Customer Reviews

MSI Wind 10" Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) White

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a fan of the netbook concept. When I first saw the Asus EEE 4G I bought it on sight and never looked back at my old laptops...

Well, at least until the novelty wore off. After awhile the 7" screen and tiny keyboard drove me nuts. The EEE had a special place in my heart, but it was hardly practical. I fortunately sold it before the new crop of Atom-based processors came out, still hoping for a future machine that would "get it right."

The MSI Wind gets it right. The screen is just the right size, the battery life is terrific, build quality is solid, and the keyboard is a joy to use. After evaluating everything from the Acer Aspire One, the 901 and 1000 series Asus EEEs, all the way to the Dell Mini 9 (which I ordered -- and canceled after trying the Wind), this is the clear winner.

From a geek perspective, this is a fun machine to mod. I upgraded RAM to 2GB ($20), bought a new 250GB Scorpio hard drive on Amazon ($80), and then created a dual-boot Windows XP and OSX Leopard machine... Yeah, that's right, this baby runs the Mac OS like a dream. Do a search for MSIWindosX.iso and read up if you're so technically inclined. After replacing the internal wireless with a surplus Dell card that has a Mac-recognized Broadcom chip($15), I've got the only-to-be-dreamed-of 10", sub-3lb. MacBook that Apple never made... Much cheaper than the compromise of the Air.

Note: making this a Mac breaks the license of the OSX EULA. It also requires a fair bit of technical savvy.

I've been working with my MSI Wind for a few weeks now - long enough to discover and then iron out one or two (common - and easily fixed) wrinkles. As shipped, the wireless driver is sometimes flakey - a quick upgrade, either from the MSI website or via Windows Update fixed that problem.
I chose this mini-notebook primarily because of concerns about cramped keyboards on other comparable machines. As someone who spends a lot of time writing and negotiating the computer world via the keyboard, I'm somewhat demanding on this point. The Wind keyboard is clearly better than most, if not all, of the alternatives. I've not tried the HP-2133, the closest competitor it seems, so I can't say from experience which is better. But I've now spent many hours using the Wind, and the keyboard is perfectly fine.
As shipped - Windows XP, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB harddrive, 6-cell battery - the machine is perfectly suited for 95% of all I need, i.e., wordprocessing, email, Internet. It would be fun to upgrade the memory and harddrive - but as is, the system works perfectly fine. The processor is zippy enough for most tasks, including video-phone via Skype.
Being able to carry all of this around in a package less than 3 lbs - and with a working battery life of at least four hours - is nothing short of amazing.
The only limitation for me is the screen size - but I knew this going in. For 95% of my work, it's more than adequate. Only when I need to edit and compare two documents side by side is the screen just too cramped.
In sum, as long as one is aware that a 10" screen has limits, and the Atom processor will likely be sluggish on intensive image and video processing - I can't recommend this device highly enough. My beloved MacBook Pro is now my desktop - comparatively too big and heavy to carry around; the MSI Wind is now my highly portable notebook.

MSI Wind is, in my opinion, the best yet of the new netbook computers. I have had no problems with it. My wife took it on a trip and carried it in her purse. She really like the weight, and had no problems using the machine. After she came home, I installed Vista Home Premium on the second partition (system came partition into a recovery partition, OS partition (40GB), and a local data partition (31 GB)on the 80 GB Hard drive). Vista runs as fast as XP on this machine. All the hardware works - you can use the XP device manager to point you to the devices that you need to find the Vista drivers for (in my case the on board Intel graphics, Realtek ethernet, and the Realtek wireless).
My only complaint was the way MSI placed the warranty sticker over one of the 9 screws on the bottom. I sent an email to and got the reply from MSI that it will not void the warranty to crack the back open and add 1GB of memory. Removing the bottom is easy. Adding the memory stick (Kingston)was simple. There is a short how-to video (use google to find it) on the procedure.
Overall I am very satisfied

Like one of the other reviewers, I also purchased the EeePC 701 earlier this year. With it's many shortcomings, it was soon gathering dust.

I was a little hesitant in purchasing another netbook, but I'm glad I took the plunge. This system addresses the problems with the EeePC, and I doubt if it will be sitting idle for any extended period.

The keyboard is fairly large for a system of this size, and is comfortable for typing. The 10-inch screen, with a resolution of 1024x600, is adequate for displaying most web pages with a minimum of scrolling.

One of the better features, in my opinion, is the battery life. With the 6-cell battery, I get 4.5 - 5 hours with the wireless turned on and the screen at 50% brightness. Even at 50%, the screen is still brighter than my desktop LCD.

There are a growing number of choices in this market, most of them with similar features and hardware. I would recommend this system to anyone looking for this type of system.

Netbooks are the first truly portable && affordable && useable computers, and the MSI Wind is probably one of the better ones. Mine arrived very quickly (about two days); I was nicely surprised to find out that it came with a larger harddrive and more wireless connectivity options than what was specified in the order (my guess is that the previous model was already sold out).

Upon installation, I quickly noticed the only flaw, the poor quality of the LCD screen. The graphics looks a little weird on portions of the screen, as if it is one of those 256 color gifs of the early 90-ties. The screen has a (bearly) noticeable vertical boundary separating it in two, and the defect is more evident in the left 1/5th. Believe me I almost laughed at another reviewer claiming the same thing, serves me well. This persisted under both XP and Ubuntu (loaded from a flash drive).

The screen defect may well be a manufacturing flaw of only my computer and it isn't very noticeable. I liked the machine so much overall that I decided not to return it despite the possibility that I got a lemon.

I have had the computer for about a month. So far I am quite pleased with it. The Wi-fi works well and no problem installing my PC programs. I also have no problems using my broadband card with it. The keyboard is much easier to use than on the Asus that I had previously owned - the keys are larger. No problems with the touchpad even though it only has one button rather than two. The battery lasts a long time depending upon what you are doing. I like the screen that shows the entire web page without having to scroll. I would recommend this computer to anyone who would like something small and light to carry. The only thing that would improve it would be a cd/dvd drive.

If you are looking for a windows based laptop that you can carry with you when traveling, do not need a DVD drive, for web browsing, emails, and minor photo editing etc, this is a great machine. The screen is very bright due to the LED screen. The 6 cell battery last about 4 hours even after 1 year of (low) use. However, do not expect much processing power if you into graphics and video editing. Even after adding an extra 1 gig RAM (voiding the unnecessary warranty) the browsers (Firefox, Chrome, or IE) takes about 5 second to load, not sure if it is processor related. But for traveling, given the battery life, I suggest this machine to anyone.

We love it, especially the 6-cell battery for 5+ hours runtime and the larger 10" screen. Target is colorblind though, we ordered pink but got white. The packing list said pink but the outer carton and inner box both said white. MSI didn't mark the color coding dot on the inner carton either.

This PC has been great.. i bought it for my 10 year old daughter.. she opened the box and has been using it ever since... it is great!!! and for the price it is the perfect first laptop for a kid..

The best improvement on this model, other than the obvious longer battery life is the WiFi. On my last one, the connection would drop, hang and just quit for "no reason" - it took a long time to figure out it came right out of the box in need of driver updates for the WiFi (easily fixed). THIS one doesn't have any WiFi issues at all, no need for driver updates, yet anyway.

The battery life on this one is only about 1 hour more, but that's with me on it constant, non-stop, running programs. It *did* get a little warm, enough to worry me only the slightest. I'd like if they had a mini slant pad for this.. for those who are going to wear the battery down to nill.

I don't really see any difference between this one and the previous version, other than the other requires a couple driver updates before you can really roll (well) and the slightly longer battery life.