UPDATE to firmware 1.09 (ships w/ 1.06 if I recall) - on battery FN+F10 cuts processor speed in half and blue power LED turns green saving battery power for less intense applications. On AC with this firmware FN+F10 overclocks the uP by 8, 16, or 24 % (I would stop at 16% for stability) - the led glows a redish orange to alert you to the overclocked status. U100 will remain the performance leader in the family while the 115 will become the battery longevity leader.
News Flash 01/01/2009 (Taiwan) MSI announces U115 and U120. U115 is a hybrid with 32GB SSD and 160 GB main disk. U120 is a power user system with larger main drive and built in 3G networking. Amazon is expected to carry them early january as they are ready to ship.
Note: amazon suggests you buy a $22 case - this unit comes with a zipper pouch designed for it so you don't need to buy the case shown above separately. If you do buy the memory you will have to break the computer's warantee seal to install it, which I did and have no regrets. All the good details are below if you want to know more about this and what you can do with it.
Comment 12/20/2008 I've been asked about the 9 cell battery - I uploaded a photo tonight of its side view against the 6 cell that comes with this notebook. It took 1 week to arrive by airmail from China. I ordered on a Saturday and it showed up the next Saturday in my mailbox. Click on "other photos" at the top of the page to see more info about the 9 cell 7200 mAh battery. It's a true 8 hour battery system now.
I went into the U100 with pretty low expectations - I wanted a "disposable" laptop to take on a cruise that could handle my digital photos and videos but had to be small and light compared to my dell 17" desktop replacement. I was thinking of a 1.6 ghz cheapo laptop and had not had the best experiences in the past but this blew away my expectations. Update: at first the trackpad seemed to be missing scroll features and have just a single button. I did finally find the trackpad features on its boring white surface (I'm accustomed to drawings showing the scroll zones) - the two right hand corners (upper and lower) are scroll points and I was accustomed to scroll edges instead. The other feature I "found" was the singular button under the pad is really 2 - its a rocker button set, press the left side and its the left button, right side is the right mouse, you can still tap the pad and drag but there is a left OR right button. Can't press both at once as it pivots in the middle. So the boring white square really has 2 scroll areas in the corners and a 2 way switch underneath. Back to the review now.
First off, the display is LED backlit - and its more than bright enough to read outside! My dell 17" 1920x1200 laptop display can't do that. I was so impressed by this point that I said "This one's a keeper" - ripped off the warantee sticker and read other's reviews of mods to get down to work.
Here's your upgrades summary for the wind based on your $ and what's laying around
0 - rating super-easy - the wind's SD cardslot is 8 times faster than other laptops. What took 8 minutes to read on a dell laptop and HP quad core desktop only took one minute to transfer on the Wind, probably because they interfaced the SD ram onto the motherboard differently. It's fast enough to cache windows software on it. Buy an 8-16 GB card, stuff swap space and your frequenly used software on it, and move windows files around to make it faster. Having a fast ramdisk can really speed up the OS with some practice.
Another super easy upgrade is optimizing your battery pack. Most U100's are 6 cell (5200 mAH @ 11.1V or 2 strings of 3 cells) - some are 3 cell units and just have less runtime. You can buy a different battery - I ordered a $78 9-cell 7200 mAH recently for my 2nd battery (Dell wanted $145 - sorry I just can't bring myself to that)
1 - rating EASY - add 1.0 GB by snapping a $10-$15 1GB 667 200 pin module into the convenient ram slot MSI left under the hood. Time: 15 minutes if you've opened a laptop up, 30 minutes if you've changed a watch battery. For 15 minutes and 15 dollars you just doubled your system's main memory.
2 - rating Moderate - you really don't need this as it comes b/g/n but the network can be upgraded to a combo a/b/g/n instead of the b/g/n card. If you have an 802.11a network then this is possible - do it while you're doing the ram upgrade. You don't really need to but the network is adaptable to 802.11a systems.
3 - rating - experienced - You can buy your wind U100 with a 120 or 160 GB drive from the factory - but if you want a 320, 360, or 400 GB drive you can get a 9.5 mm SATA drive and stretch the factory drive image onto the larger one. Use Norton Ghost to transfer the factory image to your new disk and pull the cables then swap out the SATA connector and screws.
When done you will have an optimized windows system for your use, with 2GB of ram, whatever network you need and hopefully 400 GB of disk. I optimized mine and it runs circles arond my old Dell now!
I've committed to the wind machine now as my old dell got about 1 hour on its largest battery. I'm getting 5-6 hours on the Wind. For the dell running it mobile was impossible and carrying the adapter was a necessity. I can walk out of the house with just the Wind U100 and not panick. (my dell power adapter became a deep cycle marine battery
Optima Blue Top D34M High-Power Deep-Cycle Battery (870CA) and a 1000 W inverter
Xantrex Technologies Prosine 1000 Prosine 1,000 to 1,500-Watt Power Inverter to provide AC power over 100 watts for the 17", 100 watt beast. The 6 cell battery pack on U100 runs it for almost 6 hours while the dell gets about 45 minutes on a heavy duty battery! I continued to be amazed about this little jewel.
Pros:
802.11 b/g/n! - and it's sensitivity is finding networks my intel board can not due to the plastic case instead of metal or metalized plastic cases.
BLUETOOTH - in a small sized unit like this I hardly expected factory bluetooth
FAST - the halfnium processor from intel is really holding up its deal for using no more than 4 watts of power - less than a night light and 25 times less than my dell system needs. This thing has the feel of a big heavy laptop without the twin fans and hotspots on the bottom. One observation - I thought that a dual 1.6 would be "slow" compared to a dual 2.8, but in reality there are other bottlenecks in performance than the processor speed. SELDOM does the processor get maxed out to 100%. By optimizing windows you can speed up the machine to more efficiently utilize the 1.6 ghz it came with, then people will think it's a 2.83 Ghz system!
Wide - the display has a modern widescreen 1024x600 format which I admit is a bit unusual but it is definitely widescreen and the 1024 lets you see a full webpage wide. Nitpick here - expect to scroll up and down a bit more than with a larger display - but side to side is fine at 1024 pixels wide. The scroll corners on the pad make this easy.
USB 2.0 x 3 ports - expansion here is no problem
SD card slot - another great feature, and it's running 8 times faster than the SD card slot on a brand new HP quad-core $2K desktop
Webcam - You can not tell me this tiny unit has a webcam, and a high resolution one at that? It does. It's a little dark until you adjust its settings. It's nice to have at times and built in. It also has an LED next to it to tell you its being used and you're on camera - great feature.
Built in microphone - someone thought about this. Most builtin mics sound awful because of fans and disk noise. The U100 has a tiny mic in the upper corner of the display. With the built in stereo speakers below the keyboard, there is enough separation between the mic and speakers to run skype on this and go out the 802.11 b/g/n link or USB cell modem.
RJ-45 - yep - got one of those in case you have a wired link and no wireless. Use windows to make a local access point out of your U100 for others!
mic/line interface (pink) and line / headphone (green) output plus VGA connector to link to a projector or a bigger display. Thats a pretty full compliment - not everyhing and doesnt have a digital output, but it will run projectors fine. Lots of aftermarket docking stations will help out if you find a need for parallel/serial/digital video, etc.
LED status indicators - A blue star indicates the unit is powered on and integrated into the power button which is fully configurable to be a suspend or hibernate button (or full off). There is a 2-key fn keystroke tied into the power control which is also definable, plus a sensor on the lid closing which at a minimum kills the leds if you don't want to disconnect. Down where the leds can be seen with the cover closed there is a blue led for bluetooth turned on, an LED for 802.11 on/off, snooze light, battery charging led, caps lock, num lock, scroll lock, and hard disk usage. I never expected so much indication in something so small and cheap.
Comment - neither a pro nor a con - there is NO LATCH on the lid. It has a spring to hold it shut and that works well for the purpose. A latch really isn't needed. The light weight is a great feature after carrying around a 10+ lb laptop to get a good display & graphics card.
Con - It's hard to find any cons but the trackpad is a tad small and not well documented nor integrated into the system driver. Some people complain its jumpy but I have not found that to be the case.
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