Hardware First Look: MSI's Wind sub-notebook

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/05/30/first-look-msi-s-wind-sub-notebook/1

The netbook revolution continues to motor forwards, and with the launch of Intel's new tiny Atom processor just a short while away - we take a quick first look to see what MSI's new 10-inch Wind is like to use. If you have an Eee already - you might want to look away now.

 

The part that really interests me is the touch and reliability of that thing. Usually cheap laptops are simply rubbish, but if this one is any better than I might take one of these over an used IBM...

 

Actually the Eee does have a teeny-tiny little fan, but it won't come on until the CPU hits 55C.

 

Still, Id like an idea of the relative CPU performance - to me they are competitors.

 

huh Im a little confused I was told by a MSI rep that this wont be a consumer based product that its directed for businesses and there for wont be sold in a retail line, did they change their mind on this and will be selling it to everyone?

 

I'm becoming a bit tired of places like Bit-Tech reviewing (or previewing) these things and comparing them to the Eee without giving a price. Sub-notebooks of these sorts of sizes have been available for years; until recently they started at around £1800. If this thing costs that much, it is not a competitor to the Eee.

 

AFAIK this is supposed to retail at around 500 €, which could be compared to the larger Eee. Small notebooks aren't a new thing, cheap small notebooks are.

 

Hm, this one may be what I go with. I'll need to see if I can find it in person. Then it's just a matter of waiting until I can afford an SSD to put in it!

 

To me this sort of thing looks really exciting. Currently I have a Sony T2XP which was gifted to me. Its a 10" laptop with a PM 1.2GHz, 512MB of RAM and most importantly a decent resolution (1280x800). Its light, pretty fast installed with Ubuntu or WinXP and generally a wonderful however they retail at £1200+ and now the Wind will do this at £500!.

Sure you can see this as an EEE competitor but really its an ultraportable competitor. At the moment an EEE is simply too low powered and low a resolution for many if any people to use it as anything other than a secondary machine though thats not to say its useless.

 

I think forget the Eee is probably a little strong, this product is clearly aimed at a slightly different market. It is probably better compared to the HP.

 

Bindi:
Third to last paragraph: Xandos
Should be Xandros

 

Not to sound pedantic, but the Asus EEE PC 900 costs 330 (GBP), even going off your rough estimate of 500, there's a huge difference of almost 200 pounds, and considering these are marketed as 'cheap small notebooks', price would be of paramount importance. Having said that, I own a PC 900' and think this looks lovely, really admire the graphics on the lid.

 

I'd like to know what this costs, and whether the physical size stacks up against the EEE.

I bought an eeepc 701 4G on day of release, and I'm still perfectly happy. I wouldn't even choose the 9" model if i had a choice of both.

I'm a student, and the eeepc is most certainly not my main machine. It's for lectures, working in the library and internet access at my grandmother's house..

I only wanted something extremely basic, and for £215 I got my product. The price moves it almost into the disposable territory - less than you pay for some mobile phones and mp3 players.

 

It does have a lot of status LEDs near the keyboard.
How are these Atom processors doing ? with everyone saying this will be a breakthrough and all.

 

I've wanted the Atom based eee for a long time, but tbh, the Dell option, visually at least, looks much more enticing. we'll see though I guess. This is definitely interesting, but you can't help but think that if they'd used SSD the battery life would be so much more impressive.

 

dunno where you guys are getting the £500 figure from, last i heard the xp version was £350, and the linux one was £320...
Thats what expansys had as their price too for preorder, tho they have since taken it down to some command from intel apparently

 

Note that he is from Finland and quoted a price in euros.

 

note the two other non finns talking about £500

 

I'd put more stock in the recently announced prices:
http://forums.msiwind.net/stock-where-buy/prices-announced-shortage-until-third-quarter-t96.html

Without taxes the 6 cell version should be £320

@g3n3tiX:
visit www.forums.msiwind.net
One of our members got to review the Wind for two days and did some tests during that period. These aren't rock solid professional benchmarks (you need more time for that), but it's certainly enough to give you a good idea of what the performance is like.

@Richard:
Thanks for the review. That the fan doesn't start before the temperature hits 55 degrees is good to know.
While running in ECO mode that should pretty much mean it won't spin up at all.

 

everytime im almost decided on what umpc i want another one gets announced that seems even better

http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/05/gigabyte-m912-convertible-umpc-with.html

no word on price yet other than its meant to be "low cost" but thats all relative really