A Video Tour of the MSI Wind and Other Netbooks

Ken E. writes "UK mobile tech site Mobile Computer has posted a nice 10-minute video that gives a tour of the MSI Wind, and shows it alongside the two other Intel Atom-powered netbooks, the Acer Aspire One and Asus Eee PC 901. The site also has photos that show the three netbooks together to give a good idea of the differences in size. The MSI Wind goes on sale today in the UK (a week ahead of the US) for £350 (around $700). Not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop, but the MSI Wind looks like the best of the bunch so far."

Comments

Honey, I shrunk the MacBook!

[joetheappleguy]

Yikes, that MSI Wind looks, ah...familiar.

Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook!

[frdmfghtr]

I thought it looked more like an older iBook than a MacBook.

What struck me was the name...MSI Wind...MacBook Air...hmm...

Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook!

[Torvaun]

So next would be the Compaq Fart?

Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook!

[jo42]

HP Vacuum - since Vacuum is lighter than Wind or Air.

Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook!

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Dell Blows?

**note to mods: I actually quite like Dell for price/performance and indeed I'm typing on one now... this post is purely for comedic value!

Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook!

[Fred_A]

I certainly hope their "Got Wind ?" campaign doesnt backfire...

Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook!

[Anonymous Coward]

And it will suck!

about the eeepc

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought one, and after some initial trouble to get the 'expert mode' enabled (it doesn't do that out of the box) and some more issues with the wifi I'm now perfectly happy.

Quite an amazing little machine, long long ago I had a compaq 'aero', and the eeepc is very much a modern version of that vintage machine.

Re:about the eeepc

[jacquesm]

real vintage would be the KIM-I I guess :)

Re:about the eeepc

[MrNaz]

May I ask, and I stress this is not a troll (I was considering buying one):

Why do you think it's good value? I was literally hand on wallet, about to buy an eeePC 901, when I realized that, at $600, it was actually *more* expensive than the smallest Acer laptop next to it, which was about 50% larger, but was a fully fledged laptop.

I think that this trend of making low cost laptops expensive has gotten out of hand. Low cost is low cost. If the eeePC costs more than a second hand ThinkPad X40 but has half the power, is nowhere NEAR as durable, has a vastly inferior keyboard, then what's the point of the eeePC other than being just the next gadget to have?

Comparing my old (circa 2004) X40 to an eeePC was an eye opener. It's not hugely larger, but is a fully fledged laptop. And a damn good one at that. Personally, the best choice for ultra portables is to buy up X40s from eBay, put Xubuntu on them, and be done with it. 1/3 the price of an eeePC and I can actually do proper work on it.

Re:about the eeepc

[MoonBuggy]

Having written this post I'm now aware that it sounds a little fanboyish - I really have no direct bias towards netbooks here, and I fully admit they've made some very annoying decisions when designing some of them, but I still disagree with your point. Anyway...

Firstly I'd say to ignore the price quoted here - it's just a particularly glaring example of 'rip off Britain'. In the US it's a $400 machine, MSI just decided to add a significant amount over and above the extra tax we have to pay.

There's also the fact that 50% extra size you mentioned is somewhat significant for something that you might want to always have available in your bag - it's almost like carrying a paperback novel compared to a bulky textbook.

The X40 comparison is interesting - the only advantage I can see to it is the larger keyboard. Larger screen makes almost no difference because it's almost exactly the same resolution as the normal 8.9 and 10" LCDs (actually lower res than the 8.9" ones used in the Gigabyte M912 and HP 2133). The 1.2GHz Pentium M is probably a bit faster than a 1.6 Atom, but really is it enough to make a difference? Unless I'm much mistaken they're both fast enough to browse the web, use OpenOffice, listen to music and so on but both too slow for realistically doing things like video or photo editing. The RAM and hard drive are comparable in both machines. Durability I will give you, although a ThinkPad that's been kicking around in someone's bag for 4 years probably doesn't have that much left against a brand new, less well built Asus.

If there's something the X40 can do that these machines can't then I'm not really seeing it, which is why it puzzles me a little that you consider them not to be 'full fledged laptops'. Really I think it comes down to how much you care about the keyboard.

Re:about the eeepc

[drinkypoo]

Wal-mart will sell you a dual-core with 1gb ram and 160gb disk for about $550, a dual-core with 2gb ram and 160gb disk for about $650, and a dual-core with 3gb ram and a 250gb for about $750. (All core 2 duo) The highest-end one is even a dell (my favorite non-super-expensive brand.)

Re:about the eeepc

[MoonBuggy]

But then you're getting into the conversation about how much money small size and light weight is worth to the buyer, and that's a personal matter. A 15" (or even a 13") machine compared to an 8.9" one is an apples to oranges comparison.

The reason I found the post interesting is because it was (more or less) taking the value of portability into account and comparing to a machine with relatively similar (although obviously not the same) size and weight.

Re:about the eeepc

[lonesometrainer]

I'm not a friend of the EEE Line anymore (too expensive, bad displays), but I'd prefer the Acer Aspire One over the used X40 anytime. It's a bit lighter, has a _much_ brighter LED backlight display. The displays on the X-series Thinkpads are no-gos (except perhaps the current x61 - which is in another league regarding price). Additionally I want a small energy-efficient SSD on these netbooks, not a 4.2k rpm hdd.

I'm really waiting to buy the Aspire One as a small companion to my MBP 15".

Re:about the eeepc

[drinkypoo]

But then you're getting into the conversation about how much money small size and light weight is worth to the buyer, and that's a personal matter.

I just refuse to pay more for less machine.

I understand that miniaturization can come at a premium, but these machines actually use cheaper parts without apparent exception.

Re:about the eeepc

[h3llfish]

Good point! I'm typing this on an X40, and it's a great laptop. No optical drive, and I don't miss it, because it reduces the size and weight so much. It's really not much bigger or heavier than a eeepc, and it has a much much bigger screen and keyboard. A quick search of craigslist reveals that someone near me is selling one for 310, and another guy wants 340 for his.

My dad bought my mom a eeepc, and she never uses it. She says the keyboard and the screen are just too small for her.

I applaud the efforts to reduce laptop prices. That's a great trend, in the long run. But the biggest innovation of the mini notebook is eliminating the optical drive. Who needs one on a laptop? On the rare occasions when I really need to, I hook up a $60 USB DVD drive. Why carry that DVD burner with me everywhere I go?

Re:about the eeepc

[Fatalis]

Additionally I want a small energy-efficient SSD on these netbooks, not a 4.2k rpm hdd.

no, it's a myth that SSDs are less power hungry: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html

Eee

[edelholz]

I love my Eee 900. And I think the MSI Wind is taking things in the wrong direction. For me, the Eee is perfect because its light (1kg), small and has a solid state disk. I don't have to think about whether I'll need it, I'll just throw it in my backpack. I don't worry about it too much, it's not like I can cause any head crashes. Also, it's worth "only" 400$, so I'll happily bring it along to some bar or something while going out. It's the same risk as bringing your Ipod or fancy cell phone.
The MSI Wind OTOH: a little heavier, a little bigger (too much for taking notes & browsing at my desks!), and fitted with a conventional hard drive. C'mon, what do you need that kind of space for? I barely use the 20GB the Eee gives me. And my photos and videos and music and whatnot are stored somewhere else, safe and sound. Last but not least, the Wind is quite pricey, which would make me worry about and take of it more.

Re:Eee

[FleaPlus]

Also, it's worth "only" 400$, so I'll happily bring it along to some bar or something while going out.

Where did you find an EEE 901 for $400? I thought it was $550, at least. From what I can tell the MSI Wind is slightly less expensive ($400 start price), slightly heavier (1.2kg instead of 1.0kg), slightly larger screen size (10" vs 9"), and the 80gb HDD vs 20gb SSD trade-off. It's almost directly comparable to the EEE 1000H which was announced, which is expected to be ~$630,

Re:Eee

[linzeal]

The 901 was on sale at new egg for 399 awhile back. I think it was an email to certain customers. Check out Hard Forums for the best prices because the cheapest I could find was a 400 dollar 4g at Amazon and they look like they are out of stock.

Re:Eee

[RDW]

I guess the price/weight/performance sweet spot is different for different users and applications. Something like the Wind would be light enough for me to take on a trip without cursing the weight, but with enough storage to dump the contents of a few of my camera's 4-8Gb CF cards, and with enough power to do a bit of image editing before I come home. Before the eeepc, sub-notebooks tended to have mid-range specs and a 50-100% price premium over a comparable 'luggable' laptop. There were simply no budget alternatives except picking up an ageing Sony or Toshiba on ebay. Now we've got a range of options from the tiny but limited 701 to a respectably-specified MSI that's at the low end of the budget price range, but still perhaps a third of the weight of a cheap 'desktop replacement' laptop. Choice is good!

Re:Eee

[edelholz]

If you read my post carefully you'll note that I wrote about an Eee 900 ;) Anyhow, I don't think the price premium for the 901 makes too much sense. Apparently, the Atom is not considerably faster, the only real improvement is graphics performance (which I don't care about) and a little longer battery life (but not as impressive as originally anticipated).

Slightly off topic: Asus been going crazy (sorry, German only) with the Eee! 700, 900, 901, 902, 903, 904, 904HD, 1000H, idontevenknow... Here in Germany I believe you can barely get the 900. I bought mine on eBay for a slight price premium, but with the larger battery and an American layout keyboard, which I prefer for programming/bashing.

Re:Eee

[hairyfeet]

Well,the problem is the dollar is falling and falling fast,which means that we won't be getting much cheap tech stuff for awhile. That is why Nintendo is sending the Wiis to Europe instead of the US...more money. Of course if things don't start picking up I doubt most of us will be looking for cheap tech stuff,as we could end up in another great depression which will drag down a lot of other countries with us.

Just got done watching the financial news where they said yesterday was the worst single day for stocks since the great depression. I know that I've had a lot more folks coming to me to fix what they have or to buy used,because new is just out of their price range. And I'll be adding a 7600AGP to my machine this week simply because the gas prices are taking too much out of my wallet to let me build the dual core I want. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Re:Eee

[maxume]

Try to take the financial news with a grain of salt. The performance of the stock markets isn't very good right now, but all that means is that they are trading at ~2006 levels:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^GSPC&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

It isn't great for people who were over-invested in stocks relative to their risk sensitivity, but for anybody under about 45, it should be irrelevant.

And while the dollar has slid a considerable amount, the general behavior of a chart like this one:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=USDEUR=X&t=5y

is to eventually reverse, not to eventually go all the way to zero. Hopefully it reverses before 0.50, rather than somewhere lower (the recent bump up is encouraging but doesn't really say much about the long term trend).

Re:Eee

[chorca]

"I love my Eee 900."

Notice that he said 900, not 901.

Re:Eee

[vitaflo]

The performance of the stock markets isn't very good right now, but all that means is that they are trading at ~2006 levels:

Which means it's trading at 1999 levels. We still haven't made much headway in the market since 2000 when the thing started to collapse.

Re:Eee

[maxume]

You would have to do some accounting to decide what the real value of the bubble market was to convince me that 1999 is the correct baseline.

Of course, the increase since 1995 (the S&P from ~500 to ~1,200, around 7.25% annual), adjusted for inflation (from ~710 to ~1,200, around 4.3% annual), is nothing to crow about (though dividends add quite nicely to that).

Re:Eee

[Machtyn]

If you only got your economic news from the sensationalism on TV, you'd think we've had a bad economy since Ol' Bill left office. This is hardly truth. With that said, I do think there is some severe bubbling going on in some sectors of the economy. (Oil futures, Housing market, etc.) Idiots who dig pits for their brothers, will find the pits they dig include themselves.

Re:Eee

[maxume]

There is plenty of bad stuff going on, but as long as somewhere more than 85% of the people who want jobs have them, the doom and gloom is overblown.

Re:Eee

[FleaPlus]

Notice that he said 900, not 901.

My error, but the Eee 900 and 901 are almost the same price in the US: $550 vs $561, although technically speaking you can't actually buy the Eee 900 anymore and the Eee 901 hasn't been released yet.

I want my

[LaTechTech]

I want my!
I want my!
I want my Eee PC!

Holding out for the Eee PC 1000...

"Best of the bunch"

[EmbeddedJanitor]

By what criteria? If low cost is a very significant criterion for netbooks, then the expensive one will never be "best". Thats like saying a Hummer is the biggest compact vehicle.

Re:"Best of the bunch"

[pimpimpim]

Or if shock resistance of the hard drive is a criterion, then the one with the conventional spinning disk hard drive will never be the "best", just because it's roomy. That's like saying that the Cadillac Escalade is the most comfortable infantry combat vehicle*

*As far as my eee is concerned, infantry combat is a good description of what it has wen through already, be it a combat in the urban jungle ;)

Re:"Best of the bunch"

[MoonBuggy]

It's very low cost if you buy one in the US, they're just choosing to rip off UK buyers by a significant amount.

Incidentally, I do applaud Asus for selling in the UK without any significant markup beyond that of VAT, which is obviously not their fault.

In terms of 'superior', however, it pains me to see even supposedly technical publications fail to mention things like the fact that the 10" screen on the Wind is the same resolution as the 8.9s on the other companies' offerings and thus provides no actual extra space. Nor do they explicitly mention the fact that it is significantly more expensive than the Aspire One or Eee 901 purely because they felt like charging us more.

HDD vs flash

[Paradigm_Complex]

I was really excited when I first heard about the eeepc - I was hoping it'd pull the market more or less in the direction it did. Relatively inexpensive, small, light, but still a fully-functioning computer. My single favorite feature of the eeepc was the flash drive - I don't have to worry about kicking it around nearly as much. *All* of my past laptops have had harddrive trouble, presumably because I don't treat them correctly, yet my eeepc is still running strong after getting more of a beatting than I usually dish out. I don't mind the slightly larger size of the next generation of sub notebooks that are now coming out, and I guess I can understand the increased price, but why the mechanical HDDs? Windows? The 4GB is more than enough for a Linux or BSD (minus ports) install, with some extra room in the SD slot for any music/movies/whatever you'd like to bring along. Asus was nice enough to offer a 20GB version with flash - more than enough for what I'd want a sub notebook for. I don't see myself needing a replacement for my eeepc anytime soon, but I'm disappointed to see the direction things are going in. Am I the only one who's bummed about this? Am I missing something?

Re:HDD vs flash

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I thought these were going to be majorly stripped down laptops with no HDD. There would always be a demand for Windows because it is the predominant OS. What surprises me is the overall slow uptake of SSDs. I thought these used less power and sped up boot-up times (my assumptions only). I was expecting them to be in ALL laptops and as the boot drive in desktops. But they are virtually impossible to buy even OEM ones. I guess our expectations are ahead of the game. storagesearch.com has some interesting articles.

Re:HDD vs flash

[Phoobarnvaz]

Got the 701...along with a 2 GB stick of memory...from Amazon for $400. Added an 8 GB SD card & 2 8 GB thumb drives for about $75 more. Love the size of it...especially since I use it for Ham radio & watching video in bed. Is exactly what I was looking for & am more than pleased with my purchase. Does exactly what I want to do.

I've got Wind

[Brain Damaged Bogan]

... is what i'll tell all my friends when I get one

The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[pandronic]

I really hate it that all this netbooks have the Page Up/Down and Home/End keys on the arrow keys, except for the Acer Aspire One which has them cramped on two extra keys. These guys must be joking. There is no way you can do some serious work without those keys. You kind of have to be sure that wherever you are going you have a nice keyboard waiting for you, which kind of defeats the purpose. After watching all sorts of netbook reviews I think I'm going to get a 14'' laptop with a more powerful processor and a regular size HDD. The compromise of getting a netbook just doesn't seem to be worth it.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no way you can do some serious work without those keys

Yes, you can. At last, emacs and vi users can agree on something.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[Paradigm_Complex]

Arg, you beat me to it. I wouldn't cite emacs as a solution for the awkward keyboards - my fingers would twist over each other to get the now even more cramped ctrl/alt/etc, but vi is beautiful for such things. Your fingers never have to stray far from the home row, and you don't need any of those awkwardly re-arranged/shaped keys. No need for the at times awkward touchpad. Just rebind esc to the caps lock key and learn the position of the number keys on the main part of the keyboard (ie, no number pad), and once you've gotten used to vi (admittedly it's weird at first) those keyboards won't be a bother at all. I've found I type faster on my eeepc with vi than I do on a fullsized keyboard in a "traditional" text editor/word processor. My fingers get tired faster, though - for extended typing sessions, with or without vi, a full-sized keyboard is definitely preferred.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[JuanCarlosII]

To be honest, I don't think "serious work" is where this particular sector of the market is placing itself. I bought an eee901 to complement my 15.4 notebook for occasions when I didn't want to have to carry round a full featured (read large/heavy) laptop with me, and for that it is perfect. If you're thinking of using a for "serious work" then of course you will want something with a little more HD space, a larger screen and a "proper" keyboard.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[xSauronx]

you know, as much as id *like* an eee or wind, i came to the same conclusion, due to my personal budget limits.

if i had the money to afford a good destkop at home AND get a netbook, i love to, but ill be pushing it to upgrade from my T40, which is really showing its age, so if i have just one machine, itll be a core 2 duo 14" lappy for sure

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[pandronic]

Well, the Atom processor and 1gb of RAM are quite adequate for XP and the applications I use, and I though that it's not a problem to plug it into a monitor when I get home, but I want to be able to work on the move without breaking my back carrying a proper laptop. This keyboard problem is the only thing that stands between me and the MSI Wind. I'm having a hard time considering whether or not I can do some web development without using those four keys.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has vi relied on PgUp and PgDown and arrow keys? The beauty of vi is that you don't need to use the numeric keypad, cursor keys (or mouse for that matter).

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[The Warlock]

Man, I don't know when a 1.6 GHz Intel and a gig of RAM became "lacking", but you must have had trouble using computers before about two years ago.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[Simon Brooke]

There is no way you can do some serious work without those keys.

There's no way you can do "serious work" on these machines at all. Tiny keyboards, tiny, low-res screens, slow CPUs, etc, etc.

A docking station might bring them close to be useful for "serious work", but even then they're lacking in things like CPU power, RAM and disk space.

This is complete rubbish.

My best laptop ever was a Toshiba Libretto - a little smaller than a standard paperback book. Yes, you can type perfectly well on a keyboard that size. Yes, Emacs runs just fine - and if you don't like the keymappings, remap them for heaven's sake!

My Libretto struggled with KDE3, but ran perfectly well with lighter window managers. It had a full Oracle installation and a full Apache installation and I used it when going into clients to do product demos. 'Where's the server,' they'd say, and I'd pull it out of my pocket and say 'here'.

If the screen hadn't died I'd still be using it now. 'Smaller' and 'lighter' (and 'reasonable batter life') are what I want from a laptop. I don't need vast processing power, and 20Gb of disk sounds enormous to me. Dammit, I have live e-commerce servers serving dynamic websites on the net with less disk, less memory, and less processor power than an EEEpc. People who think these are low power machines simply don't understand computing.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[Bonobo_Unknown]

rebind esc to the caps lock key, ingenious! Makes a lot more sense. wq! ...oh yeah :$

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[drsmithy]

Man, I don't know when a 1.6 GHz Intel and a gig of RAM became "lacking", but you must have had trouble using computers before about two years ago.

Ca. 2000 - nearly a decade ago - my desktop PC was a dual 1Ghz P3, which would be 1.5x - 2x as fast as a 1.6Ghz Atom. My machines haven't gotten any slower since then.

The Atom is quick for what it is, but it is by no means "fast".

Today, I typically keep open half a dozen Firefox windows with 10-15 tabs each, a few dozen putty windows, some Excel spreadsheets, Thunderbird and a few emails, Outlook, several VNC sessions, a few X apps, a few RDP sessions, a few PDFs, etc. Even before getting into how the tiny screen would make that, at best, utterly impractical, it would be (based on the 2GB RAM, 2Ghz Pentium-M I sometimes use) annoyingly slow.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[drsmithy]

This is complete rubbish.

No, it's not. I've tried doing "serious work" on laptops with a bit higher specs than these "UMPCs" (eg: Dell D410) and was noticably less productive.

My best laptop ever was a Toshiba Libretto - a little smaller than a standard paperback book. Yes, you can type perfectly well on a keyboard that size. Yes, Emacs runs just fine - and if you don't like the keymappings, remap them for heaven's sake!

No number pad, alone, is a showstopper for a "serious work" keyboard as far as I'm concerned. This is before even getting into the generally smaller keys, cramped layout and things like Pageup/down either being in a weird place or modifiers of other keys.

If the screen hadn't died I'd still be using it now. 'Smaller' and 'lighter' (and 'reasonable batter life') are what I want from a laptop.

If you can claim you'd rather spend all day, every day, in front of an Eee (or equivalent) than a machine with dual cores, 4G RAM and a 30" monitor, then you're either lying, a masochist, or you don't do much work.

This is to say nothing of actual productivity differences.

People who think these are low power machines simply don't understand computing.

I understand computing perfectly well, and they're low-powered machines. My (not even top end at the time) desktop PC from 2000 and 12", ~1.5kg Dell D400 _notebook_ from 2003 had more processing power. The screens are so tiny and low-res you'd barely be able to have more than a single terminal visible, to say nothing of email, browsers, PDFs, spreadsheets, VNC sessions, RDP sessions, chat windows, et al, that make up my typical workload. Not to mention the couple of VMs I like to have ticking along in the background.

These things are toys. Heck, in these days of Youtube and Flash games, they'd barely even be able to handle the average end users idle web browsing.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[westyvw]

Much as I like open windows, many things going on (thanks Linus), I do wonder if your work habits could use a revamp more then your computer speed.............I use an Eeepc and just today I had a OpenOffice document open, a dictionary, Firefox, and was touching up some pictures with Gimp. Never felt slow really, and remember my 701 has a 650mhz processor. My desktop box is just an Athlon XP 3200 from about 4 years ago and it doesnt bother me.......so maybe you have a Dell?

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

This is complete rubbish.

No, it's not. I've tried doing "serious work" on laptops with a bit higher specs than these "UMPCs" (eg: Dell D410) and was noticably less productive.

My best laptop ever was a Toshiba Libretto - a little smaller than a standard paperback book. Yes, you can type perfectly well on a keyboard that size. Yes, Emacs runs just fine - and if you don't like the keymappings, remap them for heaven's sake!

No number pad, alone, is a showstopper for a "serious work" keyboard as far as I'm concerned.

If you can't do serious work on a machine other people can do serious work on, that's a comment on you, not on the machine.

If you can claim you'd rather spend all day, every day, in front of an Eee (or equivalent) than a machine with dual cores, 4G RAM and a 30" monitor, then you're either lying, a masochist, or you don't do much work.

I don't spend all day every day in front of any laptop. A laptop is by definition what you use when you're away from base - so portability scores hugely over power.

People who think these are low power machines simply don't understand computing.

I understand computing perfectly well, and they're low-powered machines. My (not even top end at the time) desktop PC from 2000 and 12", ~1.5kg Dell D400 _notebook_ from 2003 had more processing power. The screens are so tiny and low-res you'd barely be able to have more than a single terminal visible, to say nothing of email, browsers, PDFs, spreadsheets, VNC sessions, RDP sessions, chat windows, et al, that make up my typical workload. Not to mention the couple of VMs I like to have ticking along in the background.

The first machine I worked on had 8K words of core storage - equivalent to 32K of RAM in modern terms. It supported fifty people doing serious work.

Leter in my career I was responsible for, among other things, one single 486 box with 2Mb of RAM which supported twenty-five typists. You do not need that much processing power to do efficient work, no matter what work you do. You merely need to learn how to use a computer.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[drsmithy]

I use an Eeepc and just today I had a OpenOffice document open, a dictionary, Firefox, and was touching up some pictures with Gimp. Never felt slow really, and remember my 701 has a 650mhz processor.

For a light workload like that I would hope it "never felt slow". Heck, I used to run more things than that on my old 100Mhz Pentium.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[drsmithy]

If you can't do serious work on a machine other people can do serious work on, that's a comment on you, not on the machine.

No, it's a comment on what they call "serious work".

I don't spend all day every day in front of any laptop. A laptop is by definition what you use when you're away from base - so portability scores hugely over power.

Multiple machines are a PITA. A slight decrease in portability (eg: a 12" ultraportable - still small enough to take pretty much anywhere) is vastly outweighed by the larger benefits of not having to deal with multiple machines.

Leter in my career I was responsible for, among other things, one single 486 box with 2Mb of RAM which supported twenty-five typists. You do not need that much processing power to do efficient work, no matter what work you do. You merely need to learn how to use a computer.

Yeah, and we should all go back to using horses and buggies because a couple of hundred years ago people got around in them just fine.

The fact I can get _some_ work done on an underpowered box does not negate the fact I can get _more_ work done on something with a little more poke.

Your bias is showing (as, clearly, is that of the people who modded my OP -1). For example, people whose "real work" is something like video editing would laugh you out of the room if you said something as stupid as "you do not need that much processing power to do efficient work, no matter what work you do" to them.

Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks

[JeffSchwab]

Yep. ^F and ^B in Vim. I do miss Home and End on Macbook, though, when in other applications (e.g. web browser). It was a relief to find that Fn+Delete gives tradition Delete functionality, and that Fn+Up/Down give Page Up/Down.

I've been looking for a new, small laptop myself lately, and I've just about decided to go with a $550 Dell with Ubuntu pre-installed.

Top-end netbook or low-end laptop?

[jonnyj]

I'm in the market for a netbook, but it won't be the Wind that I buy. I want a netbook in addition to a laptop, so the supposed benefits that the Wind offers over the competition - larger screen, bigger storage, larger keyboard - are actually disadvantages.

I'm not sure who this product is aimed at. It seems to be a poor-man's substitute for a downmarket laptop, rather than a cool gadget that can take computing to places where it wasn't previously practical to go.

inside view of MSI and Acer netbooks

[pippos]

You can see here a video with the inside view of the Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind PC, Olidata Jump PC. Audio in italian! http://www.pcprofessionale.it/2008/06/06/acer-aspire-one-la-video-anteprima-del-concorrente-deelleee-pc/ http://www.pcprofessionale.it/2008/05/30/msi-wind-pc-u100-il-concorrente-delleee-pc-il-video-test/ http://www.pcprofessionale.it/2008/05/20/il-jumpc-di-olidata-in-anteprima-assoluta/

Re:inside view of MSI and Acer netbooks

[gpanzeri]

It is the first video where is possible see the motherboard and the internal components of the new netbooks. Very interesting

Exchange rate error

[sa1lnr]

with computer hardware kit one dollar equals one pound so it will probably cost $350 or there about.

What's up with price differences in US vs UK?

[FleaPlus]

From what I can tell, in the US the MSI Wind has a starting price of $400 ($470 for the 3-cell Wind with XP instead of Linux), while the Eee 901 has an announced price of $600. In the UK however, the prices are flipped around, with the 3-cell Wind priced at £350 (~US$700) while the Eee 901 is £319 (~US$635). The overall increase in prices is of course due to things like the VAT, but does anybody know what the reason is for the reversal in relative prices?

Re:What's up with price differences in US vs UK?

[Skuldo]

Because they can, I guess. Here is a page with some links: Rip-off Britain.

A couple of the worst recent examples which stick out in my mind are the PlayStation 3, we paid over twice the $US price for a cut-down version, and Rock Band went for $170/£85 in the USA, $340/£170 over here.

On subject though, I purchased my EEE-701 for £220/$440 here, which was the same price in the USA at the time.

Re:What's up with price differences in US vs UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about the exact price difference, but in the UK £350 will buy you a number of other notebooks, many of which are higher spec than the Wind.

Re:What's up with price differences in US vs UK?

[Kjella]

In short? Rip-off. The ones that have it listed here in Norway (none in stock though) are at 3500NOK with 25% VAT which is 2800 NOK = 280 GBP = 550 USD without VAT. My quick googling shows that VAT in UK is 17.5% so 350*100/117.5 = 300GB = 590 USD. I guess the reason they try to sell the Wind with a 200$ margin in the UK is "because we can".

Re:What's up with price differences in US vs UK?

[drsmithy]

Because they can, I guess. Here is a page with some links: Rip-off Britain [wikipedia.org].

It's not so much that the UK is expensive, just that pretty much everything in the US is - comparitively - dirt cheap.

For example, an 8G iPod Nano costs less in the UK than it does here in Switzerland, and pretty much exactly the same as it does in Australia.

Expensive

[Odiumjunkie]

> The MSI Wind goes on sale today in the UK ... for £350 (around $700). Not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop

£350 doesn't make it "not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop", it makes a regularly priced laptop.

Re:Expensive

[FleaPlus]

£350 doesn't make it "not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop", it makes a regularly priced laptop.

As I mentioned elsewhere in the discussion though, in the US it's $400 ($470 for the 3-cell version with XP), which definitely makes it a low-cost laptop. It's pretty much cheaper than anything you'd be able to find without having to go to eBay.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

£350 doesn't make it "not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop", it makes a regularly priced laptop.

Semantic point, but something can be regularly priced and not cheap, for example the MSI Wind.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Play.com have Windows XP Special Edition model in white at 329.99 GBP... all the others, whether XP or Linux are 349.99 GBP.

Presumably the XP OS is therefore free of charge. Perhaps they felt guilty at overcharging UK consumers for Vista?

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, the fact that it is regularly priced implies it isn't cheap, so saying it is "regularly priced and not cheap" is redundant. So you might just as well leave out the "not cheap" part, which is what the GP did.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

> The MSI Wind goes on sale today in the UK ... for £350 (around $700). Not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop

£350 doesn't make it "not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop", it makes a regularly priced laptop.

All those prices are over the top. After the hype around the Eee PC (it was sold out immediately everywhere) they seem to think that the demand is high enough to charge a lot for the things. I'm quite sure that this will change very soon, because a) the original Eee PC sold so well mainly because it was cheap and b) because there will actually be a over-supply with all those models hitting the market.

So, wait a month or two and you'll be able to buy one for much less.

These things are just too small and powerless to be used as your regular notebook, so they will only be bought when they're cheap enough to be bought as another gadget with a new usage profile and as such you don't need a hard drive or Windows. I think the manufacturers will learn the hard way that hardly anyone wants to nurse along a second notebook; what the people want is a carefree appliance for browsing, emailing and doing a bit of office stuff on the road.

For me, Acer with the Aspire One seems to be on the right way. A small SSD drive and two SD slots (so you can put in a large card if you need it and keep it there) is a quite nice way to keep the price down, especially with Linux instead of Windows.

Re:Expensive

[a1englishman]

You can't go around comparing the cost of goods in the UK after the conversion rate, to the cost of goods in the US without the conversion rate. It is very typical for goods to be sold in the UK for the same figure as they are in the US. That $700 laptop will often be sold in the UK for £700. That goes for everything from hamburgers to hair dryers. Maybe it's the VAT, but I doubt it. I think it's easier for the multinationals, and it's lucrative.

It is...

[professorfalcon]

A mighty Wind.

Re:It is...

[ettlz]

What, it comes as the result of a high-fibre diet?

Kinda OT: buying an Eee901 Linux in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Apologies for being kinda OT, the EeePC 901 was supposed to be released on the 1st (yesterday) in the UK, I've had trouble finding one (even online, apart from Ebay, which I'll avoid as they overcharge and ship in ones with non-UK keyboards)
anyone know where I might buy one? pref. to be shipped before Friday? :)

Re:Kinda OT: buying an Eee901 Linux in the UK

[whyloginwhysubscribe]

Someone has kindly written a stock-checking script that looks at several stores. http://eeestock.cpjackson.co.uk/ I wouldn't trust laptopsdirect - when I ordered my eee it didn't come for a month, and when I cancelled the order it took about another month of nagging to get the money back!

Re:Kinda OT: buying an Eee901 Linux in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, very good!
Much better than trawling around different retailers shops.
thanks :)

Re:Kinda OT: buying an Eee901 Linux in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are looking for a comparison site, I like http://www.eee-901.co.uk/

You should know by now

[RotateLeftByte]

That 1$ US = 1GBP in the electronics/computer world. Sometimes, it might even be worse than that. Ok, I know the current rate is closer to 2$US=1GBP but that does not stop the likes on M$, ADOBE (very bad IMHO) and many others from ripping us off.

Re:You should know by now

[FleaPlus]

That 1$ US = 1GBP in the electronics/computer world.

Yes, I know, but I'm wondering why price-wise it's MSI > Eee in the UK, while it's Eee > MSI in the US. It's not like they're manufactured in either country.

Eee 901 for 399?

[Nursie]

Jesus!

I'll wait until my holiday in the US to get a 901 then. In the UK they went on sale yesterday at £329

Re:Eee 901 for 399?

[linzeal]

Sorry, looked through my emails it was a 4g for 299.

Re:Eee 901 for 399?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, that's about three grand! Must be all the tax's to pay for the queen.

HP 2133 mini-note

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wasn't this included in the review?

It starts around $500, has a great keyboard without the bastardized right shift key, is smaller than the three reviewed, and gets great battery life.

http://h40059.www4.hp.com/hp2133/

upcoming developments in the netbook category

[backpackcomputing]

If you can wait a couple of months there are several new products coming to market that may be worth the wait. First, the Eee PC 1000H- it has a 10.2 inch screen, powered by an Intel Atom CPU. The "H" stands for hard drive. The 1000H has an 80 GB HDD and WiFi N. Asus is also coming out with the Eee PC 904 and 05 models which combine the larger keyboard of the 1000H model with the 8.9 inch screen size of the 900 series models. I'm not sure, but these models will likely by driven by an Atom CPU. In September Intel is scheduled to release a dual core version of its Atom CPU. This may be an attractive solution for those who want to make a netbook their primary computer, but were turned off by the lack of processing power. However, the TDP for the dual core is 8 watts, so there is no advantage in power consumption efficiency relative to the single core version. Finally, by the late fall we should begin to see wimax being integrated into netbooks. For more news on the latest trends in the sub-notebook market check out http://backpackcomputing.com/

Re:upcoming developments in the netbook category

[xtracto]

Hey,

I know your post is a blatant advertisement of your page (and a bad one at, as it is difficult to read without line breaks).

But I have been looking for a page where I can follow the different sub-notebooks released to the market. Your page kind of gets the idea, but the blog style is really terrible (not counting the horrible number of ads you've got there... i see them now because I am using Opera, but usually I'd use Firefox).

The blog style does not really helps looking for the different 'available' machines. You should at least have some categories there. Grouping by brand or something. And maybe just show the new ones in the blog. And what does Firefox has to do with your main focus?

Well, if any slashdotter knows of a good website where I can follow the current and future offers of sub-notebooks (reviews, impressions, etc). I would be really glad to head to such a place (and do not care if it is an self-ad)

Re:upcoming developments in the netbook category

[backpackcomputing]

Actually, the post you are responding to doesn't even have my website in it. My site focuses on "small things that get the net" and that includes not only hardware, but also software such as Firefox, cooliris, etc. I'm surprised that you say that Firefox doesn't work with my site as that is what I use to view it. As for other sites, if you are looking strictly for subnotebooks, you might want to check out umpcportal.com. I have no relationship with that site (or the others I'm mentioning here) and do not even know the people who run it, but that is one idea. Others include laptopmag.com and notebookreview.com. I hope this helps. Oh, and I do appreciate your feedback on the design issues. I'm trying to correct them, but I need to find someone who can help with me with design/layout issues. Thanks.

Keyboards?

[MBGMorden]

Anybody got a chance to look at the keyboards on these things? I had thought about getting a small, flash powered notebook, but then we got some tiny little Panasonic Toughbook tablet's here at work. The keyboard on those things was non-standard and small enough that I couldn't type on it without pulling my hair out. Do any of these "netbooks" have a keyboard that is at least normal laptop sized?

News flash

[jellomizer]

New Technology is better then old technology details at 11.
As computing equitment gets faster, smaller and cheaper we are able to make more faster small and cheaper computers. Now on the Ultra Portible or the Ultra Cheaps they are filling all the different voids in that range. Well it will cost a bit more however it performs better, or say with Apple, it is very thin and performs well, but costs more. or you can get one that is cheap and thin and doesn't perform well. or you get low perfomance and thick but for very cheap.
We all have different requirements for systems. I chose the 17" Macbook Pro. Good performance, big and expensive. As I needed the speed and it was the best performing laptop (at the time I bought it) I wanted the larger screen so I had to pay more for it.
Now other people don't need that and opt for smaller cheaper PCs and they may actually be a better value (performance/size/price) that is great. But my way is to buy top of the line and use it for 4-6 years when it no longer useful and go again.

Am I the only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

...who thinks naming a new product after flatulence is a bad idea?

Re:Am I the only one...

[trouser]

The MSI Air Biscuit.

where's the Video-Out?

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone else think these UMPC's really lack a Composite/S-Video TVOut?

They would be great as ultra-mibile media centers

1. Make a cheap UMPC
2. ???
3. Profit!
4. Make a new version with TV-Out
5. ??????????
5. MORE PROFIT!

Editor, please help this site

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just 10mm wide than the Acer Aspire One. That extra centimetre is there for a good reason, though

10mm wide? centimetre after using mm? Who copyedits this bullshit?

Parent is funny!

[spazdor]

If you aren't humming Dire Straits' Money for Nothing to yourself right now, you didn't get it.

Why not remap keys with xmodmap?

[rmcd]

I haven't typed on any these small keyboards, but based on photographs, I would think xmodmap/xkeycaps would be your friend. On every keyboard I use, I set the control key to be whatever is left of the A, and I put Alt in the lower left corner. xkeycaps, which is the program I use to generate the key remapping file, is showing its age, but it works, and you only need to use it once per computer.

If you're using windows, KeyTweak is great.

Re:Why not remap keys with xmodmap?

[Paradigm_Complex]

Yes, for when I am in X I use xmodmap. However I spend a fair chunk of time without X, so I have to make custom keymaps. Not too hard, but a tad more work. Either way Capslock -> ESC = awesome. The majority of the time with my eeepc is spent in class taking notes. The resolution of my eeepc doesn't give me sufficiently more space with X than without it for typing in vi, nor do any other features really help much. However, I've found I can get a solid hour more battery power by killing nearly everything. No X, USB, WLAN, etc - no need honestly when I'm in class typing notes. All I need is vi and remapped key layout and battery to last me through all my classes.

Flash video

[SanityInAnarchy]

Alright, I realize it makes me a dirty hippie that I don't like Flash (and don't always even have it installed), but I'm about to go on a road trip. I've been looking for interesting, educational videos to download, but this one would at least force me to muck about in Firebug.

At the very least, provide a download link! I've signed up to Vimeo and Sribd just to get their download links.

There's another way of looking at ruggedness

[EmbeddedJanitor]

It all depends on what you are doing and what is most valuable: the device or the data.

For many field professionals, the data they have collected in a day is worth many times the cost of the device. Data is king. Then you want something tough. eg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiZGLUQc1JM

However if you just want a network connected device that does not have very precious data then it often makes more sense to just buy a consumer device and replace it if it fails.

"tough" laptops for premium prices

[RustinHWright]

I really wonder about all the bragging about having paid "the extra thousand bucks, and it was more than worth it" for a toughened laptop. Now I do understand that hard drive parking costs a *little* money, though a flash drive trumps even that. Beyond that? Seems to me like a hundred dollar (new, which is way than I would be paying) neoprene case over the cheapest EEE PC with a protective five dollar bit of plastic over the screen will give you just as damage-resistant a device for most purposes as a Toughbook. Will it survive having water poured over it? No. But I would rather just buy two $400 devices and keep my important files on flash drives. After all, I would rather have my important files on something I can hide in my pocket anyway.

I'll have spent less money, be far less worried about my mobile device being stolen, as was pointed out above, and feel far more free to screw around with it, get one for my assistant, and so on.

Personally, I'm thinking of buying an HP 2133. Other than my habit of waiting for a version 1.1 of anything to get a lower price and a more stable design, the only reason I haven't bought one yet is that it looks TOO shiny. I simply don't want to be, as I was last night, sitting at the edge of a gas station in an industrial neighborhood at a few minutes to midnight and be working on a device that looks so expensive.

Re:"tough" laptops for premium prices

[pimpimpim]

me too, never bought a first version of anything, except now the eee 701. It looks like a cheap toy because of the small screen and simple looks. I wish the newer models also didn't try to look so shiny. I will wait a little more before getting an additional netbook that I can like as much as my 701. Also, due to the small screen and throttled cpu, its battery life is pretty neat. As the EEE 701 is cheap enough, you could get it first and see if a really nice netbook will be available later. Maybe with some tablet functionality. That's what's I miss most.

Wrong on timing, right on the economy being bad.

[sethstorm]

If you only got your economic news from the sensationalism on TV, you'd think we've had a bad economy since Ol' Bill left office. This is hardly truth.

That's because it started well before Bill betrayed our nation with NAFTA. It started when the mobsters moved to Wall Street and union busting firms in the 1980's.

Well, the pain will stop when you allow something to be done by the government.

Idiots who dig pits for their brothers, will find the pits they dig include themselves.

That explains globalization perfectly. Penalize your citizens and wonder why they're kicking you and your supporters out of office. The pit you've dug in is called the trade deficit; it is constructed with the flooding of cheap junk from third world countries.

TDP

[Rob Simpson]

However, the TDP for the dual core is 8 watts, so there is no advantage in power consumption efficiency relative to the single core version.

TDP doesn't tell you anything about either efficiency or how much power the CPU uses in real life. It is solely a number that the CPU maker says the cooling system needs to be able to handle in order to use the processor. It doesn't even mean the theoretical maximum wattage of a processor - it may draw more or (more likely, now that Prescotts are gone) much less power at the maximum load/voltage. Consider that the Intel "QX" family as a whole has a TDP of 130W, then look at this chart.

Re:TDP

[backpackcomputing]

You make a good point to the extent that the TDP is an oversimplification of power consumption. But I think it has value as a proxy metric for this purpose. Intel does in fact, as you point out, use this specification for determining system design for thermal issues. However, AMD uses (or used to) TDP to refer to energy consumption (I realize that the Atom is an Intel, not an AMD product). Now AMD looks at ACP (average CPU power) because it thinks that that metric more accurately reflect real world experience rather than the max figure provided by TDP. However,I think it's also important to note that in addition to giving a max TDP, even Intel provides a minimum or idle mode TDP figure, which I think, supports the contention that TDP is a reasonable proxy figure. If you're interested here is a link to a white paper from AMD further discussing these issues. http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/43761C_ACP_WP.pdf

what a rubbish video

[TheDreadedGMan]

Jebus man, just hold the camera still, don't wander, look through the viewfinder, and hold the camera steady!! if your hand shakes, buy a bloody tripod...

what a waste of 10 minutes.