Overview
Every man and his dog are making rivals to the Asus Eee pc but is it time for the Asus to say ‘Eeeeek!’ (If you don't know what the Eee pc is you can check out my review here) Now comes into the race the MSI Wind, this ultra portable notebook will compete head-on with the Asus Eee PC 900. In its favour are a 10″ screen, better keyboard and, perhaps most important of all, an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, again it will be released with a Linux and Windows XP version (sound familiar yet?) although at a slightly higher price with the Linux version costing £320 and the Windows XP version costing £350. The question is, is the MSI Wind crossing over to ‘just another laptop’?
Review
The Wind will ship with a 3-cell battery as standard, which will offer between 3 and 4 hours of life, although this can be upgraded to a 6-cell model (which is slightly bulkier) for a battery life of around 5.5 hours.
Measuring 10.2 x 7.1 x 0.7 inches and weighing just under 3 pounds (2.6 without the AC adapter / 3.4 pounds with adapter), its slightly larger and heavier than an Eee PC 900, but the fact it’s slightly bigger means MSI has incorporate a very usable keyboard. Sadly it’s let down by the trackpad Measuring 2.0 x 1.7 inches, the trackpad on the Wind is disappointingly small, requiring more movement than you would like.
The MSI Wind comes in a selection of colours, black, white and pink and Like the Eee pc, it will be available with a choice of screen sizes. MSI plans to ship an 8.9-inch version of the Wind later in the year.
Again here comes the ‘Geeky’ bit:
"¢ 10″ LCD (1024×600) LED Display
"¢ 1GB of RAM (that you can upgrade to 2GB),
"¢ A 1.3MP webcam built into the lid above the screen,
"¢ Atom 1.6GHz processor (slightly less powerful than the 900MHz in the Eee pc but a lot more power efficient (makes the battery last longer))
"¢ 80G hard drive – huge space but at the expense of ‘ultra’ portability (ssd’s have no moving parts so you can ‘shake it like a Polaroid’ and it wont get damaged!)
"¢ A VGA (normal monitor output) D-SUB port (up to 1600×1280),
"¢ 802.11b/g WiFi, and a wired Ethernet port
"¢ 4-in-1 memory card reader
"¢ Bluetooth (which is sadly missing with the Eee pc)
"¢ 3 USB ports
"¢ MSI Wind is also the first mini notebook / UMPC with an over-clock button!
Again just like the Eee pc you can tell from the specs you're not going to be able to play games like ‘Age of Conan’ or do Hi-Def video editing, but it is powerful enough to play ‘World of Warcraft’ (FTW!) and play back Hi-Def movies.
Gaj-it Verdict
Design: 8.5/10
Usability: 10/10
Features: 8/10
Value: 7/10
We Say
Ultimately, this is a worthy alternative to the Eee pc. The MSI Wind offers the complete package, including an adult-size keyboard, a larger 10-inch screen, a very capable Atom processor and Good battery life, makes it an all-around good mini-notebook / UMPC to date, you just need to ask yourself is it small enough (its an extra 1.1″ more than the Eee pc – now please no jokes but does size really matter?) plus the whole hard drive issue…
Shop for it
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Heres the MSI Wind advert (yes, I know its uber cheesy)
One thought on “Review of the MSI Wind, an Eee Contender?”
The Asus Eee PC 901 XP / Atom N270 1.6GHz looks a good bet to me with its longer life battery (up to 8 hrs) It’s got smaller storage space, from a 12GB SSD hard disc but its a true ultra portable with its 8.9″ screen. It will be interesting to see the smaller msi wind model later in the year.