 Great things come in small packages! |
| Review Date: February 19, 2009 |
| Reviewer: D. Hall, Surrey, England |
I've only had this a week but I've already started using it a lot and have been pleasantly surprised seeing just how far I can push this little rascal!
You can take it anywhere as it's the size of a small book and is very lightweight for a laptop. Traditional notebook laptops are designed to be desktop replacements, so they can end up too big, too heavy, and generally just too *much* for checking your email or editing a Word document in the few minutes you have whilst waiting for the train.
The U100 however, appears to more suitable for moving around frequently and using whenever you get a few moments to spare. It's a great size, any larger than 10" and it would no longer classify as a "netbook" class of laptop, any smaller and the screen would be less practical for serious use. Also, 10" screens have the correct aspect ratio for webpage viewing, you don't get wasted blank space at the sides as I've heard can happen with smaller screens.
It's incredibly portable, surprisingly powerful when overclocked and RAM doubled, good value, nice to type on (80% size keys), and even looks good. It's much more responsive running XP than I had expected, it actually behaves like a desktop PC! Microsoft has clearly removed a lot of their bloatware from XP to give these smaller systems the best chance of running quickly.
It performed well straight out of the box, but I spent a good couple of evenings setting it up *properly.* ie. removing the usual bundled bloatware (came with 3GB of Encarta pre-installed. *shudder*), 30 second trial versions of things you wouldn't use anyway etc.... and now this baby is positively flying along!
So after removing the bloat, installing my own software (Office 2003/2007, MSN, Skype, AVG, Firefox 3, ZoneAlarm, Adobe PDF, heck even Photoshop CS3! Disabled unnessary processes from running in MSCONFIG. After setting everything up just the way nature intended, running PerfectDisk defragmenter and a boot-time defragmentation pass- my U100 was good to go. (well nearly) But there were a couple of things to do first...
On to.... the 1.6GHz Intel Atom PROCESSOR... well, overclocking it to be precise:
It's great as it is out of the box, but you can get it to go 24% faster if you upgrade the BIOS to 1.10B then toggle Turbo mode with Fn + F10 when plugged into the mains. This won't void your warranty as this is an official BIOS update from MSI. Fn + F10 when running on battery *underclocks* it so the processor only runs at 800Mhz and the screen brightness is reduced, prolonging the battery life. I know, it's pretty cool. The light on the power switch shows you which of the 3 power modes is currently in use.
I tested the computer with a freeware utility called "cpuinfo.exe" to see what clock speeds *really* were when it was running at 1) "Eco mode" (green power light) 2) normal power mode (blue power light) and 3) "Turbo mode" (power light goes orange) I found that the CPU of the U100 now happily purrs along at 1984MHz when overclocked -so it's basically increased by exactly 24% as the option states in the BIOS. You can choose between 8%, 16%, or 24%, but from what I've read it's running stable for everyone at 24% (myself included) so you might as well set the overclock to maximum in the BIOS, you can always change it if you need to later.
This 24% increase in speed to just under 2GHz is awesome, especially when all the other Atom processor netbooks use the same processor and can't be overclocked (to the best of my knowledge) so are stuck at 1.6GHz. So the U100 has a clear advantage over its rivals here.
What about the MEMORY?
Comes with 1GB, takes about 20 minutes and only about $40 to double that to its maximum 2GB. You don't void the warranty to do this, and it's dead easy. Take the 9 screws out underneath, pull the bottom half of the case off, just remember there is an on board stick of 1GB DDR2-667MHz RAM, and the expansion slot won't recognise a 2GB module. So you fill the empty slot with 1GB and that's it, memory doubled. I nearly bought a 2GB module by mistake before I read about the onboard memory.
The newer U120 apparently cannot be upgraded from its 1GB of RAM, has the same processor, and has a shorter battery life. You're *much* better off with the U100 if only because you aren't stuck with the 1GB RAM.
What about the HARD DRIVE?
The 160BG hard drive on this tiny 1Kg laptop is very generous- you wouldn't be surprised to get half that capacity on a device such as this. In fact, some versions apparently do ship with an 80BG drive instead. With all my software installed on top of the Windows operating system, I still have 129GB to play with!
The inbuilt card reader works well with my camera's Sony Memory Stick Pro card, and also takes SD cards and probably all the main memory card types.
WIRELESS card:
The built-in wireless card provides outstanding reception and I haven't had any dropped connections since I bought it. It works with all 3 WLAN standards (802.11b/g/n) and naturally works with WEP/WPA wifi encryption.
The 1.3mp WEBCAM is good enough, the SPEAKERS are fine for a small laptop and quite usable, though when I'm at home I plug in my Creative I-Trigue 3300 (my favourite 2.1 system)
Thankfully the TOUCHPAD keys are beneath rather than to the sides of the touchpad which so many other netbooks I've seen have. That's something I would struggle to ever be comfortable with. Although I like the touchpad, I plug in my USB mouse when using it at home as it's easier to use.
PORTS: There are 3 usb ports (two left, one right), VGA port (when connected to my Samsung Syncmaster it can support the large 19" LCD monitor's native 1400 x 900 and looks great!) This is great, bearing in mind the onboard graphics card normally spends its time churning out the U100's 1024 x 600 native resolution instead. It's only when you want to duplicate the video output to an external LCD *as well* as the U100's own screen that it will be forced to display the same 1024 x 600 resolution on the external monitor. This isn't a problem, just an observation. Normally you'd only have one active or the other at any given time.
BLUETOOTH 2.1 is supported. I haven't used it yet but it it's nice to have with all the BT devices around these days.
Very useful row of 8 LEDs shows you Bluetooth, WLAN, sleep, battery, caps, num, scroll lock, and hard drive activity all in the same place.
Criticisms:
Full stop key and comma key are a slightly reduced size, but I'm used to it already. Only took a few days of touch typing to adjust.
Watch out you don't buy the bilingual version in Canada. In London Drugs they sell it with the good old US keyboard, but in Staples they stock a U100 plagued with all sorts of extra keys meant for typing French accents more easily, and most of the keys have everything in French and English, the clutter is annoying. Too bad no one pointed out it's probably no use to anyone outside of Quebec.
It is slightly front heavy due to the battery position, not a problem really, but something to bear in mind when positioning it on your lap for typing.
There's no CD/DVD drive. You don't need one anyway though, just transfer the contents from CDs onto a USB stick in another PC (or over the network) and use them as per usual. Optical drives take up space and use battery power, so not having them is no big loss, even though it seems strange to have a laptop with no CD drive in the 21 Century!
Two other important points:
YOU CAN INSTALL MAC OSX86 (a hacked version of OSX which can run on non-apple hardware. Google for the installer and a how-to guide.) It's a hugely popular mod... so I hear.
You can install Linux on it- this deserves more attention than I just gave it.
(You can have dual boot, or even triple boot systems with Windows, Mac OSX86 and Linux depending on your personal preference and computer literacy)
"Netbooks" are supposed to compromise on power and functionality to increase their portability. Hence they are often thought of as mobile internet access devices incapable of doing anything even moderately groovy...
...but when you have one running at 2GHz, with 2GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive and all the onboard peripherals you could wish for -it doesn't look like such a compromise after all!
Youtube shows people playing various games on it, so don't think that's not a possibility either!
Warcraft 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cT0KxnDoYM
Need for Speed Underground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms8SuIzeJM8
F.E.A.R.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWT5_DypySs
I hope my ramblings have been informative! Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts.
I typed all this on my U100 :) |
awesome netbook! NEW: video comparison!
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| Review Date: February 4, 2009 |
| Reviewer: A. Boston, Boston, MA United States |
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2FKNVALTPAMZK UPDATE WITH COMPARISON 12/09: This video is a comparison with the Acer Aspire One AOD250-1165 10.1 inch screen. Both the Acer and MSI are extremely similar. I've had the MSI wind for a year or so and I love it, I just bought the Acer as a gift for my boyfriend.
A couple things I did forget to mention. The Acer did have more "bloatware" (McAfee Internet Security Suite trial version; Google Desktop; Carbonite Online Backup; Acer GridVista) on it then the MSI wind, so I did remove a couple programs. This is really personal preference. Some people like to have as much as possible to get new software and try new programs. I like a bare bones netbook so I can add things according to my needs without really taking up much hard drive space. Both have 160GB hard drive. The Acer is a tad bit thinner when closed, but the MSI is listed at 2.3 lbs, while the Acer is 2.4 lb.
They have the very same video processor, though I said in my video I thought the Acer had a bit better video quality. This really could just have been the videos I watched (and the quality of them), not necessarily the video capabilities of the netbooks. Both are in fact available in white. The MSI wind wins for me based on the slightly larger keyboard and the matte screen.
ORIGINAL REVIEW OF THE MSI WIND:
At this price, you really can't go wrong. They call them 'netbooks' but, really, they are just a small size laptop, because it had all the same features and more(hard drive, RAM, processor) as my 2 year old HP. Its different in that it weights about 1/2 of that laptop, which I think is just fantastic. Someone has already commented to me that you really don't notice the smaller size 10" screen once you start using this netbook, so its definitely the best on the bunch. Not huge 17" or too small 8.9".
I mainly use my laptop for internet, itunes, skype, AIM and occasional microsoft word. I also upload photos often and do a lot of typing(reviews like you're reading now!). I did a great deal of comparisions with other wind models as well as other brands. I poked around [...] to get a feel for an issues people have, ways to easily fix little things, etc. I find that forum is really invaluable and will be a great source to use if you do get an MSI.
For other brands, I know acer is coming out with a 10" screen soon and while that interested me, I liked everything I heard about MSI and didn't want to wait, so this was my choice.
I specifically choose this one because the new u120 model is not ugradable in RAM to 2gb and I also like the price and look of this one better then the other. On a side note: I did see hear they will be releasing new model u120s that are upgradable in the next 2 months or so. but I don't love the mix of black and white, I like my laptops strictly one color or the other. I also was more concerned with weight then battery power right now, and figured at a later date I can get a 6 cell battery and have both for the price it was to just get the one with only a 6 cell.
This little machine is adorable, but some won't be so concerned with that. ;-)Start up is fast. The webcam and built in microphone work great, already tested them out on skype and it was VERY easy to figure my way around without using the manual disc. Screen is super bright and vibrant, and has a matte finish which is something I wanted. On my HP it was shiny and seemed to collect dust, fingerprints and really caught a glare in the sun.
Watching video/you tube is good. If you're having trouble with it you might need to update your flash player. I think it can be said that it would be nice if the speakers went up a little louder, but thats not a big deal.
The trackpad is fine for me. Its smaller then a standard laptop, but I personally use a wireless mouse so it won't bother me much, but even using it starting out initially it was not a huge difference. You can also easily turn off the trackpad with fn+f3, so that you don't hit it while typing.
So far the wireless has been steadfast and haven't had any problems. The color of the msi wind is pretty, its a shimmery creamy white color, as opposed to a shocking white. When I unplugged to go to battery power, it told me I had 2 hours and 11 minutes, on my 3 cell battery. I dimmed the screen a bit and it seems to have made a difference. The keyboard is easy to maneuver. I'm a pretty fast typer and so far have had no major flubs, aside from the backspace button is close to some other weird one, so I just have to be sure not to hit that. You've got shift keys on both sides, so no matter which you favor, you are all set! I've uploaded a photo with the stock photos so you can see the details of the keyboard.
I've uploaded some photos and the SD card from my camera easily went right into the built in slot. One thing I noticed upon starting up this system for the first time. The Internet explorer loaded on here seems to be an old one, so I couldn't do the tab browsing that I am used to, rather then opening a new window for each new site. In about 5 minutes, I upgraded for free online to Internet explorer 8, and it has the tab browsing and more.
Only thing I was a bit disappointed about, but this is merely preference, was that the power could was black. I think it would look better and more cohesive if it were white as well.
As things progress I hope I will have even more great things to say about this notebook. |
Very nice compact product, however...
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| Review Date: February 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: SAN MARINO, NewYork, NY |
| Best price on this product this week is here on Amazon. Product is very decent however the 3-Cell battery is not the way to go. On a full charge the battery displays 99% charged with 1 hour and 46 minutes remaining. Not only is this a short battery duration, I clocked the 1hr.46 minutes remaining on a separate clock and actually only got 56 minutes out of the full charge. This is definitely the reason why MSI is making the same netbook model with improved 6 cell battery units. Go for the extra [...] bucks for the 6 cell battery. |
If you're buying this just to run OS X please keep in mind.
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| Review Date: March 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: joey, |
For the most post the MSI Wind U100-451US works great with Leopard 10.5.6. Installation is easy if you're going the retail route. But keep in mind a few things..
This version comes with the Bison .03 webcam that will not work with Photobooth (there is no current way to make this work as of this review date)
The internal mic does not work with OS X
The headphone out does not work natively and you will have to use an switcher app and manual tell it either to use the built in speaker or headphone out.
The native WiFi card works with the WiFi card chip makers application. It works but it keeps the application on your dock. If you want to use OS X built in AirPort utilities you will need to purchase a different WiFi card (Dell 1510). If you install this you may void warrantee.
The native display on the Wind is not a native display for OS X so some programs won't fit right.
Other than that the Wind is great. Sure the 3 cell battery life is terrible at 1hr 45mins. But hey you do get a really small MacBook. My daughter is the primary user of this and really likes it.
So if you're considering running Leopard 10.5.6 on this just keep in mind the above so you're not scratching your head about why somethings work and why some don't. |
Nice Bang for the Buck
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| Review Date: May 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: George L. Krisztian, Michigan |
Pros: I decided to wait a little while before I wrote a review so that I could provide some insight that went beyond just my initial impressions. My OBE (Out of Box Experience) was fantastic. I had looked at a number of different models before I chose this one. I was leaning very heavily towards getting an Acer until a friend of mine lent me his MSI for an overnight test drive. The display was very impressive and I found being able to fit the full width of a web page very helpful. I'm a rather clumsy typist and I found the keyboard to be sufficient enough to accommodate my paw and hope technique.
My main purpose in getting a netbook was to get something that was as portable as possible and still be able to surf the web with relative ease. I recently purchased a notebook for my wife, she is an accountant and insisted that the keyboard be full sized and have a 10 key pad on it as well. I got her a very nice machine with an incredible display with all of the bells and whistles. The problem was that at about 9 pounds, it was not anything that I would care to lug around.
With portability, ease of surfing and price my key factors I happily made the purchase (300 bucks). This computer quickly exceeded my expectations. I found that not only could I easily surf the web, but this computer was more than I hoped for. It easily runs office and most any other application you care to throw at it with relative ease (heavy gaming excluded). I suspect that this is due in part to the fact that it comes with XP Home Edition instead of Vista. This machine will never be a good choice as a primary computer but it does what it is meant to do extremely well and then some.
In an effort to keep the weight and cost down I opted for the 3 cell battery. I knew that this would limit my time that I could spend away from an outlet and I am getting about 1:45 worth of actual time on a full charge. Keeping the brightness on the monitor down as low as practical and turning off unnecessary features definitely helps. I have an adaptor in my vehicle that I bought at Sam's club which allows me to plug any small to medium sized AC powered device into my cigarette lighter. I would highly recommend getting one as this really helps! I think I paid something like 30 bucks for a two pack a couple of years ago. I have one in my truck and one in my wife's SUV.
The WIFI on this is excellent. I am able to pick up signals very easily and the dropouts are at a very acceptable level. The Webcam although not great, gets the job done. I am not sure if this thing has Bluetooth or not. The Bluetooth software is there but the box that the computer comes in indicates that there is no Bluetooth. Since I do not have any Bluetooth devices I can't determine if Bluetooth is there or not.
The processor is better than I expected and runs programs faster than I thought it would. Even with just 1 GB of RAM this thing runs very well. Here is where I am very confused with respect to the processor. It was my understanding that the Atom 270 was a single core, however when I bring up task manager, there are two cores present. When I monitor the task manager CPU usage window it behaves exactly like a dual core would. Each core is displayed separately and is acting independently from the other. I either received a dual core processor or I am missing something here.
Cons: As I indicated, my OBE was exceptional and had I written this review the day after I received the computer I would have easily given it 5 stars.
After about three weeks my computer stopped being able to run on battery power. I have no idea what happened but one day it simply stopped working. It still worked fine on AC but I didn't buy a desktop. I treat my computers with great care and I typically get 6 or more years out of a computer. I suspect there was simply a loose wire inside.
Amazon made it very easy to return the item and I received the replacement in short order. If I remember correctly I filled out the RMA on a Sunday and I received the replacement the following Thursday. I sent the defective unit back via parcel post and I paid for a receipt notification. I received notification back both from Amazon and the USPS that the return had be received.
Although the replacement came in very short order, the OBE fell way short of the first computer. The first annoyance was that the processor was not as fast as the first one. I cannot gripe too much on this point because the Atom is clearly marketed as a 1.6 GHz processor and I got that both times. The cool thing about the MSI bios is that it allows you to overclock the processor. You can select an 8, 15 or 24% increase in the rated processor speed. The basic process is to start low and work your way up until you hit 24% or your computer locks up whichever comes first. Not to worry though, if your computer locks up you can simply re-boot and then lower the speed.
The first computer that I received allowed me to ramp it up an additional 15%, the second computer only allowed me to bump it up 8%. I treat this as a disappointment but nothing that can really be held against MSI since Intel clearly has rated the processor at 1.6 GHz and nothing more. Anything above that is gravy and is due to minor defects in the silicon that determine the amount of over clocking that can be obtained.
My second issue however is something that I feel I can hold against MSI. There must have been a difference in the image that shipped on the two computers. The first one was flawless and everything worked perfectly the first time. The second computer suffered from a MAJOR memory leak when using Internet Explorer 6. I had heard about this before but I had never actually seen a computer that had it. Basically when I got on the web, each page was taking up about 50-75 MB of memory that was never released. It took me quite some to figure out that this was happening. I would go online and after about 15 minutes of surfing I would get a memory full error. If I closed IE and then re-opened it I could continue for about another 15 minutes.
Clearly there was something very wrong. Even though I had installed all of the patches I still got the memory leak. I could monitor the memory leak by having the task manager open while I surfed; I even upgraded to IE 8 and although the memory leak was not as bad it was still unacceptable.
I finally bombed the computer by hitting F3 during the boot process when F3 appears in the upper left hand corner of the screen. This did a complete re-install of the image including formatting the drives. After I re-imaged the computer and installed all of the necessary updates I took IE6 for another spin and things were much improved although there was still a noticeable memory leak. The leak was small enough that I could have a decent surfing session and not run out of memory. It was something that I could live with if I had to but I wanted a better fix.
Finally I decided that the best course of action was to give Mozilla's Firefox a try. I installed Firefox and "poof" the memory leak disappeared! Although I have just started using Firefox I have to say that it is sooooo much faster than IE! It may not have all of the bells and whistles that IE has especially in terms of interoperability with other Microsoft applications, but in terms just browsing, this thing has IE beat hands down!
Other thoughts: Overall I am very happy with this computer. The price is fantastic and given its diminutive size this thing delivers better than expected performance. I can only give this item a rating of 4 stars because I should not have had to go though all of the hoops that I did in order to fix my memory leak. Given what I know now, I would not hesitate to buy this computer; however, I would save myself some hassle and install Firefox right away. I am very happy with Amazon's return policy and they made it very easy to return the item.
As an additional piece of advice, make sure you keep EVERYTHING when you receive your package. Just set it aside in a nice safe location because you never know. This is an old habit of mine and I even keep the shipping materials. That way if the need to ship it back arises then you can ship it back exactly the way you received it. This can save you time money and hassles. You can be charged a restocking fee if you do not send it back properly. Also (and my wife had fun laughing at me for this one), I document the entire repackaging process with my digital camera so that I have additional proof that I sent everything back. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get me :-)
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Netbook are the new wave of mobile computing. Buying their first time are likely to be attracted by these small portable computers because of their attractive price tags, while power users appreciate, because they are lighter than regular notebooks, but also keep the full keyboard. Since netbooks are pretty popular, many new models released in recent years, making it difficult to decide which is right for you. Furthermore, traditional laptops are still an option that should not be ignored. read more »
