Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MSI. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MSI. Sort by date Show all posts

## Sunday, November 30, 2008

### Reduced Sale Price for MSI Wind U100 Netbook

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See also

- All MSI Wind related posts

MSI reduced the price of the MSI Wind U100, one of the best netbooks currently for sale, I found some online stores selling the MSI Wind U100 with Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, Windows XP and 120GB hard disk for $350 USD. For a few days even Best Buy sold it for the same price. Of course for $350 you'll get only a 3-cells battery.
Also in Germany you can currently buy the MSI Wind U100, 120GB hard disk and Windows XP for only 328 Euros at Amazon.de see link below.
The main price for the price reduction is the immanent market launch of the new MSI Wind netbooks: models U110, U115 and U120. Still using the Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, the major differences are in interfaces and storage. I'll post more details very soon...
See also

- All MSI Wind related posts

Amazon USA
| Amazon Germany

## Thursday, October 23, 2008

### Medion Akoya E1211 vs E1210 vs MSI Wind netbooks

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The scene around the 10-inch netbooks is always more busy, the netbooks are getting very similar and all at about the same price level, the models equipped with Windows XP are all about 400 Euros.
Medion announced availability for the Akoya E1211 for October for 400 Euros. This is very interesting: after all, the Akoya E1210 was basically a MSI Wind without Bluetooth.
Now the Akoya E1211 will include Bluetooth, draft n wireless LAN (wifi) and even 160GByte hard disk!
Conclusion: the Akoya E1211 seem to be even better than the MSI Wind U100!

- MSI Wind U100 vs Akoya E1210: MSI Wind wins for the additional Bluetooth support.
- MSI Wind U100 vs Akoya E1211: Akoya wins, thank to the bigger hard disk (160GByts vs 80GBytes) and draft n wireless lan (MSI Wind got simple 11g wireless)
- Akoya E1210 vs E1211: E1211 wins. Bigger hard disk, better wireless and additional Bluetooth!

Table with the Akoya E1211 features (from the german magazine Chip)
Other posts about MSI Wind and Medion Akoya

## Friday, August 22, 2008

### MSI Wind is the Best Netbook to Buy

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MSI Wind U100 is the clear winner of the netbook race: the MSI Wind U100 has the best mix of performance and features at a very competitive price: fairly big display (10-inch) and keys, hard disk, a powerful CPU, Bluetooth and Windows XP. Only the battery could last a bit more.
Not to forget that the MSI Wind coming in september will be equipped with a more juicy battery. More information about MSI Wind battery and articles on MSI Wind
See also EEE Journal

## Saturday, June 7, 2008

### EEE PC Competition - MSI Wind pre-order

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The ultra portable laptop MSI Wind, a serious alternative to the EEE PC, showed up again at Expansys. At Amazon there is only a placeholder, no possibility to pre-order it.
>>>UPDATE: it is possible to pre-order the MSI Wind at Amazon, at incredibly low prices.
According to the information given on the Expansys sales pages, the MSI Wind (10-inch display, 80GB hard disk, Atom 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM) will be available starting from July 19th in Europe, July 22nd in USA and Canada and July 25th in Japan.
Respectively for the Linux and Windows XP variants

- USA (USD): about 563 and 612
- Canada (CDN): about 601 and 654
- Japan (Yen): about 60000 and 65000
- UK (Pounds) : about 318 and 346
- Germany (Euros) : about 403 and 440
- France, Finland (Euros) : about 461 and 501
- Italy (Euros) : about 462 and 502

Please double check prices and availability at Expansys!
I've already announced pre-order availability for the MSI Wind at Expansys, however the product disappeared for a while and is not back.
See also EEE Journal Home Page

## Friday, January 2, 2009

### MSI Wind U115: Can Hybrid Storage boost Netbook Performance?

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MSI announced the Wind U115 as the first netbook with hybrid storage. According to MSI, the hybrid storage should significantly boost netbook performace and extend battery time.
Hybrid storage isn't new to the laptop world, the major news is that so far "hybrid storage" was mainly pointing to hard disks that included a flash memory as well. The hybrid hard disks that I saw so far show (if at all) a very small (less than 5%) performance and battery boost. This is probably due to the fact that the included flash memory aren't big and fast enough, if I well remember current hybrid drives include less than 1GB flash. This is far too less to see major improvements.
MSI Wind U115 is equipped with 8GB flash (SDD) and a 120GB "traditional" hard disk. I think that this solution has really potential, the only questions I have are:
1) how fast is the included SDD? A slow SDD will kill performance
2) how smart is the device driver? Microsoft ReadyDrive shows only disappointing results so far. the drivers seem to be very rudimental. However microsoft isn't alone: a russian company is working at a solution (eBoostr) working on Windows XP as well.
Relevant posts

- Netbook performance

## Saturday, July 12, 2008

### EEE PC Competition: MSI Wind on Sale with 3 cell battery instead of 6-cell battery!

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The MSI Wind is finally on sale in USA and, big surprise, the cool subnotebook has a 3 cells battery instead of the announced 6 cells.
That's a pity: the 3 cells battery lasts up to 3-3,5 hours.
The Medion Akoya Mini E1210 (currently shipped in Germany) is a kind of MSI Wind clone and also uses a 3 cells battery.
According to unofficial sources the MSI Wind will be shipped with a 6 cells battery starting from Septeber!
More on EEE Journal

## Sunday, June 8, 2008

### EEE PC Competition : pre-order MSI Wind at Amazon

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Now it is possible to pre-order the MSI Wind at Amazon the 10-inch version with 80GB hard disk!
The ultra portable laptop costs respectively $399 for the Linux and $549 for the Windows XP version!
Direct links:
MSI Wind 10" Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, XP Home) Black
MSI Wind 10" Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, Linux Novell SUSE) White
See also EEE Journal

## Saturday, May 24, 2008

### EEE PC Competition - One A120 and A110 - Cheap EEE PC 4G alternative?

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In the past couple of months several laptop brands announced subnotebook alternatives to EEE PC . One announced the models A120 and A110. The One A120 is very similar to the EEE PC 4G, marketed in Germany at 279 Euro and equipped with a VIA C7 1GHz processor, 512MB DDR2, 4GB SDD, WLAN, 7-inch display, webcam and especially Windows XP home.
The A110 uses Linux and is priced at 229 Euro, misses a webcam and has only a 2GB SDD.
I've already posted a few articles about subnotebooks / ultra portable pcs in direct competition to EEE PC, see also

- HP Compaq Mininote 2
- HP Compaq Mininote 1
- MSI Wind 3
- MSI Wind 2
- MSI Wind 1 - Atom CPU vs Celeron
- Gigabyte M912
- MSI Wind, EasyNote, Elox One, OLPC and Dell Vostro

EEE Journal Home Page

## Sunday, May 18, 2008

### EEE PC News - Benchmark comparing Atom (Diamondville) vs Celeron vs Core 2 Duo

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UPDATE: see also new post with new tests/benchmarks and all articles about

- Benchmarks
- Performance

The Japanese site Impress (pc.watch.impress.co.jp) published PCMark 05 benchmark results comparing a MSI Wind desktop (not to be confused with the MSI Wind ultra portable laptop).
So you may say, what's the matter? The benchmark is of interest since the MSI Wind desktop is equipped with an Atom (Diamondville) CPU clocked at 1.33GHz, chipset Intel 945GC Express, 1GB SDRAM, Windows Vista.
The other tested devices

- Asus EEE PC 900: Celeron M 900MHz, 1GB SDRAM and Windows XP
- Asus EEE PC 701 4G: Celeron M 630MHz, 512MB SDRAM and Windows XP
- Sony Vaio T VGN TZ905: Core 2 Duo U7600 (1.2GHz), 2GB SDRAM and Windows XP

Before giving the results: also in this case I have some (little) doubths about the test methodology! It is important to compare apple with apples! Nevertheless I must say that the result of this benchmark is far more applicable to the Atoms SuperPI benchmark and the CrystalMark benchmarks agains VIA Isaiah (C8) other published in the past weeks.
There were two major differences between the Atom system (MSI Wind desktop) and the other systems

1. Operating system: the Atom and Core 2 Duo systems were running Windows Vista while the EEE PCs run Windows XP. Vista slows down dramatically PC performance. This is especially true for systems with little memory and for slower CPUs, as typical for ultra portable laptops and tiny desktops.
2. PC type: Impress compared the three listed ultra portable laptops with a tiny desktop. This is also not optimal, since tiny desktops and ultra portable laptops are built using different parts and requirements.

That said, here you have some of the results.
Compared to the Celeron system, the Atom system scores well on the system tests while in the CPU benchmark the Atom numbers look very bad.
It seems confirmed that Intel Atom is not suitable for CPU intensive tasks, BUT WHO CARES????
Atom's best feature is the very low power consumption, Atom targets cheap ultra portable laptops and desktops, mainly used for surfing and casual Office. If you need performance you should buy a Core 2 Duo and add 1000 bucks by the way... ;-)
PCMark05 (syntetic index of the overall system performance)

- 2328 Core 2 Duo 1,2GHz
- 1468 Atom 1,33GHz
- 1126 Celeron 900MHz
- 818 Celeron 630MHz

CPU Score (use very CPU intensive algorithms: file comp/decompression, en/decryption, image and audio comp/decompression)

- 2328 Core 2 Duo 1,2GHz
- 1441 Celeron 900MHz
- 1159 Atom 1,33GHz
- 997 Celeron 630MHz

The good PCMark05 value can be explained to the relatively high HDD score (4x higher than the EEE PC 900, 2x higher than the Vaio) and the good memory score (slightly below the Vaio and higher than both EEE PCs).
About the CPU score: I think that here we can see that the Atom was designed with power in mind, not for CPU intensive task. We can see this especially with the major difference between the Atom and Core 2 Duo result. The latter scores well, given the dual core and the performant CPU architecture. Also the Celeron CPU is much more complex than the Atom and we see the results in the CPU benchmark.
UPDATE: see also new post with new tests/benchmarks and all articles about

- Benchmarks
- Performance

## Wednesday, February 3, 2010

### Netbook Deals 2010 with Intel Atom N450 and N270

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2010 started with an invasion of netbook deals: excellent netbooks with Atom N270 and N280 are sold below 300 dollars (see end of the post) and many of the Atom N450 (Pineview) netbooks got relatively low prices..
Asus started first flooding the online shops with many Atom N450 models and I got the impression that the new EEE PC netbooks with Atom N450 got a lower average selling price: most Asus EEE PC Seashell models are available for well under 400 dollars, actually the Seashell 1001P is even below 300 dollars. I found only one premium model above 400 dollars (Karim Rashid collection).

- EEE PC Seashell 1005PE for $367.97
- EEE PC Seashell 1001P for $299.00

Beside Asus EEE PCs, also MSI started early shipping MSI Wind U135 with Atom N450, the models with small battery are sold for around 300 dollars. I strongly recommend the MSI Wind U135 with high capacity battery for just 20 bucks more.
As mentioned above, many deals are available especially for N270 and N280 netbooks. Top netbooks below 300 dollars

- EEE PC 1005HA, for $299.99
- Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 (10v), for $297.69
- Samsung NC10, for $284.99

## Friday, April 17, 2009

### Acer Aspire One 110: top netbook for small price!

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Can you imagine, the netbook bestseller 2008, Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch display for less than 250 US dollars???
Acer Aspire One AOA110-1834 8.9-Inch Copper Netbook - 3 Cell Battery at the time of writing for only $238.99 (Amazon)!!!
Main characteristics are the 8.9 display and the good keyboard. The little price is due to the market shift towards 10-inch display and because of the new Acer Aspire One D150, a good 10-inch netbook for about $350 US dollars: for example Acer Aspire One AOD150-1669 10.1-Inch Seashell White Netbook - 6 Cell Battery
for $345.99 US dollars (Amazon).
In the meantime a surprice from MSI: the MSI Wind U100 for about $300 UD dollars (with only 3-cells battery) MSI Wind U100-641US 10-Inch Black Netbook - 3 Cell Battery

## Tuesday, September 16, 2008

### Medion Akoya E1210 for Sale in UK

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The Medion Akoya Mini E1210 is currently sold in UK (distributed by Aldi, Sainsury's and Argos) for prices between £280 and £300.
Remember that the Akoya Mini E1210 is basically an MSI Wind U100.
Before buying the E1210 remember that in about a month the Akoya Mini E1211 will be available with a huge 160GBytes hard disk! See post compare E1210 vs E1211 vs MSI Wind U100.
Other posts about Medion Akoya and MSI Wind

## Tuesday, August 26, 2008

### Dual Core Atom CPU for EEE PC or MSI Wind Netbooks?

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Intel announced the Atom 330, a dual core CPU clocked at 1,83 GHz dedicated to nettops (low cost desktop pcs) not to be confused with netbooks (such as EEE PC or MSI Wind).
In any case it won't last long until we'll see dual core Atom for MSI Wind of EEE PC.
Related posts about dual core Atom processor and Intel Atom processor

## Monday, July 21, 2008

### Apple Netbook? - MSI Wind / Medion Akoya with Mac OS Leopard

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The first Apple Netbook... german Press showed pictures of a Medion Akoya mini (E1210) with Mac OS X (Leopard). As you know the Akoya mini E1210 is basically a MSI Wind U100, it means that the same job to port Apple Mac OS X can be done on a Wind U100.
It wasn't a quick job... according to magazine computerbild, it was required to replacet the original WLAN minipci card (Gigabyte GN-WI01GT) , install Apple Mac OS X with some special drivers. Here the video!
See all news about

- Apple Netbook
- Medion Akoya E1210 and E1211
- MSI Wind

## Monday, June 23, 2008

### EEE PC Competition : Medion Akoya Mini (MSI Wind U100) for sale at Aldi (Germany)

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UPDATE: about the battery!
I've already reported that Medion is going to bring to the market an ultra portable laptop built on MSI Wind basis.
My personal opinion is that MSI Wind is most promising/best ultra portable laptop announced so far: the best feature-set + very good price level.
Some more details about the Medion Akoya Mini E1210: it will be sold/available starting from July 3rd in Germany (Deutschland) for 399 Euros with Windows XP Home, 10-inch display, 80GB hard disk and a 3-cell battery!
To be noted that the Medion Akoya won't include Bluetooth!
See also EEE Journal

## Monday, June 16, 2008

### EEE PC Competition - Medion Akoya Mini E1210 a MSI Wind Clone

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Medion presented a new netbook / subnotebook, the Akoya Mini E1210. It should be equivalent to an MSI Wind U100. Actually it is a MSI Wind with a different case.
Price EUR 399 in Germany.
See also EEE Journal

## Thursday, May 22, 2008

### EEE PC Competition - MSI Wind pre-order availability

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I announced not long ago the possibility to pre-order the ultra portable laptop MSI Wind at expansys.
Mistery: the MSI Wind disappeared from the website, the expansys guys probably got too many pre-orders for the subnotebook...
EEE Journal Home Page

## Friday, May 16, 2008

### EEE PC Competition - Details on MSI Wind

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I already gave initial details about the MSI Wind: 1,6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB RAM (on board), 80GB 2.5 inch hard disk and a webcam (1.3 megapixel), 8.9 or 10 inch display with LED backlighting.
got additional information: the MSI Wind integrated Bluetooth and a 3-cell battery.
The chipset should be Intel 945GMS with ICH7-M. This is an interesting news, in fact this chipset supports 533 MHz front-side bus while the EEE PC chipset (Intel 910GML chipset) supports only 400 MHz front-side bus.
The higher frequency can result in higher performance, especially due to the bigger DDR2 throughput.
EEE Journal Home Page

## Sunday, May 11, 2008

### EEE PC vs MSI Wind - Atom vs Celeron CPU Performance Benchmark

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See also

- new tests/benchmarks, (hot post)
- All posts about Benchmarks
- All posts about Performance
- All posts about dual core Atom

A German site (Computerbase) run the SuperPI benchmark on a Asus R70A UMPC equipped with the Atom 1,6 GHz (Silverthorne), the new Intel CPU targeting MID, UMPC and ultra portable devices.
The same processor is going to be equipped in the MSI Wind and in new EEE PCs and Gigabyte M912.
At a first glance the result seems a bit disappointing for a new CPU: the 1,6 GHz Atom CPU seems slower than the 900 MHz Celeron CPU found in EEE PC 900 and much slower than the 1,73 GHz Pentium M 740.
Number talks you may say: just considering the lower end

- 1,13 GHz Pentium III-M (Tualatin) 01:55 minutes (worse)
- 1,6 GHz Atom (Silverthorne) 01:48 minutes
- 900 MHz Celeron (Dothan-512) 01:28 minutes
- 1,73 GHz Pentium M 740 (Dothan) 00:46 minutes

However the Intel Atom has a bigger potential, not shown from this benchmark!
Some facts

1. The german guys compared a pre-production product (with Atom processor) against mature products! We all know that pre-production products are often not very optimized and this is probably the case. Furthermore, the benchmark run on a UMPC: these kind of products are optimized for battery, not for performance.
2. SuperPI does a lot of number crunching, this is not Atom's target application! Atom is optimized for ultra portable applications, it means for low power. I simply ignore these kind of benchmarks: they say very little to the real-life performance.
3. Intel Atom supports hyperthreading: as far as I know SuperPI doesn't take avantage of it. This technology can improve real life applications from 10%-30%. The tested Celeron and Pentium M don't. have this potential.
4. Intel Atom's relatively small L2 cache (only 512KB) may be accounted for the bad results especially if compared to the Pentium M (2048KB)

I think that in the next few months we'll see much more tests and better results product based on Intel's Atom
Related articles

- Atom vs Celeron M 353 vs VIA C7 via Core Duo in depth benchmark (hot)
- Dual Core Atom CPU for EEE PC on MSI Wind Netbook?

New: see posts about dual core Atom
See also how to replace CPU on EEE PC
See also new post with new tests/benchmarks, articles about Benchmarks and Performance

## Saturday, May 10, 2008

### EEE PC Competition : MSI Wind for Sale!

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It is possible to buy (pre-order) the MSI Wind at expansys in a number of colours with 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB SDRAM, 80GB hard disk, integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam and Windows XP home. It will be available with 8.9 and 10 inch displays (LED backlighting). A few colours are available.
the 10 inch version is priced today (May 10th 2008) for about

- $ 610 in US
- Euro 425 in Germany,
- Euro 465 in Italy and France
- Pounds 350 in UK

To be noted that expansys ships worldwide (just change country: look for "change" top-right of the site)
As far as I know the MSI Wind should be shipped end of June this year, however you'd better contact expansys for an exact date!
More on EEE Journal Home Page
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