12″ MSI Wind U210 – worth it?
MSI finally entered the 12″ netbook market with its 11.6″ Wind U210 netbook which began to show up on online sites last week. The white MSI Wind U210 is available at $460 from Amazon, but it might he worth waiting for the better looking and cheaper black Wind U210 to come out at (over the next few weeks maybe?). The latter will cost thirty dollars cheaper at $430.
MSI Wind U210 says goodbye to Intel
If you take a look at the specs below, you’ll see this netbook looks like any other ol’ netbook on the outside, but says goodbye to conventions on the inside. It packs an Athlon NEO MV-40 processor, a line of chips they produced specifically for netbooks and ultra thing computing. This particular processor runs at 1.6GHz (same as Intel’s Atom N270) and is supposed to deliver solid performance.
The Msi Wind U120 also packs in an AMD rs6900 chipset with a Radeon X1250 integrated graphics card. You’ll be happy to hear the graphics card supports RGB, DVI and HDMI output – which means it supports HD playback.
Well, should you get it?
The MSI Wind U210 also comes with 2GB RAM and a 250GB HDD – slightly better than the average netbooks. I’m suprised MSI didn’t wait another month and release the netbook with Windows 7. I guess that might have added a couple of bucks to the already border-line-not-cheap netbook. The MSI Wind U210 also promises a battery life of 5 hours.
I feel like it’s my moral duty as a netbook blogger to inform you that 5 hours of battery life is NOT impressive. Doesn’t matter that the U210 is a 12″ netbook. Asus achieved 11 hours of battery with its 11.6″ Asus 1101 netbook. On the other other hand, the MSI Wind does a pack a lot more meat into the U210, the RAM and storage capacity are far higher than the Asus 1101 and it’s processor is a lot stronger at 1.6GHz (Asus 1101 has a 1.3GHz Atom).
Bottomline – MSI Wind U120 is a good buy
If super extended battery life isn’t a priority for you, I recommend the U210 for the strong overall package. Go MSI! :) As mentioned earlier, the white MSI Wind U210 is available for a slightly-hefty $460, and the black Wind U210 will be selling at $430 when it finally gets released (available for pre-order now).
MSI Wind U120 Tech Specs
Processor – Athlon Neo MV-40 1.6 GHz Processor Chipset – AMD RS690 + SB600 OS – Windows Vista Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 250GB HDD Display – 1366 x 768 (16:9) Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n Ports – 3 x USB 2.0, HDMI Dimensions – 7.4 x 11.69 x 1.2 Battery – 6 cell, 5 hours Weight – 3.2 lbs Colors – white and black
Related posts:
- MSI Wind U210 Up for Pre-order from Amazon
- MSI Wind12 U210 Now Available on Amazon
- MSI Wind Netbooks – MSI Wind U100, U120 10″ Netbook
- MSI Wind U100 vs. MSI Wind U100 Plus
- MSI Wind U150 Confirmed, Touchscreen, Intel Pine Trail Atom
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[...] MSI Wind U210 – Comes with Athlon Neo MV40 processor & Radeon x1250 graphics chip – great performance for a 12″ netbook, good specs too $430 – $460, read our review [...]