MSI U210-008US 12.1-Inch Black Netbook - 5 Hour Battery Life

by MSI

• Athlon Neo MV-40 1.6 GHz Chipset AMD RS690 + SB600
• 2GB 200-Pin DDR SO-DIMM RAM
• 250GB SATA Hard Drive, WLAN 802.11b/g/n, 1 x HDMI Port
• Windows Vista Home Premium, Battery 6 cells (5200mAh) 5 hours (depending on usage and configuration)
• LCD Type 12.1" HD WXGA 16:9, LCD Resolution 1366x768, VGA, AMD Radeon X1250

Product Description

MSI U210-008US 12.1' Netbook (AMD Neo MV-40 1.6Ghz, 250 GB Hard Drive, 2 GB RAM, HDMI Out, 802.11 b/g/n, 1.3 MP Webcam, 5 hours)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Supurb product at a great price September 27, 2009

By A. Greer

Color Name:Black|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great small notebook/netbook January 2, 2010

By MJB

Color Name:White|Amazon Verified Purchase

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 more ›

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars What I needed! December 27, 2009

By N. Allen

Color Name:White|Amazon Verified Purchase

This net book was purchased to alleviate the issues I had with my Mac Book Pro. Namely size and portability. This machine manages to satiate all of my needs. Light weight, long battery, low heat, while maintaining power and function.

My only qualms are the feel of the keyboard and the actual HD abilities of this machine.

I can just palm a basketball so my hands are closer to large than small, but I manage to type without much issue. Though, I do notice the the keyboard tends to feel a bit cheap, specifically on the right hand side (J through " area). It sort of sags in, feels soft. My other problem is the HD playback. It can playback dvd quality video no problem, but it will not play a 720 quality video without some skipping. Audio stays in sync, but it appears to skip some frames during playback. I tried a few different files and through the HDMI out, but always lagged. Non the less, not really an issue.

Poor HD playback is the only reason I didn't give a 5. Excellent NON HD media net book.

Pros:
lightweight
cool
long battery, not quite 5hrs though
solid performance
hard drive space

Cons:
Saggy keyboard
Poor HD playback

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Read reviews before buying!! October 12, 2009

By Couvahigh

Color Name:Black|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.