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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 $700). Not cheap for a supposedly low-cost laptop, but the MSI Wind looks like the best of the bunch so far."
I love my Eee 900. And I think the MSI Wind is taking things in the wrong direction. For me, the Eee is perfect because its light (1kg), small and has a solid state disk. I don't have to think about whether I'll need it, I'll just throw it in my backpack. I don't worry about it too much, it's not like I can cause any head crashes. Also, it's worth "only" 400$, 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.
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
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/