 Supurb product at a great price |
| Review Date: September 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: A. Greer, Indianapolis Indiana - GO COLTS |
This is a great laptop, a big enough screen to use in the real world, and plenty of horsepower. I can play HD video without missing a beat. light as a feather, can comfortably be used on a lap, imagine that, a laptop that is usable on the lap!
The downside is the software load, a whirlwind of crap ware, and the most outrageous part is that they want you to burn your own restore DVD. this device has no optical drive and they couldn't even provide a "bootable thumb drive" restore option? and furthermore, I want a clean OS, or at least the tools to install it.
I installed Windows 7 ultimate 32bit using my student volume licensing edition, with a clean install of Win 7, this thing boots un under 20 sec and is incredibly responsive.
Much as I ont care for the software load, it is a more than fair trade off for this kind of a laptop at this price. This device absolutely keeps up with $2000 ultraportable business laptops. I am already planning to buy one of these for a family member as a holiday gift. Hope that is enough of an endorsement.
If you are a college student, I recommend grabbing one of these as an accompaniment to a powerful desktop with a 22 inch display, both can be had for under $1000 today, no need to tote a 6 LB laptop around campus. |
Great small notebook/netbook
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| Review Date: January 3, 2010 |
| Reviewer: MJB, Cali |
I purchased the MSI U210 notebook in white on 12/13/2009. I considered purchasing the MSI L2100, which has the exact same hardware, but comes with Windows 7 pre-installed instead of Windows Vista. The L2100 is only available in black however, and after checking it out at the local Fry's I decided to order the white U210 from Amazon and upgrade it to Windows 7 later with the free upgrade program.
This is my first netbook size computer, and so far I have been extremely happy with the U210. It has become my main computer out of three including an older full-size Dell laptop and desktop.
Some pros/cons:
Performance - I was surprised how fast this computer is. For web browsing, using MS office, and watching downloaded .avi files it performs extremely well. As others have mentioned however, while streaming videos from YouTube and Hulu are very smooth when viewed in a window, there is a lot of stuttering in full-screen. I have ordered the Broadcom HD decoder card (~$20 from Ebay) that others have mentioned and will update this review when I have a chance to install and test it out. The WiFi range is excellent. I also think the sound quality is more than acceptable from a computer this size. The screen is beautiful and the webcam performs well. Another pro is that the computer stays pretty cool and is not uncomfortable when used on your lap. The computer also runs Vista very well, and as my first experience with this OS, I have had no problems.
UPDATE: I bought and installed the Broadcom HD decoder card in 5 minutes. It goes into the empty mini PCI slot. It seems to -have improved YouTube HD and the HDMI output is now very smooth (I never tested HDMI before the decoder card), however, I still cannot watch Hulu in high-res (480p) at full-screen without significant stuttering.
No Bluetooth - My U210 did not come with an internal Bluetooth antenna, even though it has a Bluetooth light, Bluetooth software loaded on the system, and "Bluetooth RFCOMM" listed in device manager. I suspect this is why some reviewers have stated that their U210 included Bluetooth, but mine did not and I would not expect other U210's from Amazon to include it. Apparently an internal Bluetooth antenna can be purchased from Ebay and plugged into the U210's motherboard for about $20.
Appearance and build quality - I like the white color and overall the computer looks very nice. As others have noted, the keyboard does have a small bulge centered over the letter "K" key. Other notebooks/netbooks I have seen do appear to have a more solid feel, but I'm guessing that the "flimsier" feel of the U210 is what helps to keep it's weight down, and there is no indication to me that my U210 won't last several years.
Windows 7 upgrade from MSI - I followed the instructions and ordered the upgrade the day I received my U210, but have not received anything from MSI yet. UPDATE: I received the upgrade DVD from Microsoft exactly 1 month after submitting the request to MSI, doing all the steps as fast as possible. It took MSI about 3 weeks to send the coupon, and Microsoft was very fast, sending the DVD to my house within a week. Windows 7 is running smooth.
Overall the U210 is a great small notebook and I'm very happy with it. |
Read reviews before buying!!
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| Review Date: October 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Couvahigh, |
| I decided on the MSI U210 because it was the best for the price. I made a dual boot with Vista and XP and it performs well with both operating systems. Contrary to what it says though you only get about 2.5 to 3 hours battery life. This isn't really a problem for me but I do have two major complaints. First there is a noticeable bulge in the right half of the keyboard which causes flexing when typing. The second is the wifi card sucks. I downloaded the latest drivers for both XP and Vista but that didn't help. I have to be within 15ft to get connected. I read somewhere that the wifi is powerful but my experience is the opposite. Maybe I got a bad unit and you may not have the same problems that I got, but I am very disappointed. I also know that there are no problems with the wifi on the Dell or Acer machines so you may want give those some thought. If you really want to get this netbook then wait until next year. Hopefully by then any bugs should be corrected. |
Great Netbook for a Great Price, but upgrades help.
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| Review Date: November 22, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Speed, Texas |
This is an excellent Netbook. I also have a Dell mini 10 and this one is far more powerfull. Installed Win 7 which works great.
Things to note. This does not have 2 memory slots as advertised by Amazon - it only has one. I upgraded to 4 GB with no problems. There are reviews that HD video does not work; I hooked up a bluray player via usb and the video does stutter, but I have ordered a BroadCom BCM70010 BCM70012 HD Decoder Mini PCIe card for $25, which should correct this, if so, well worth it. Also note that this netbook does not come with bluetooth installed but also can be added for around $25. Agree with other reviews about the pros of this netbook, just wanted to add a few extra comments that may help you in your decision in reviewing this product. |
Nice netbook, but with some issues
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| Review Date: October 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Leonid Sirov, Florida |
| First of all, this netbook is the best i ever had. I have tried a lots of Asus models, Acer, Hp, and Toshiba. I selling them in Russia. MSI made a very nice one model. It is very stable, fast and beautiful. I had black one. Looks like expensive business notebook. I like new AMD CPU, very fast, HDMI port is good addition too. But I had some troubles with its WI-fi adapter. My Linksys router wont work with it. I spent a day, trying to connect them together, changing channels, security settings and frequencies. It is not a router problem, because another two net books from Asus (Also witn Wi-Fi N) were connected without one problem. |
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