MSI Wind U230 officially announced
Sometime in the end of October, a new 12-inch netbook popped up on MSI’s product pages. The MSI Wind U230 ,which features an AMD Athlon Neo X2 dual-core processor and ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics card (woohoo!), disappeared after a couple of weeks only to return on the 27th of November with an offical announcement.
There’s only a vague idea of launch dates and prices, and we’ve heard the retail price in the UK (January launch) will be about 400 pounds – roughly the equivalent of $650. Hexus reviewed an “early engineering sample” and so you may see a few changes once it starts being mass-produced by MSI. An outline of the Hexus review:
The netbook is simple looking with trimmed lines and offers little in out-of-the-ordinary aesthetics. The build quality is quite solid, with no flex in the chassis or creaking of any sort. The 12.1″ screen has a larger 1366×768 resolution, making this more than comfortable for viewing 720p videos. The LED ensures that the screen remains bright. However, the glossy finishing means that any outdoor usage has you looking at an almost mirror-like surface, seriously impeding usage.
What’s impressive is that the Wind U230 is quite thin for a 12.1″ netbook and weighs the equivalent of a smaller 10.1″ netbook with its 3-cell battery. The keyboard is suitably large, and has only a slight amount of flex towards the centre. The trackpad is a different story altogether. Its buttons emit a really loud click when used, which is a real annoyance. The speakers are quite decent and are sufficient for casual listening.
Performance
MSI is trying to break out of the mold of generic netbooks with a much more powerful processor and graphics card to match. This combination whoops the Intel Atom N280 series, and the U230 is snappier and more responsive by far.Video playback is marginally better than lower-powered Intel netbooks. When you incorporate gaming however, the ATI graphics card really pushes the performance up by quite a few notches. Keep in mind that this is in lower resolutions (800×600) as the processor is unable keep up at full resolution. Bootup time is 55 seconds and the system shuts down in only 14. The effect of all this extra juice is that the battery life drops considerably with the 3-cell battery lasting about 2 hours and the 6-cell about 3.5 – 4 hours. But taking into account the price point, the Wind U230 seems to offer very decent performance. If you treat it as product incorporating the lower price of netbooks, with a few of the performance features of a notebook – it comes off looking pretty good.
MSI Wind 230 Specs
- Processor – 1.6GHz AMD Athlon X2 Neo L335
- Chipset – AMD RS780MN + SB710
- Graphics – ATI Radeon HD3200
- OS – Windows 7 Home Premium
- Memory – 2GB 667MHz (Max of 4GB)
- Storage – 320GB SATA HDD
- Display – 12.1 (1366 x 768)
- Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n, optional Bluetooth
- Ports – HDMI, 4-in-1 Card Reader, SD/MMC/MS/XD
- Battery – 3 cell/4 hours, 6 cell is available
- Weight – 2.86 with 3 cell battery
Filed under: MSI Netbook Review, Netbook
Wow, that is a serious netbook, although 4 hours of battery life? Come on!
@MSInetbookguy
That’s the 3-cell version that comes in with the netbook.
2 years ago 4 hours was pretty impressive!! Anyways you CAN upgrade to the 6-cell if you want more battery life. Of course, it’s gonna cost ya some mooooolah!