MSI Wind U135 Review: Low Cost, Average, Short Battery Life
The first impression on the new Pine Trail netbooks is that they last longer (as much as 25% longer) than netbooks running with an Intel Atom processor. So the general expectation when it comes to the new MSI Wind U135 with the Intel Atom N450 is that it can leave all the other netbooks in its dust when it comes to battery life.
The MSI U110 Eco with a 9-cell battery can run for 15 hours, more or less. The MSI Wind U123 with a 9-cell batt can run for as long as 8 hours.
Does the MSI Wind U135 live up to the MSI Wind netbooks’ reputation as a long-running machine?
Rating: 
Features and Drawbacks
- Comfortable Keyboard – It has an island-style keyboard and a single mouse bar. The keyboard looks like the one that comes with the Asus Eee PC 1005PE-P and is very comfortable to type on, with a decent-sized mousepad. It only has a single bar rather than the separate buttons. Also, no support for multi-touch.
- Bright Screen Made for Excellent Viewing and Speakers are Strong – The 10″, 1024 x 600 resolution screen provides bright colors and the speakers can provide loud, strong sounds. Of course don’t expect the sound quality to be as good when you’re using a real speaker, but for a netbook, it’s… loud.
- A Little Better-than-the-Average-Netbook Performance – There’s nothing spectacular about the speed, and, in fact, it’s a little slower booting Windows 7 than an average netbook, and when it comes to copying files. Even the chipset was average. Which only means you can do ordinary netbook tasks, but don’t expect to play games and perform heavy-duty, intense tasks. You can pretty much do everything you can do on an ordinary netbook on the MSI Wind U135 with no problems, web, documents, videos, and such though.
- Extra Parental Control for the Kids – It comes with Kido’z, a kid-friendly web browser with a colorful interface and leads kids to web sites with child-friendly content such as Dora the Explorer and Hannah Montana. Parents have a lot of control as to what their kids can surf.
- What The Heck is Wrong with the Battery? – Speaks for itself. MSI Wind netbooks are known to be able to run a long, long time on a single charge. While it can run for 5 and a half hours on a single charge on a 6-cell battery, it’s a little… okay so a lot… less than the average netbook’s run time. So that’s a disappointment considering battery life is very important.
Rating – 5.5/7
Value for Money – 1
Speed and Performance – 0.5
Screen – 1
Keyboard – 1
Portability & Battery Life – 0.5
Looks and Design – 1
Extensibility & connectivity – 0.5
Technical Specifications
- 1.66-GHz Intel Atom N450
- 1GB, RAM Upgradable to 2GB
- 250GB HD SATA Hard Drive 5,400rpm
- 10″ 1024×600 Resolution
- Intel GMA 3150
- Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
- Microsoft Windows 7 Starter
- Microphone; Ethernet; VGA; Headphone; Microphone; VGA
- 3x USB, 4-1 card reader
- Size: 10.2 x 7.0 x 1.5 inches
- Weight: 2.8 pounds
Bottom Line
The MSI Wind U135 is a-ok as a netbook with its good and bad sides. It’s priced at $329 and is one of the cheaper Atom N450 netbooks, and it will perform as well as the rest of them. However, the poor battery performance is a huge drawback, so you might also want to shop around for a better performer, battery-wise and just shell out the extra dollars. Aside from that, the MSI Wind U135 is a good bet. We’ll update the page as soon as it becomes available.
LaptopMag and Engadget have been the first ones to put out their reviews of the MSI Wind U135. Head on over for more information and other insights in the MSI Wind U135.
EDIT: The MSI Wind U135 Product Page has now gone live.
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