The MSI Wind is a great mini-notebook that can be brought anywhere, thanks to its small and lightweight profile. It sports the latest Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, and can last for a couple of hours between charges.

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Out of the box, you get the notebook (comes in white, black, and pink), a 6-cell battery, an AC adaptor, a DVD containing the drivers, utilities, and manual, and a recovery DVD in case something goes wrong.

The notebook looks clean and simple, with all the connection ports found along the sides of the unit. It comes with three USB ports, an Ethernet port, a headphone and microphone jack, a 4-in-1 card reader, as well as a VGA-out that can be used to display videos or presentations in a secondary monitor or TV screen.

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Opening the lid reveals a 10.2-inch screen with a maximum resolution of 1024×600, a built-in microphone and webcam for video conferences or chats, and a fairly ‘large’ keyboard that can accommodate even the biggest of fingers. The unit also comes with a trackpad, although we did not like the fact that the tracking area and buttons were small. MSI also placed a couple of indicators on the lower part of the notebook which allow users to see whether the Bluetooth, wireless, sleep, caps lock, or num lock functions are on/off.

As previously mentioned, the Wind is powered by an Intel Atom processor N270 running at 1.6Ghz, has a gigabyte of RAM, and has a 120GB drive (divided into two partitions). It runs on Windows XP Home with SP3, saving you the trouble of updating the device.

The unit comes pre-installed with Adobe Reader 8, Microsoft Office Professional 2007 (with 60-day trial), an MSI BurnRecovery program, a Cyberlink DVD Suite, a Corel Ulead Burn Now, Norton Internet Security, as well as WinRAR. We like the fact that MSI included DVD burning software programs to the Wind so that users can instantly burn files as soon as an external DVD drive is hooked up via USB.

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The screen is bright, reproduces colours well, and is not reflective, preventing eye strain to a certain extent. It is also ‘big’ enough to fit almost any image or website without having to scroll to the left or right. And to save on battery life, the Wind’s screen uses LED backlighting.

The unit lasted almost five hours in our battery test, which is good for a notebook this size. Just remember to lower the brightness, turn off the wireless and Bluetooth functions, and don’t connect any external DVD drives to maximise battery life.

Overall, the Wind is a good notebook: it comes with the latest Atom processor, has a fairly big hard drive that can store your photos, videos, and music files, and has excellent battery life to boot. The MSI Wind is now available with an RRP of $699.

See page over for product specifications and pricing.

MSI Wind U100 (U100-247AU) Product Specifications:

Processor and Cache: Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz Processor
Operating System: Windows XP Home
Chipsets: Intel 945GSE+ICH7M
System Memory: 1GB
LCD Display: 10″ 1024×600  LCD Panel
Graphics and Video Module: UMA
Audio: HD Audio, Stereo speakers
HDD: 120GB SATA
Webcam: 1.3-megapixel
Card Reader: 4-in-1 Card Reader, SD/MMC/MS/MSpro

Communication Port:
– Built-in 10/100 LAN
– Built-in 802.11b/g/n WLAN Card
– Bluetooth

I/O Port:
– Graphics Card Output (15-pin, D-Sub) X 1
– USB 2.0 x 3
– Mic-in
– Headphone-out
– Ethernet port

Battery Pack: 6-cell
Dimensions: 260x180x19-31.5mm
Weight: 1kg with 3-cell battery

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MSI Wind U100 (U100-247AU) | $699 |  | www.msicomputer.com.au

For: Small form factor; Noteworthy specifications; Well-spaced keyboard; Bright screen; Bluetooth and Wi-Fi included; Good battery life
Against: Small trackpad with hard to press keys
Conclusion: Ride like the wind with MSI mini-notebook