MSI's 8.9- to 10-inch Wind breaks in Q2 for less than $500
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Apr 14th 2008 2:04AM
posted Apr 14th 2008 2:04AM
Good news: the price of those 7- to 9-inch ultra-portables are in free-fall as Dell, ASUS, HP, Everex and others race to the bottom. Bad news: your $500ish wad currently takes home a thick, boxy slab. Fortunately, MSI is looking to change all that when it ships the sleek Wind laptop in Q2. In other words, June when Intel ships the Atom processor. Prices are expected to range from $470 to $1,099 for your choice of 8.9-inch and 10-inch panels with 1,024 x 768 pixel resolutions, 2.5-inch hard disk or SSD drive, processors ranging from 1GHz to 1.6GHz, and 1GB of memory. At least that's the last we heard. Word to the wise: wait until summer for your ultra-portable purchase -- competition will be fierce and the waves will be tasty.
I'm excited.
"..8.9-inch and 10-inch panels with 1,024 x 768 pixel resolution.."
Surely its not going to be a 4:3 screen?!
It looks like it, and don't call me Shirley!
i want a wind nooowwwww
I also hope Asus hurries up and breaks wind.
This will be a market that Linux Distros will give Windows XP a run for their money. I can't wait to watch the fights between OS's and companies. I also can't wait to see how often Vista gets passover, because Vista is basically a computer hate crime.
At the end of the summer I will be getting me one. I will really enjoy watching how the pieces fall.
Yes this is a prime opportunity for a well integrated distro to give Windows a run for it's money. While there's some desire for 'general' use, most people are going to be using this for a few common tasks: browsing, office documents, and email. If the distro can give a great out-of-the-box experience with these key functions, then I think it'll have some good success (ie. pre-install Firefox, OpenOffice (or similar) and an good email client --- and test the hell out of it. Business people who buy these things want a mobile device that give them an easy way to get things done, not more problems to figure out.
I read:
MSI's 8.9- to 10-inch breaks Wind in Q2 for less than $500
and was quite confused. D:
I could break a 10-inch wind for under $500 too, but I need the money.
there is something in the air...
Its SMOKE, RUN!!!
First one that goes 8 hours on a charge is the one getting my money.
2133 Mini-note is awesome in many ways, but the heat and crappy battery life are a no-go for me.
why do guys like this always look for bad thing to say.the funny thing is guys like him never buy gadget to find out for himself.there is a good post for every bad post.depends on who reviews it.live life and buy something there is always craigslist to sell that gadget
Whoa, not widescreen?
It looks widescreen to me. Am I missing something?
Yeah, the artical says the resolution is 1024x768
Well no shit, it does... damn me. But that pic still looks widescreen to me. *scratching head*
wind breaks in? really?
oh my friggin' gosh!. i really wish i can hybernate now 'til the end of summer because i am so close into buying a umpc and i think my patience tank is running dry. i was so close into buying the 1st gen eee, and then the hp mini-note came out. i was gonna get that, then dell said, "ooh we have too!" and now this baby looks like it might be the best of the bunch with the atom and standard 1 Gb ram!
TeddyLikesRitalin! TeddyShouldTakeRitalin!
I'm hearing of many who say they would be happy to get an EEE, HP 2133, Wind, etc. instead of the Vaio TZ and other ultraportables reaching the $2000 mark, that these much cheaper machines would fit their needs as well as a Vaio TZ could for example.
I suppose now with the advent of cheap ultraportables, we'll see much less sales of the "premium" ultraportables unless their manufacturers really do something to set them apart from these current machines.
Can't wait to see the Montevina SFF/ULV ultraportables later this year.
It's an interesting point you raise. The high-end ultraportables obviously have power, but they also have immense battery life as well. Some of them are quoted around 10 hour mark (though I've never seen proof).
These cheap ultraportables lack power, and that's OK, because they aren't designed for heavy computing, but with their cheapness comes cheap batteries, and that isn't such a good thing for an ultraportable.
Some people want powerful ultraportables for doing, I don't know, CAD work on the train or something. The market exists, obviously, but can it sustain a low end and a high end?
Will these new UMPC's be widely available here in Australia by June/July aswell? So far, the Eee PC is the only one in sights.
I can start to see a pattern! Manufacturers make a REALLY crappy lowest model, post the specifications of the highest one and say it will be sub-500$. Then you click and see that if you want anything a little bit usefull, you would rather need to pay twice this sum.
Also am I the only one to recall, that the Eee-idea was a $200 laptop, not a $500 one!
Plus none of these are UMPCs, because almost none have touchscreens. ;)
the definition of umpc has changed, touch screen is no longer necessary
Great, they can then change it again and we would star calling 12-inch laptops UMPCs!
You know, when a 4 inch device and a 9-inch mini laptop are both called UMPC, than there must be something wrong.
I wonder what the minimum spec is considering it goes up to $1099.
It could be 1ghz, 2gb SSD/flash with a 2 cell batt for all we know
"processors ranging from 1GHz to 1.6GHz"
So it will be using a crappy Via C7 just like the HP 2133. Which is a shame, I actually wanted a 2133 until I saw the processor. Somebody please put an Isiah or a Penryn or something into one of these.
The Wind PC is slated to use Intel's Atom, which shouldn't be much faster then a C7-M. The addition of hyperthreading to Atom is its biggest performance advantage over the C7-M.
A 1.6GHz atom is estimated to perform equal to around a 800Mhz - 1.0GHz Pentium-M, and I'm willing to bet it will be closer to 800-900Mhz then 1Ghz. Definately nothing to brag about.
Now Atom's biggest feature is its low power usuage, but when you get up to devices approaching laptop size, the CPUs power consumption becomes a smaller part of the whole consumption of the device, as larger screens consumer more power. This starts to negate the benefits of Atom, as it won't return as dramatic an increase in battery life when compared to the hit you take in performance for that CPU.
My personal opinion is that VIA's new Isaiah processor will probably hit the sweet spot between performance, price, and power consumption that will make it a better choice for these mini-note laptops.
"Waves will be tastey"?
This author is obviously a surfer.
Can't wait to see Dell's.
goddamn WHY DOESNT ANYBODY USE THE TRACKPOINT/POINTING STICK ANYMORE. I love the formfactor of these new ultra portable laptops but after several years of using my lifebook B2630 (10", touchscreen 900mhz pIII etc) i am VERY used to a trackpoint style mouse, it makes more sense (less surface area used etc) on a small laptop than the trackpad and i flat out refuse to buy a laptop with a trackpad.
BEND YOURSELVES TO MY WILL DAMNIT :(
I think someone has a patent on that they don't want to license out to these companies.