10-in MSI Wind U120 is a revamped version of Wind U100 was listed in Europe few days ago and has been available for purchase in the US at Amazon and J&R for $450. Now, a review of this laptop can give a good image of it and make the decision easier for the consumers who have not decided to purchase one of either 10-inch Samsung NC10 or 10.1-in HP Mini 2140 or 10-in Wind U120. This Wind U120 is in some cases some better than the other ones and in some cases the other two ones are better. For example, It has the same size and weight of Samsung NC10, despite Wind‘s small touchpad is yet bigger than the one found on Samsung NC10. However, Wind’s touchpad doesn’t support multitouch gestures like Samsung NC10’s, or it has slower transferring rate than Nc10. or HP Mini 2140’s keyboard is slightly more comfortable that Wind U120’s famous keyboard for typist. Or the battery life of U120 is much shorter than the battery life on NC10 and Mini 2140 that lasts up to 6 hours each (according to laptop magazine).
Folk in Laptop Magazine had their hands-on Wind U120 with the price tag of $379 and reviewed this netbook in full details. They have also run some test and recorded the benchmark results. Here I am just mentioning a rundown of this review with benchmark results. But I recommend you to read the full review if you want to know about the details.
CPU: 1.6-GHz Intel Atom N270
Memory: 1GB of RAM/ max 1GB
Hard Drive: 160GB SATA (5,400 rpm)
Display: 10 inches matte LED backlight screen with 1024 x 600 resolution
Ports/slot: three USB ports and VGA, Ethernet, headphone, and microphone jacks, 4-in-1 card reader
Network: 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0,
Weight: 2.8 pounds
OS: MS Windows XP Home
(Pros):
-Sleeker and more business design
-Comfortable keyboard
- Matte screen with bright and good viewing angle without noticeable glare
- Loud speakers (but lacking bass)
- EasyFace Manager Software enables facial recognition (log in with face instead of using password)
-Good wireless performance (better and higher than the netbook average)
-competitive bargain price
- Mobile broadband and WiMAX connectivity options coming later
(Cons):
-Stiff mouse buttons and small touchpad
-Mediocre battery life
-Limited tech support hours
-Not upgrade friendly (RAM is not upgraded to 2GB and there is no way to access the laptop’s guts)
- It gets warm
Benchmark results:
-Boot up time: 50 sec (7 sec faster than the category average)
-LAPTOP Transfer Test: 5 minutes and 6 seconds with a rate of 16.6 MBps for transferring 4.97GB of mixed media files
-3DMark03: 682
- Laptop battery test: 4 hours and 28 minutes
Conclusion:
MSI wind U120 is a serious rival for Samsung NC10 and HP Mini 2140. But now the question is “will U120 be more successful than these two other netbooks?” As the review says NC10 with starting price of $440 and Mini 2140 with the starting price of $500 are some better than U120.
For the consumers who just need a netbook with bargain price first and then coming with nice feature set like 10-inch display, comfortable keyboard and delivering the performance close to the category average, Wind U120 can be the best choice of all.
No doubt that Samsung NC10 comes with more fashionable design; so, the consumers who are more sensitive and are ready to pay some more, they will surely purchase a slightly better netbook with more fashionable design and feature set like Samsung NC10.
