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MSI Wind U115  (Source: MSI)
MSI pulls the wraps off the successor to the fantastic MSI Win U100 netbook

One of the most popular netbooks comes from MSI and is called the Wind. MSI's Wind was one of the first netbooks to move to the larger 10-inch screen size and use a keyboard with larger keys and a layout similar to the typical notebook.

The Wind has proven to be popular with many netbook fans and in October of 2008 MSI announced that it had the successor to the Wind U100 netbook in the works. MSI has now made the specifications for the U100's new sibling public. The MSI Wind U115 is the world's first hybrid storage notebook. The machine uses an SSD for the OS to get the benefits of fast booting and data access with an internal HDD to provide more storage space for documents, music, and other data.

The U115 uses what MSI calls ECO mode to provide increased battery life. A 10-inch LCD is shared in common with the U100 Wind and the resolution is 1024x600. LED backlighting is used on the U115 to improve color and battery life.

Inside the U115 hides an Intel Atom Z530 running at 1.6GHz and the netbook runs Windows XP Home. The chipset is the Intel Poulsbo US15W and the machine ships with 1GB of DDR2 533MHz, but can support 2GB of RAM.

Two models will be offered that only differ in storage capacity. The lower-end model has an 8GB SSD and a 120GB HDD while the high-end model has a 16GB SSD and a 160GB HDD. The stock battery is a 3-cell unit with a 6-cell option. Wi-Fi offerings include 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth is optional. The stock webcam is a 1.3-megapixel unit with a 2-megapixel option.

Overall dimensions of the U115 are 260mm x 180mm x 19-31.5mm and the machine weighs about 1Kg with the 3-cell battery installed. MSI will also offer an optional external DVD burner.

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fail
By Bubbacub on 12/30/2008 12:00:50 PM , Rating: 3
if they are going to add features to a netbook then they need to add 720p support before having 2 hard disks! in fact a better IGP is more of a priority (for me).
seriously what is the point in having 2 power hungry devices in a 3 cell powered netbook - it seems to defeat the purpose of a lightweight functional netbook for very little advantage

the main thing preventing a lot of people form using netbooks as their main machine is not a lack of hard disk options but the screen resolution and poor choice of chipset.




RE: fail
By icrf on 12/30/2008 12:05:36 PM , Rating: 2
"The chipset is the Intel Poulsbo US15W"

That's the chipset that Intel designed to ship with Atom, and IIRC, it supports H.264 decoding. The IGP is perfectly fine in that regard, only the screen resolution is lacking for 720p. What else do you plan on doing on a netbook that this IGP won't support?


RE: fail
By Bubbacub on 12/30/2008 12:06:21 PM , Rating: 2
bah - thought it was the 945


RE: fail
By icrf on 12/30/2008 12:10:52 PM , Rating: 2
I'm with you there, I think this is only about the second netbook to offer something other than the 945. Is Poulsbo really that much more expensive?

I guess every little bit of power savings drives the price up just a little bit more. Which market is any given netbook trying to hit? The bottom dollar one or the max mobility one? The two have some overlap, but it's by no means complete.


RE: fail
By Lord 666 on 12/30/2008 1:04:37 PM , Rating: 2
Wait until MSI releases the ION based Winds... but wish they released pricing.


RE: fail
By Bateluer on 12/30/2008 1:14:14 PM , Rating: 2
Do you have any relevant links with proposed specs on such Winds? I'd definitely be interested in an Ion based Wind.


RE: fail
By Omega215D on 12/30/2008 2:30:33 PM , Rating: 4
MSI's Ionic Breeze! =P


RE: fail
By Bubbacub on 12/30/2008 12:07:34 PM , Rating: 3
though an ion based netbook with a 720p screen and a 6 cell battery is what i'm waiting for!


RE: fail
By icrf on 12/30/2008 12:14:57 PM , Rating: 2
I'm with you on the display, but I think I'd rather have the battery life of Poulsbo than the performance of 9400M. Give me a 10" 1280x800 display on something with Poulsbo and a 6+ hour battery and I'm all over it.


RE: fail
By therealnickdanger on 12/30/2008 2:14:09 PM , Rating: 2
You could always wait another year and presumably get both! Assuming technology keeps advancing as it always has... After all, NVIDIA's new Windows Mobile phone is releasing this year, 720p screen, HDMI output, and all.


RE: fail
By FITCamaro on 12/31/2008 10:04:24 AM , Rating: 2
Info?


RE: fail
By whiskerwill on 12/31/2008 12:02:07 AM , Rating: 2
I'm with you all the way on this. Netbooks are all about battery life and portability, not being some kind of gaming platform.


RE: fail
By Suntan on 12/30/2008 1:00:42 PM , Rating: 2
Meh,

I have an EEEPc with 945 chipset and it lasted through a DVD and two 1-hour HD TV episodes (1080i MPEG) on a single charge with a good 45 minutes left over (6 cell).

May not be uber-powerful, but it made the holidays with the inlaws bearable.

-Suntan


RE: fail
By omnicronx on 12/30/2008 1:10:56 PM , Rating: 2
I disagree, most people are buying these laptops for day to day use, not as an HTPC. The hard drive space is limiting what users can do.

quote:
the main thing preventing a lot of people form using netbooks as their main machine is not a lack of hard disk options but the screen resolution and poor choice of chipset.
Obviously you have no grasp on what the netbook market is.. Its not suppose to have the same resolution as a laptop, and a higher performance graphics card, that would make it a laptop with a smaller screen, not a netbook. I am personally going to buy one because of its low power usage, and portability, I could care less if it can display 720p.


RE: fail
By Bubbacub on 12/30/2008 1:44:30 PM , Rating: 2
manufacturers have no idea what the netbook market is - none of them predicted how popular it would be. i wouldn't be so quick to be patronising without thinking about uses for systems outside of what marketing committees want consumers to do.

i dont want to use a netbook as intel would like me to (i.e. as second machine). i have no need for a core 2 duo. all of my cpu needs are met by an atom type design - i suspect a lot of other users have the same requirements and i think that its this group of users that have driven the huge demand for 10 inch netbooks. what i want is the equivalent of a 2000 pound thin and light laptop for a third of the price and a properly specced atom system can provide this.

ps. hard disk space is nice - but do you need more than 160gb (the hd in the samsung nc10 - probably the best netbook out at the moment). i don't really need more than 30-40 gigs in a a netbook


RE: fail
By Suntan on 12/30/2008 6:40:43 PM , Rating: 2
I pretty much agree. I want a powerful computer with a big screen for photoshop work and a laptop for portability.

Prior to netbooks, I had to settle with a 17" laptop as a compromise between the two. Now, for pretty much the same money I can have a 24" monitor w/ desktop computer and a small, little portable netbook for travel and surfing while sitting on the couch.

As for netbook disk space, once you put a copy of your Ipod on it, a couple of DVDs for travel etc. etc. it does start to fill up quickly. I wouldn't have gotten one with less than 120gig and 160gig seems to be a nice sweet spot.

-Suntan


RE: fail
By Veerappan on 12/31/2008 2:04:10 PM , Rating: 2
Point of having both SSD and mechanical HD:

Keep the OS and swap on the SSD which only takes a max of 1-2 Watts when operating, and has a very, very low idle power draw. This allows you to spin down the primary storage drive when it's not needed. If all you're doing is surfing the web, and all relevent files (cache/user profile) are on the SSD, the mechanical storage can be powered off, which will increase battery life.

Also, by throwing a mechanical drive in the machine, you can get by with a much smaller SSD, which should decrease the cost of the machine enough that the mechanical hard drive should not (or at least not substantially) increase the cost of the machine over a 32+GB SSD model.

Better battery life + More storage at the same (or similar) cost = Happy.

I'm with you on the resolution issue (I won't buy anything with less than 800 pixels of vertical resolution, although I guess I might consider something that handles 720p), and the Poulsbo thing has already been covered elsewhere in this discussion.


Why
By superunknown98 on 12/30/2008 11:54:00 AM , Rating: 2
bother to use the Atom Z530 when the Atom 230 or DC 330 is much less expensive? Seems it's only good point is the 2W power rating.




RE: Why
By icrf on 12/30/2008 12:07:19 PM , Rating: 2
That's exactly why it's used. Netbooks are about low power consumption and long battery life. Going from 2.4W to 2.0W is a good percentage drop for the CPU, without giving up anything but cost. Granted, it's by no means the biggest draw in the system, but every little bit helps. Besides, how much pricier is it?


RE: Why
By tmarques on 12/30/2008 12:17:02 PM , Rating: 2
The problem is intel won't let OEMs build stuff with the 230 and 330. It's the N270 or the Z series, which are the most castrated CPUs of the lot.


RE: Why
By tmarques on 12/30/2008 12:22:25 PM , Rating: 2
Netbook stuff, I mean. Also, the limitations imposed on desktop boards with the 230 and 330 are also harsh, like no PCI-e slots or more than onde DIMM slot.


RE: Why
By strikeback03 on 12/30/2008 1:06:17 PM , Rating: 2
What do they plan on building with them then? If not a netbook and not a desktop...

And what stops an OEM from just buying processors at retail and putting them in a system?


RE: Why
By Bateluer on 12/30/2008 1:58:46 PM , Rating: 2
An OEM could buy chips at retail and use them in a netbook, provided the chips were offered at retail, I do not think the Atom is. The catch is two fold. First, they'd have to pay the retail markup cost instead of the wholesale price they'd normally get. Since they need to mark up the price on the final product to compensate, this would raise the price on the unit's total cost. Second, This would likely anger Intel, who would retaliate by not offering discounts and other lucrative deals in the future. Intel has followed these tactics for years.


RE: Why
By superunknown98 on 12/30/2008 2:20:59 PM , Rating: 2
Ah sorry, according to Wikipedia:

230 ---- $29
N270 ---- $44
330 ---- $43
Z530 ---- $70

I don't know how accurate the pricing is but I will glady take the DC 330 over any of the others. I currently own an Aspire one, and while it is not slow there are times I wish it was faster.


Fail?
By therealnickdanger on 12/30/2008 11:57:37 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
The machine uses an SSD for the OS to get the benefits of fast booting and data access

Hopefully MSI is careful in selecting SSDs with controllers that don't suck. I use the term "SSD" lightly when describing netbooks - it's usually just a SD card connected as an ExpressCard device. These "SSDs" are usually slower than 5400RPM HDDs, so I can't imagine there being a real benefit to this other than seek time. Apps might load faster, and there is some benefit to keeping apps on one drive and files on another...

I would rather just wait for SSD prices (real SSDs like the X25-M) to come down and use one of those by itself. I don't think this hybrid system will do much. I have a Wind with a 5400RPM 120GB HDD and it is plenty quick for what it is.




RE: Fail?
By jonmcc33 on 12/30/2008 2:06:25 PM , Rating: 2
Not to mention that people only know how to save to the C: drive or their Documents folder and Desktop. Nobody knows to save to other drive locations. Rather pointless of MSI from my experience with the "average user".


RE: Fail?
By Doormat on 12/30/2008 2:39:35 PM , Rating: 2
Replace it with an aftermarket SSD. I have a Dell Mini9 and I put a Runcore SSD in and I get about 73/66 read (rand./seq.) and 25/21 write (rand./seq) with 256K blocks. The only thing that is slow is the smaller block size random writes.


RE: Fail?
By therealnickdanger on 12/30/2008 4:12:43 PM , Rating: 2
Well that's my point, I would like to take my Wind and toss in a wicked fast SSD, but they aren't cheap enough yet. When I can get X25-M size/performance for under $100, I'll upgrade. :D


Chip makers don't know what to make of Netbooks
By Bateluer on 12/30/2008 2:02:42 PM , Rating: 2
They sell like hot cakes, they're very popular across a variety of market segments. But, their low cost means a very thin profit margin. Intel would rather the customer buy what Intel says they want instead of the customer buying what they want. People want the Atom, the Ion platform, more RAM, storage space, etc, and they want it at a the same sub 400 dollar price point.

Intel and Microsoft don't know what to make of the netbook because they cannot sell their high profit products on them.




RE: Chip makers don't know what to make of Netbooks
By Spectator on 12/30/2008 2:51:07 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with you. no scope for selling meore expensive stuff.

The only small possitive is that all those computer virgins in the nursing homes that find the Wii fun. may;perhaps; eventually? chukkle. get into a cheap netbook before they get put down. :)


By Suntan on 12/31/2008 1:31:22 PM , Rating: 2
Chuckles on you... as even your best option ends up landing you right there in the same nursing home, with a little bit of drool sliding out and absolutly no comprehension of what those young folk are talking about... eventually.

-Suntan


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