MSI Wind gets reviewed

Hey USers -- we know where all those "delayed" Winds are. Just take a look across the pond. bit-tech managed to wrap their paws around a retail unit of MSI's Eee PC fighter, and while early reviews sang a lovely song, this one was just a bit flatter. All in all, reviewers found the machine to be useful and totally practical, but it was glaringly obvious that they were none too pleased about MSI jacking up the price of its own machine while the completely identical (save for branding) Advent 4211 was selling for less. If you're listening to these guys / gals, you'll gloss right over the Wind and nab yourself a rebadge, but whichever edition you end up getting, it's sure to be "great" in the grand scheme of things. Check the read link for the full spill.

[Rick @ Jul 4th 2008 8:17AM]

Too bad we don't have that choice here in the USA. A post on one of the MsiWind.net forums did say that someone at MSI USA told them that the 6-cell would be available July 15th. It didn't say what year though.

[antiver @ Jul 4th 2008 8:38AM]

And MSI probably said a month ago, so we can now expect, say, August 25 ish?

[SteveS @ Jul 4th 2008 6:37PM]

Just another fallout of the weak US dollar. It seems like just yesterday the US was getting all the attention and Europe was the stepchild market for these asian hardware firms. How quickly things change...

[Jash Sayani @ Jul 4th 2008 8:28AM]

Finally !!! I was waiting for this !

Does OSX86 Stuff work with it? Kalyway, iATKOS, etc.

[aaronparker @ Jul 4th 2008 8:52AM]

Yup, everything is working now (including sleep) with the exception of the headphone jack. WiFi 'works', but the wifi card had to be swapped with a Dell 1390.

Here's a great wiki resource:
http://wind-osx86.wikispaces.com/

And here's the thread over at InsanelyMac detailing the progress:
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=113018

[Onetrack @ Jul 4th 2008 10:26AM]

Heres the video proof too.

I've got mine ordered :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQt205r8tsg

[Onetrack @ Jul 4th 2008 11:54AM]

More videos of OSX running on the wind

http://www.youtube.com/user/insanedge

[johnmgbrowniii @ Jul 4th 2008 8:30AM]

They called it a "great subnotebook," and seemed to be extremely impressed with the build quality, which is surprising. Sort of undermines what the Sony people were saying about this class of notebooks doesn't it? The only thing I am considering in place of this is the Gigabyte M912 Convertible Tablet... which looks really awesome and for a similar price...but early reports on build quality were iffy.

[w @ Jul 4th 2008 8:58AM]

For me this is the most interesting cheapo laptop.

[ugotamesij @ Jul 4th 2008 9:28AM]

I've booked my Advent (MSI Wind re-badge) for collection tomorrow. A name change means it's £70 (US$140) cheaper than the Wind... and I actually prefer the Advent colour scheme too.

[Ian @ Jul 4th 2008 11:31AM]

Why is this better than the Eee? All these netbooks are rather comparable in specs and price. There doesn't seem to be anything that would sway me towards one instead of another, except build quality.

[Onetrack @ Jul 4th 2008 11:56AM]

Price - 150.00 less than the comparable asus
HD size (80 gig vs 12 gig flash or 20 gig hd)
Proven to run OSX
10" screen vs 7" or 8.9"

Wireless, bluetooth, card reader, easily swappable parts, free ram slot.

Does that help?

[BigD145 @ Jul 4th 2008 1:03PM]

When do I get my non crap sub $300 laptop?

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 4th 2008 1:18PM]

Can't wait for amd to make some mobile chips better than intel. They will cost less and perform better thus making these sub notebooks pack a better punch at the same or lower price. On top of that ATI has better integrated graphics solutions than intel. I just wish they would hurry up and start creating 45nm chips.

[B2B @ Jul 4th 2008 1:42PM]

Epic Wind

[Major4Play @ Jul 4th 2008 6:45PM]

"Can't wait for amd to make some mobile chips better than intel. They will cost less and perform better thus making these sub notebooks pack a better punch at the same or lower price."

We can all dream eh ? AMD have yet to make a better mobile chip than Intel so hope they can manage it but really unbridled AMD fan boy-ism aside, my last laptop with a turion, underperformed, over heated and generally put me off AMD based laptops for a Long time.

The Advent rebadge looks a real winner at £280, the Wind costs £320 !
Still i guess MSI don't loose.

[arkady @ Jul 4th 2008 7:59PM]

I work at a retailer selling the Advent rebadge and unfortunately we had 2 faulty ones in our initial delivery, not too bad except we only received 3....

[Colin @ Jul 6th 2008 11:42AM]

Just got my advent 4211, awesome piece of kit, and I feel more usable than other cheapo laptops, in terms of keyboard size and screen. Cheaper than MSI wind in the UK and and Uk residents can pick it up at PC world/ Currys / Dixons. (in store now but not clearly advertised). I can also confirm that this is exactly the same as MSI wind just rebadged, and have had a peak beneath the casing.

Cant wait to try getting kallyway installed, I just hope someone gets a workaround for the wifi and screen size soon!