thelinuxlink.net

Although there'll be both 8.9-inch and 10-inch versions worldwide, we're only getting the 10-inch in both XP and Linux flavors, starting June 3rd. The SuSE version will feature that 1.6GHz Atom, 512MB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, and a 3-cell battery rated at 2.5 hours of use for $399

Snarkout wrote:And it would be just that much sweeter if they weren't treating linux users like second class citizens when compared to their windows users.

The two most striking things about the MSI Wind are the screen and keyboard – both are bigger than the Asus Eee PC 900’s. The screen has a 10in diagonal and a 1024 x 600 resolution, and is very crisp – it’s easily as good as the Eee PC’s. The keyboard is bigger than the Eee PC’s and a little smaller than the HP 2133 Mini-Note’s, but it extends right to the edges of the case. The key tops are large and comfortable to type on. The the trackpad is small, but it’s responsive and works well –take note, HP!

MSI has also added a novel feature to the Wind – a two-mode ‘turbo’ function, accessed via a keyboard shortcut. One mode overclocks the processor by a small amount to increase its performance; the other drops the clock speed (along with screen brightness) to prolong battery life. Since this is a hardware feature, it will be available on both Windows XP and Linux versions, too

In underclocked mode, Windows XP’s battery status indicator reported battery life to be 7 hours and 10 minutes with a 99% charge – though bear in mind that this was with the optional six-cell battery and no applications running. Even so, this bodes well for the MSI Wind – we’ve yet to see an ultra-portable of this type with a battery life that lives up to expectations.

Most impressive of all, however, was performance. We didn’t run any benchmarks, but the MSI Wind felt extremely snappy in general use – little different to a laptop with a mid-range Intel Core 2 Duo processor, in fact. The base also felt quite cool to the touch and MSI reckons that this is the case even with the processor in overclocked mode (the processor is actively cooled).

All in all, we were extremely impressed by the MSI Wind and based on the short amount of time we spent with it, we reckon that it’s the first low-cost ultraportable to deliver on all counts – and again, that processor plays a significant part in this.

We’re hoping to see a final production model of the MSI Wind in a week or so, so we’ll run some benchmarks and provide a more detailed write-up then. In the meantime, if you’re eyeing up an Eee PC 900 or HP 2133 Mini-Note, we’d strongly advise you to hold on to you money until the Wind is launched – MSI looks like it have a monster hit on its hands.

greggh wrote:It looks like I was right to have those doubts about MSI keeping to a $399 price.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BIK9H4