Customer Reviews

MSI U230 Light-087 11.6-Inch Netbook (Black)

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

 

 

Searching for the second, slower home laptop, I didn't really want a netbook because I had a problem with small screens and small keyboards, so I was considering tablets for a while. Having had an iPad in the past, I'd rather wait for the second generation. The Android or Palm OS tablets are not yet serious contenders, thus I finally focused more on laptops and netbooks due to their versatility. After browsing several stores and reviews, I found an opportunity I couldn't pass: the 11.6'" MSI U230-870 Light netbook on sale for $300 at my favorite local electronics superstore. This thing is packed with good deals - quality 250 GB HDD, a HDMI port, 11.6" anti-reflective LED backlit screen, one 2 GB RAM chip (add another chip to upgrade to 4 GB), 3 USB ports, etc.

We have been running this netbook mostly connected to power and it has been performing great. However, we gradually discovered that the online videos of higher resolution were terribly choppy whenever this netbook was not on AC power. One of Windows 7 gadgets, "All Cpu Meter" by Addgadget.com showed that the CPU was constantly running at 800 MHz on battery, which is one half of its rated speed of 1.6 GHz. No matter what I tried and which power plan or lack thereof I chose, I wasn't able to increase the CPU clock without plugging the laptop into the power grid. It seems that the manufacturer has halved this system's CPU clock when not connected to the power supply to get seemingly better battery life. I was able to find a workaround by going into BIOS (pres Del key during bootup) and disabling "PowerNow", but after that the clock remains at 1.6 GHz all the time, so I expect the battery life to suffer a lot. The speed change as necessary for optimum performance should be happening automatically on balanced power plan, while constantly running on highest speed should be happening only on maximum performance plan as is usually the case with other laptops. Perhaps a BIOS firmware upgrade will fix this, so hear me out, MSI. Netbooks are not speed kings, and so it's a shame that the manufacturer furthermore halved its performance in order to "cheat" on battery life without giving end user an easy choice between either the full CPU speed or longer battery life. There's a lot of information about this and similar MSI netbooks in various netbook forums and some people have underclocked them for longer battery life, while others have overclocked the CPU even up to 2 GHz and above for better performance.

Pros:
- Anti-reflective screen, a rare find in consumer notebooks, usually $50-100 extra
- Big 11.6"' LED backlit screen with 1366 x 768 resolution
- 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium (unlike slow Vista, Windows 7 does great on Netbooks)
- 2 GB RAM with additional empty slot for memory upgrade (I upgraded it to 4 GB)
- 1.3 Megapixel webcam
- b/g/n WiFi
- CPU faster than ATOM
- Good graphics chip
- Many ports: 3 USB, 1 HDMI, multi card-reader (SD/MMc/MS/XDSU)
- Same power supply as on my Toshiba Portege laptop (even better, w/ LED indicator and angular plug)
- Speakers louder than expected for such a small machine
- Quality 250 GB 2.5" 5400 rpm WD HDD (can be easily upgraded to faster or bigger capacity hard drive)
Western Digital 250 GB 5400rpm SATA2 8MB 2.5-Inch Notebook Hard Drive WD2500BEVT (Scorpio Blue)

Cons:
- CPU speed halved on battery power
- A bit tight keyboard takes time to get used to if you're a touch typist.
- no 802.11a (5 GHz band) WiFi capability
- Yesteryear CPU (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40), but still faster than Atom
- Hot bottom left side after prolonged use
- The fan can be heard, but it's not too loud

Summary: Although advertised as a notebook, this is a netbook due to its single core netbook class processor. However, it can be a laptop surrogate or a great nettop, due to its solid performance on AC power (the Athlon Neo is quite faster than Atom). Yes, it's not a speed king, but that's why it was so affordable. It is more than sufficient for web browsing and email or text processing, youtube videos and netflix movies (low resolution on battery power and HD on AC). It only lacks one p for perfection - the HDMI goes up to 1080i, but it's still an impressive feature for a netbook. When I saw the anti-glare screen on this netbook I had to buy it because these are very hard to find and I have a big problem with most consumer laptops, netbooks, smartphones and iPads having highly reflective screens. Unlike those daylight challenged devices, this one can be used outside or in a bright office. Considering the price I paid for it ($300), it was an amazing deal.

The MSI U230 Light is a netbook and therefore not designed to compete with a desktop...but this one does surprisingly well. I got one to take on the road and I am pleasantly surprised. Got $59 off, and it comes with Windows 7 Home premium, has a decent keyboard, AND an HDMI connector AND an n series wireless modem. I have added a 2GB SD card and a cheap wireless mouse and it makes for a decent portable box...much better than the Blackberry! I get over three hours of battery life with a six cell pack and it doesn't weigh me down!
For the price and the features and the weight, I give it four stars. I would give it five but it is a little slow for me.

First, this is a NETbook, not a notebook. With that caveat, it's a great buy.
Three things attracted me: the 11.6" display is a little larger than most netbooks, it came stock with 2Gb of RAM instead of 1, and the supplied OS is Win7 Home Premium (64-bit!) instead of Win7 Starter. It's faster than I expected in a netbook, and seems to manage MS Word and Outlook 2007 just fine, though the latter can be a little sluggish.
The keyboard is nice, but I wish the labels were a brighter color: grey is a little hard to see in low light. The Synaptics track pad works great. The screen is bright and clear and I like the matte finish, but it doesn't tilt back quite far enough when it's on my lap.
YouTube videos can be a little choppy (it varies from clip to clip), but Netflix streaming is great. A reviewer above noted that the MSI performs video better when plugged in than on battery. This seems to be true, though I haven't tried his (her?) BIOS fix.
Battery life seems average. I haven't tried any benchmark tests, but it doesn't seem outstanding.
Overall, a great netbook with a slightly larger screen, more RAM, and a better operating system. The limited screen tilt (minor) and the battery keep it from 5 stars. I'm curious why it came with a 64-bit OS instead of 32.

I bought this computer about 6 months ago, and I have not been happy with it for one single day. I am having such a terrible time with how slow it is today, that I thought if I could save one person from buying this computer, then I would have possibly rectified my mistake.

I cannot use this computer without plugging in the power cord. It is simply just too slow to do anything unless plugged in. I effectively bought a desktop because of how unportable it is. My cell phone is 10x faster for looking up anything, and I never use this computer unless I absolutely have to.

Do yourself a favor, and buy anything else.

Everything seems ok. It doesn't come with bluetooth but has a bluetooth option. It also comes with a sim slot but no 3G options. Web Browsing seems slow. Youtube videos was loading up pretty slow.