4SALE: MSI Wind U100 "White" with MSI Exteral DVD Drive.

Specifications

• 1.6GHz Intel Atom Processor
• 10" WSVGA (1024 x 600) LCD
• Windows XP Home Operating System
• Intel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics
• 1GB 667MHz DDR2 Memory
• 80GB 2.5" SATA Hard Drive
• Wireless: 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0
• 3-Cell 11.1v 2200mAh Battery
• Size: WxDxH 10.2" x 7" x 1.3"
• Weight: 2lbs 8.6oz

Build and Design

The MSI Wind really has a great look and feel to it. The soft rounded edges coupled with the glossy texture make it easy and comfortable to grip onto, while also giving the mini notebook a very professional look. Another great aspect of the Wind is nothing appears "look at me" flashy, making it very appealing to business professionals, as well as children and teenagers alike. No chrome is found anywhere, and all the labeling and branding is a light grey which really goes well with the pearl white finish.

Build quality is excellent, and reminds me very much of the HP Mini-Note. Fit and finish is top notch with smooth and tight plastic seams, beveled edges, recessed hinges, and plenty of touches here and there that make you feel as if you are getting every penny's worth of notebook from MSI. The quality of the plastics used is top notch, and most thick enough to prevent flex even under a firm grip. The LCD cover and palmrest show no flex under heavy pressure, but the bottom panel is thin in a few spots and easy to bend. Not a deal breaker by any means, but I'm just saying it might not hold up well to being run over by a car.

Display

The Wind has a LED backlit matte textured LCD. It is very bright and easy to read, and rates very well to others screens I have used. Colors are vibrant and contrast is excellent. On the flip side, the screen does have the infamous sparkly texture to it giving solid colors a dirty look, and on high backlight settings you can see some backlight bleed and almost make out each individual LED. None of those drawbacks would be enough to make me not buy one, but it might be enough for someone to give it a second thought it they were more on the obsessive side of things.

Viewing angles are just how I like them, wide in both vertical and horizontal planes. I have always found it kinda funny that "cheap and affordable" subnotebooks can always manage to beat out multimedia powerhouses in this screen aspect. With some screens inverting colors or going distorted with minimal vertical movement, the MSI Wind's LCD keeps colors true until much steeper angles. I could say you could probably go 45-50 degrees above or below the screen before you might want to reconsider your seating position. Horizontal viewing angles were not as good as the vertical, with the screen appearing much darker in side viewing positions. The colors didn't exactly invert, but screen was dark enough to become unwatchable for secondary viewing buddies who you might be sharing a movie with.

Sunlight readability for those who might adventure into the wilderness on occasion is fairly good. At full brightness the screen should still be readable. Below is a comparison between the MSI Wind, Lenovo T60, and Dell D630. The Wind is a good deal brighter than the other two notebooks.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The MSI Wind really shines with its keyboard, and taking up almost every inch of space side to side to have the largest possible keys on such a small device. The keyboard takes all but 2-3mm of space going side to side, and is really great to type on even with large hands. The only big flaw I can find with the keyboard is the super narrow ",", ".", and "/" keys which are 2/3 the width of standard letter keys. This threw me off at first trying to type in websites, and hitting the "/" key instead of a period. Once you got used to the layout it wasn't as much of a problem, but come on, why ruin such a good thing? The shift keys on both sides should have been reduced in size by half and still been perfectly fine, and you wouldn't have to have 2/3 size symbol keys.

The touchpad is slightly recessed from the palmrest by about 1mm, giving a defined lip around the entire perimeter. For small touchpads this can be very handy, letting you keep your finger inside the detection zone, and not always slipping out accidentally. As far as touchpads go, the sensitivity is great, letting you slide your finger along without excessive pressure for perfect tracking. At times the preset vertical and horizontal scrollbars messed with that perfection, making the mouse veer far from the intended path, but with a few adjustments peace was restored. The touchpad buttons consist of a single see-saw bar, ala early Eee PC, with shallow feedback and a semi-soft click. The clicking noise could probably best be described as a Microsoft Intellimouse clicking inside a sock.

Missing Features

After my hands on with the ASUS Eee PC 901 and the Hybrid Engine that allowed you to overclock the Intel Atom processor for about a boost in power, I really wanted to see what the MSI Turbo feature could do. Those who managed to get pre-release models of the MSI Wind saw gains using it, but as luck would have it MSI pulled this feature out before they started shipping to consumers. The FN+F10 overclocking feature is no more, and replaced with a simple "ECO feature" that switches between battery saver mode at 800MHz and normal mode which dynamically switches between 800MHz and 1600MHz depending on processor load.

Performance

System performance--with great help of Intel Atom processor--was stellar. Boot times into Windows XP were on par with many full-size notebooks, and casual use programs opened up without any lag. The subnotebook experience is basically identical to what you would find on a regular notebook, minus the gaming or fast photo editing. Programs like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Pidgin, Word, and Excel all open up just as fast and work just as well as you would expect on a modern computer.

Items that fall into a more intensive category like Gimp, Half-Life 2, or 720p video content don't work as well. Gimp worked great for basic photo editing, but some tasks took much longer than they did on my Core 2 Duo system. Half-Life 2 and the HD video content played anywhere between 1-5FPS and were quite horrific. The Wind just doesn't have the horsepower for really intensive activities.

The normal benchmarks we use here at NotebookReview.com were thrown out of the window for the MSI Wind for various problems associated with the platform, so we chose to use a few creative alternatives. Futuremark 3DMark03 made a short comeback, as well as FPS tests inside the original Half-Life.

IF YOUR INTERTESTED JUST TEXT DIRECTLY TO THIS NUMBER SO WE CAN IMMEDIATELY ACCOMODATE YOU:** Chiara Marie  F. Cruz** 0926-6043269** 656-02-76** spicyhotchoco09@yahoo.com