used in a small office file server which runs 24/7 in a (sadly) unventilated closet, survived a number of power outages and even a power supply explosion (literally). Running for three years now ann not a single problem... with the mainboard anyway :)
MSI is certainly not a top brand but they're not complete junk either, in my experience.
=Smidge=
...the "overclock" button was known as Turbo and the only reason we used it was because our 386's went too damn fast!
If your car has a button for the turbo, you may have installed it incorrectly. ;-)
You're paying for the smaller size...that kind of engineering isn't free.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
FTA:
How can you claim performance is good without running quantitative benchmarks?
I am interested in the performance of the new Atom processor because it uses a new chip design that prioritizes cost (to manufacture) and power efficiency, but not necessarily performance.
Not so quick. The turbo button in my 80s Civic was mislabeled AC, but I think the only incorrect installation was the light itself. If I turned off the AC light, the car could actually climb a hill with passengers in it.
I'm with you on the VGA output. DVI, however, is a bit too big to consider on a laptop, so IMHO they should switch to HDMI instead (which is probably where computer monitors are headed anyway).
As for the enter/backspace key, I hate those huge L-shaped enter keys and a regular-sized backspace key is a problem. In fact, on my Apple keyboard right here, the delete key is just a tad shorter than the return key.
If you rarely use backspace, more power to you. But for the rest of us, a regular-sized backspace key would be too much trouble. In fact, I'd even say that if you can't hit a non-L-shaped enter key, you're the one with a problem.