Intel Atom 1.6 GHz Processor 512 KB L2 Cache, 533 MHz Bus speed 6 Cell Battery 1.3 MP Web Camera Includes protective bag
Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Built-in 802.11b/g/n WLAN Card / Bluetooth Supported
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition
160 GB SATA Hard Drive, 1GB DDR2 667MHz RAM, 2 GB Max
This review is from: MSI Wind U100-279US 10-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) WhiteUPDATE to firmware 1.09 (ships w/ 1.06 if I recall) - on battery FN+F10 cuts processor speed in half and blue power LED turns green saving battery power for less intense applications. On AC with this firmware FN+F10 overclocks the uP by 8, 16, or 24 % (I would stop at 16% for stability) - the led glows a redish orange to alert you to the overclocked status. U100 will remain the performance leader in the family while the 115 will become the battery longevity leader. News Flash 01/01/2009 (Taiwan) MSI announces U115 and U120. U115 is a hybrid with 32GB SSD and 160 GB main disk. U120 is a power user system with larger main drive and built in 3G networking. Amazon is expected to carry them early january as they are ready to ship.Note: amazon suggests you buy a $22 case - this unit comes with a zipper pouch designed for it so you don't need to buy the case shown above separately. If you do buy the memory you will have to break the computer's warantee seal to install it, which I did and have no regrets. All the good details are below if you want to know more about this and what you can do with it.Comment 12/20/2008 I've been asked about the 9 cell battery - I uploaded a photo tonight of its side view against the 6 cell that comes with this notebook. It took 1 week to arrive by airmail from China. I ordered on a Saturday and it showed up the next Saturday in my mailbox. Click on "other photos" at the top of the page to see more info about the 9 cell 7200 mAh battery. It's a true 8 hour battery system now.I went into the U100 with pretty low expectations - I wanted a "disposable" laptop to take on a cruise that could handle my digital photos and videos but had to be small and light compared to my dell 17" desktop replacement. I was thinking of a 1.6 ghz cheapo laptop and had not had the best experiences in the past but this blew away my expectations. Update: at first the trackpad seemed to be missing scroll features and have just a single button. I did finally find the trackpad features on its boring white surface (I'm accustomed to drawings showing the scroll zones) - the two right hand corners (upper and lower) are scroll points and I was accustomed to scroll edges instead. The other feature I "found" was the singular button under the pad is really 2 - its a rocker button set, press the left side and its the left button, right side is the right mouse, you can still tap the pad and drag but there is a left OR right button. Can't press both at once as it pivots in the middle. So the boring white square really has 2 scroll areas in the corners and a 2 way switch underneath. Back to the review now.First off, the display is LED backlit - and its more than bright enough to read outside! My dell 17" 1920x1200 laptop display can't do that. I was so impressed by this point that I said "This one's a keeper" - ripped off the warantee sticker and read other's reviews of mods to get down to work.Here's your upgrades summary for the wind based on your $ and what's laying around0 - rating super-easy - the wind's SD cardslot is 8 times faster than other laptops. What took 8 minutes to read on a dell laptop and HP quad core desktop only took one minute to transfer on the Wind, probably because they interfaced the SD ram onto the motherboard differently. It's fast enough to cache windows software on it. Buy an 8-16 GB card, stuff swap space and your frequenly used software on it, and move windows files around to make it faster. Having a fast ramdisk can really speed up the OS with some practice.Another super easy upgrade is optimizing your battery pack. Most U100's are 6 cell (5200 mAH @ 11.1V or 2 strings of 3 cells) - some are 3 cell units and just have less runtime. You can buy a different battery - I ordered a $78 9-cell 7200 mAH recently for my 2nd battery (Dell wanted $145 - sorry I just can't bring myself to that)1 - rating EASY - add 1.0 GB by snapping a $10-$15 1GB 667 200 pin module into the convenient ram slot MSI left under the hood. Time: 15 minutes if you've opened a laptop up, 30 minutes if you've changed a watch battery. For 15 minutes and 15 dollars you just doubled your system's main memory.2 - rating Moderate - you really don't need this as it comes b/g/n but the network can be upgraded to a combo a/b/g/n instead of the b/g/n card. If you have an 802.11a network then this is possible - do it while you're doing the ram upgrade. You don't really need to but the network is adaptable to 802.11a systems.3 - rating - experienced - You can buy your wind U100 with a 120 or 160 GB drive from the factory - but if you want a 320, 360, or 400 GB drive you can get a 9.5 mm SATA drive and stretch the factory drive image onto the larger one. Use Norton Ghost to transfer the factory image to your new disk and pull the cables then swap out the SATA connector and screws.When done you will have an optimized windows system for your use, with 2GB of ram, whatever network you need and hopefully 400 GB of disk. I optimized mine and it runs circles arond my old Dell now!I've committed to the wind machine now as my old dell got about 1 hour on its largest battery. I'm getting 5-6 hours on the Wind. For the dell running it mobile was impossible and carrying the adapter was a necessity. I can walk out of the house with just the Wind U100 and not panick. (my dell power adapter became a deep cycle marine battery Optima Blue Top D34M High-Power Deep-Cycle Battery (870CA) and a 1000 W inverter Xantrex Technologies Prosine 10...
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