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A Video Tour of the MSI Wind and Other Netbooks

Posted by kdawson on from the more-than-hot-air dept.

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."

11 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. about the eeepc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:about the eeepc by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  2. Eee by edelholz · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Eee by FleaPlus · · Score: 4, Informative

      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,

    2. Re:Eee by linzeal · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      --
      An Education is the Font of All Liberty
    3. Re:Eee by edelholz · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

  3. inside view of MSI and Acer netbooks by pippos · · Score: 2, Informative

    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/

  4. What's up with price differences in US vs UK? by FleaPlus · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?

  5. Re:Expensive by FleaPlus · · Score: 2, Informative

    £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.

  6. Re:"Best of the bunch" by MoonBuggy · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  7. upcoming developments in the netbook category by backpackcomputing · · Score: 5, Informative

    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/