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

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?

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

[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.

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.

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: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).

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.