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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."

19 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 MrNaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      I hate printers.
    2. 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 RDW · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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!

    3. Re:Eee by maxume · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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).

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  3. "Best of the bunch" by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  4. HDD vs flash by Paradigm_Complex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    --
    "A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
  5. The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks by pandronic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks by Paradigm_Complex · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
    3. Re:The placement of Pg Up/Down and Home/End sucks by The+Warlock · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      I've upped my standards, so up yours.
  6. Top-end netbook or low-end laptop? by jonnyj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  7. 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?

  8. Expensive by Odiumjunkie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > 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.

  9. Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook! by Torvaun · · Score: 3, Funny

    So next would be the Compaq Fart?

    --
    I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
  10. 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/

  11. Re:Honey, I shrunk the MacBook! by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!