MSI Wind U100-279US 10" Netbook Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB, 160GB HDD, 6 Cell Battery, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, Webcam, Windows XP Home Edition (White)

I will preface this review by saying, I threw XP off this machine the instant it came in the house. The MSI Wind U100 makes a great Mac OSX machine, which is the basis for this review. There's a lot of help out there if you choose to install a non-Microsoft OS on it, which I strongly recommend. Under OSX, this thing is fast (almost as fast as an early MacBook Pro in some situations), just about everything works, the battery lasts well, and it's a great size. Get one of these, put a real OS on it, and have fun.
 
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I was skeptical after purchasing this netbook cause my friend who is our IT consultant, suggested that I return it for another brand. However, after he starts running and playing around with the computer, he actually was impressed by the speed and all the features that came with it for the price. This is the second netbook I've tried, I did return the Gateway 8.9in which I paid over $100 more without the bluetooth. My daughter who has a Macbook wants to steal this one from me. No way, this one is for ME!!
 
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I bought this computer based on features -- the 6-cell battery, large hard disk and "N" wireless connectivity. I was not disappointed. A good keyboard, good performance and, so far, exceptional battery life. No optical drive is not an issue, as it is easy to map a DVD drive from another computer to use for loading software, etc. Computer is well made and well-finished. Documentation is meager and available on a CD that comes with the computer. Strangely, IE7 was not installed, IE6 was. That is an easy update from Microsoft. I'm happy with my purchase!
 
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I bought the Wind to have a computer that would easily go with me when I work away from home. The Wind works perfectly for that purpose. Not having a cd drive took some getting used to but I have downloaded Open Office instead of MS Office. It wasn't loading pages from my wireless system at home but I went to the Wind Users' forum and got a fix from another user. http://forums.msiwind.net/. There is also a users manual online at http://msiwind.net/msi-wind-user-manual/. All in all--a good purchase.
 
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I've got lots of laptops, but I am physically challenged and I would be in a great deal of pain just carrying the things. This machine doesn't hurt! Boots quickly, works fine with my cooperate e-mails. The internet is a blast ... very responsive. I've loaded Office-2003 Professional and it functions better here than on my home desktop or other laptops ... no hand-up. battery life is approx 5hrs with screen brightness turned down a bit. Speakers sucks! but I don't use that feature at work ... sounds great in my stereo headphone.It is a little bottom heavy and tip if not on a balanced surface, but stays put on my Buddha belly and it runs cool.
 
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Overall very happy with the product. It's light as I expected and the keyboard is just right for me but a little too small for my husband. The screen is very comfortable and not awkwardly small. Internet works perfectly and overall performance is comparable to my fullsize laptop, although I did not give it a full try to run heavy programs. I haven't tried the webcam and microphone, nor the bluetooth, so couldn't comment on that. I mainly use Ubuntu, and everything seems to work right, except when I tried to connect this computer with my big screen. Whenever I switch screen, I will need to shut down the computer and reboot. What I don't like is the shape of this six cell battery. When I hold it on my lap sitting in the bed, it's so easy to tilt over. I also wish the function key were not located at the lower bottom. I often mis-hit it when I tried to hit the ctrl key. It also took me a while to figure out the switch to receive wireless connection is to hold the function key and F11 together until the wireless symbol light up at the bottom right of the computer. But compared to the netbooks that my colleagues have, this computer definitely function better, in the sense that it has a bigger keyboard, screen, and longer batter life, and at the meantime being convenient. My husband is a pure Lunix user and he loves it.
 
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Owned for over a month. I love it. Not the best battery life and slightly unbalanced but overall I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a good netbook with no bloatware. I am running OSX and Xp on this baby!
 
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After looking at the whole host of netbooks available, I chose this version of the MSI Wind. Influencing my decision were: 1) MSI allows for BIOS-level overclocking in the latest BIOS version--HUGE for me given that I wanted to be able to run graphics and Processor intensive Apps like SecondLife, plus the on-battery processor de-clocking to extend battery life is a huge plus. 2) The almost full-size keyboard (in spite of the funky Fn/Ctrl button flip) is almost effortless to transition to if you're used to typing on a laptop unlike the mini-keys of the EEEPC and the other 8.9" decks. 3) Aesthetically, it looks a bit like an older Apple product--I know some have said they don't think it looks "corporate" or "professional" enough, but I like the rounded white carapace. I would recommend the unit--the screen is bright and sharp, AVI files and other video products play quickly and well.
 
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I bought this for my wife. She wanted something portable for around the house- to check email, chat, skype, and do finances on instead of being tied to a terrible slow desktop computer. I figured out that I can share the D: on the desktop with the WInd over the network to install any programs that she wanted on her WIND (like Quicken, etc). So there really is no need for a CD drive other than a couple of installs. Everything else she does with a jump drive that I purchased with it.
 
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pros: - great battery life - bright crisp power saving LED display - easily upgradable - best value for what full featured netbook Cons: - keyboard and mouse button feel very clumsy and cheap (the left side of the mouse button is sagging a bit already) - the power plugs is on the side and not the back of the netbook - the bluetooth and wireless Fn key is tricky to use Bottom line: If you are in the market to get a netbook and want the best bang for your buck, this netbook is the one for you!
 
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This netbook is pretty sweet so far. No complaints yet. I got it during the $50 MSI rebate and $25 paypal discount deal, so if my MSI rebate actually comes, I'll be very happy. Wireless is good, battery life seems good, general web surfing is pretty fast. Havent played any games or done anything that was processor intensive, but for a general netbook for surfin the net, this is great.
 
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I could not be happier with this machine. I immediately installed OSX on it, which was a piece of cake. There is a very helpful community for msi wind owners at msiwind dot net. I purchased this machine because I am a student and I became tired of lugging around my 17" Dell. I was skeptical about the size of this machine, but I quickly got used to it. The keyboard is great. Of course the screen is small, but with the desktop management features of OSX, I hardly notice. (Expose / Spaces) I don't miss windows one bit. I use this machine to compose papers, to watch lectures (for online courses), etc. The weight can't be beat. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
 
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I'll say right up front, I can't stand Windows, and the only POSSIBLE negative thing I could say about the U100 Wind is that it's not available with Linux. Other than that, great marks across the board for this machine. Within an hour of getting it out of the box, it had Mac OSX installed on it, perfectly happily. It's noticeably faster than a G4 iBook and almost as fast as a 2Ghz MacBook, and with a bigger drive. A truly amazing machine, if you want to turn it into your own "MacBook nano" just have a look at msiwind.net for help and advice.
 
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Did a lot of research before purchase and this was the best for me. I had never owned a laptop and often saw travelers with them but they seemed unwieldy, particularly in the cramped seats of economy class. The netbook seemed to fill the bill. The MSI N100 seemed to have all the right boxes checked. A six cell battery that gives 5 hrs use, a 180 gig hard drive and a gig of RAM and bluetooth to boot. I have already purchased a bluetooth mouse from Microsoft that links easiy and quickly. I also purchased a dvd drive for $44 on E-bay that works flawlessly so I have the option to load programs and even watch movies. Another deciding factor was the 10" screen and a keyboard that is usable by a touch typist like me. It is a bit smaller than standard but substantially larger than those found on other netbooks. Honestly, this thing does everything my desktop does except state of the art games. And believe, it or not, as an experiment I had loaded World of Warcraft III and Fallout Two and they play fine. In addition, I think I have about 27 gig on my Itunes and I could easily transfer my music onto the 180 gig hard drive. The item feels solid and, so far, no problems. Delivery was rapid from Buy.com (arrived well before Xmas) and the $50 rebate (I think it's expired now) from MSI wind kept the price below $400. Another great thing about these netbooks is that you can throw them into just about any bag you carry around with you and there will still be plenty of room for other junk. And with the long battery life. there's no need to carry a charger if you're returning home at the end of the day. My only complaint is with the built in speakers. Even turned up to maximum some video (such as on YouTube) is hard to hear and if there is any ambient noise you have an even harder time making some words out. Of course, I may just be going deaf. My next purchase will be some bluetooth headphones to extend the usefulness in public places. All in all, I give the MSI Wind very high marks.
 
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A great little notebook....the 10 inch screen is large enough for easy use and has great definition and brightness. The 6 cell battery gives me 4 and 1/2 hours use. The touch pad takes a little getting use to but works fine after some tweaking of the sensitivity in control panel. This is my first MSI product, and I will definitely shop MSI for other future computer needs.
 
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I love this computer. The size is great. I have big hands but I have no problem with this key board -it really only is a little bit smaller with the qwerty part of the key board. I love the speed, harddrive size, and ease of use. This is my main computer. Well worth it. I do miss the DVD drive and the one I ordered from Buy.com didn't work. I'm still waiting for the return on it but I was able to borrow one from a friend till buy.com gives me my money back for the one DVD drive that didn't work.
 
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I love this thing. I love how small it is, yet works like a larger laptop. User manual could be a little more detailed, but it is adequate.
 
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Runnig dual-boot Linux/XP Home. All devices are working properly. Had to upgrade to latest BIOS firmware for overclocking features. Hardest part getting things set up was creating a USB bootable DOS thumb-drive to update the firmware. Adding additional RAM was no problem, and does not void warranty if you call MSI and let them know your are adding RAM. With coupons, rebates and BUY.COM, this was the cheapest I have ever seen this product. Product arrived on time per shipping arrangements. Have bought many products from Buy.COM.
 
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This little machine is very capable. I have a behemoth 17' laptop, but it's not what you'd call light and portable. I can throw the MSI in the car to check email or do blogging at starbucks or any place with wifi. I did buy an extra gig of ram, but have not yet installed it since apparently it would void the warranty. I'm thinking about contacting square trade warranty service, which is where I purchase all my extended warranties. Maybe if I buy a warranty from them, then upgrade the ram, the square trade warranty might still be valid. It's just an idea to get around the stupid MSI warranty policy. Look forward to installing dual boot with linux or osx eventually as so many others have done.
 
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First I have to say that I have a 4-year-old 12" iBook G4, 1.3Ghz, 1.5GB RAM with Leopard installed. We wanted an Apple netbook for my wife but since they do not offer one, we went with this one; so the point of comparison is how this netbook compares to a 4-year-old Mac iBook. The good: It's speedy. Takes 2 mins 15 seconds before you're ready to surf. The Mac takes 3 mins, 15 secs. But the Mac is a full-fledged computer so it's understandable since it has to boot up more resources than the Wind. Advantage: Wind, but by a very small margin. It has a big hard drive (160GB) compared to the Mac's 40GB. This is a neutral point because it's great to have a huge hard drive, but filling it up with with useable stuff is difficult given its limitations as a full-fledged computer. It's reasonably fast, but not any faster (or slower) than the 4-yr old Mac. But the Mac is loaded with MS Office, iLife '08, two browsers, Photoshop, etc... I think once we start adding the necessities (for Windows, anyway) to the Wind such as: Firewalls, Antivirus programs, updates, more programs, iTunes, and what have you, it will slow to a crawl given it's 1.6Mhz processor. It's tiny. But that's bad. It's usable but most web pages don't display complete. As far as I can tell, you have to scroll with the up-down arrows to view the pages. The Mac is much better because most of the pages display complete, and when they don't, scrolling is easy using your two fingers up or down on the touchpad. Battery life sucks. The Mac gives around 4.5-5 hours of use out of the battery, as advertised. The Wind has a 6-cell battery that is super bulky and should give 6 or so hours, but in reality it only gives 4-4.5 hours. Part of the problem, I think, is because the fan runs constantly, draining the juice. On the Mac, the fan almost never runs. It sucks as a "laptop". You never know just how good Macs are until you use one and see how well designed they really are... hence the "apple tax" people complain about. The Mac sits neatly on your lap and is perfectly balanced because the heaviest part of it (the battery) sits up toward the front of the laptop. On the Wind, the the battery sits in the back, so it constantly wants to flip backwards and fall off your lap. Take your hands off the keyboard and it will fall off... it's really annoying. Also, the Mac is perfectly square whereas the wind starts of thin in the front but thickens as you go back so it ends up being thicker than the Mac. It's a small computer but carries like a much larger laptop simply because of it's bulk. So... If you like Windows laptops and are looking for a small form factor, this is a great netbook. But if you know both Macs and Windows and don't mind carrying a slightly heavier but far more usable laptop, buy a used 12" iBook. They cost about the same.
 
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PRO's: 1) Works great with Mac OSx86 (usb, vga, wireless, internal speakers) 2) Great Value for included 6-cell battery and wireless-N 3) Overclockable 4) Upgradable to 2GB of ram. 5) Good support from a non-bloated company (no included bloatware either). 6) Should be Windows 7 Compatible.......... CON's: 1) Easily tips backward when tipped more than 30 degrees. The 6 cell battery makes the netbook unbalanced. Not a huge problem though. 2) Battery life is not as good as similar netbooks on the market. Usually lasts ~4.5 hours with normal use (XP), ~3.5 to 4 hours with OSX. 3) Not as thin as some other 6-cell models...... Conclusion: If you're thinking about putting OS X on a netbook, get this model or the more popular 432. For this model, make sure you're willing to put up with the OSX Ralink wireless connection utility which must be manually reconnected at startup and sleep-wakeup (it's not that bad). If you are primarily looking only for windows, 6-7+ hours of battery, and a more sleak, thin, sexy design.....consider other models (samsung, asus, or hp). Overall, I am very impressed with MSI and this netbook.
 
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I bought this about a month ago and have been very happy with it. It is light and small, so I tote it around with me everywhere. I bought a USB Broadband card for it (the only thing it was lacking) and I can get to anything I need on the Internet or at work wherever I am. The keyboard is big enough to type on and the screen is perfect for viewing webpages. I have even used it for a presentation - the screen is a little small for this, but it works! The price is perfect and the 802.11n works well on my home network. I love it!
 
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