MSI Wind12 U230 unboxed and benchmarked, trounces netbooks of yesteryear
By Sean Hollister 
posted March 20th 2010 3:13PM
posted March 20th 2010 3:13PM
posted March 20th 2010 3:13PM
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You can always trade performance for battery life. What's so new about this? Most notebooks can run for 4 hours.
@69camaroSS
What's new is that it's not Intel.
@69camaroSS
Atom laptops with similar sized batterys get similar results..
@max1001
Who cares who makes the chip? I don't choose my computers based on anti-corporate sentiments. If this thing doesn't get better battery time, you might as well buy a stardard notebook.
@insy
Not doing websurfing. . . (only four hours of net browsing) Most Atom netbooks can websurf for 6 hours.
@69camaroSS it's got a 3-cell not a 6-cell or 9-cell like most atom netbooks
@69camaroSS The MSI Wind12 U230 are available now in two flavors, the 033 is powered by an Athlon Neo MV-40 processor with 250GB storage capacity while the 040 gets the Athlon X2 L335 with 320 GB
Oh well more about the impressions: http://bit.ly/wind12-u230-reactions
@University of Pi
No. The 4 hour battery life is for the 6-cell variant. I've got a friend with a U230 (L335 X2, 320 GB, 6-cell variant, $429) and it's been available here in South East Asia since January. I'm quite sure they did that test untweaked though. My friend's U230 reports nearly 6 hours on full charge, though he already tweaked voltages and all that stuff.
But what does it matter anyway when the U230 is twice as fast as a both the single core Atom and even the dual core Atom on the Mini 311. The battery life isn't so bad IMO.
Its a tradeoff between power and battery life, this is getting closer to laptop range than netbook range.
I hope AMD's Bobcat processor brings some real whoop-ass to Atom.
@Nitesh no kidding. even if they don't kick Atom's ass i would just like to see some competition here. more AMD/ATi powered netbooks!
@Nitesh
Yea, when's AMD's answer to ion getting here anyway?
@Nitesh
i prefer longer lasting batteries to better cpu performance when it comes to portables. hence, this new netbook doesn't cut it for me.
Maybe they could put a few more stickers on it....
@Voxer18 Nothing I hate more. Peanut butter is good at removing sticker gunk, BTW.
@Nitesh So is lighter fuel, the real petrol stuff for Zipos.
Thankfully I've never had a laptop sticker leave any residue.
@fourthletter
Ive never had a laptop made by a company that felt they needed to put stickers all over it ;)
@Prospero
well...I wasn't going to there, but me neither!
I have the gateway 1330u with the single core athalon and discreet Ati graphics. It's a hot Mess sometimes and sucks juice but it's wayy faster then an older atom.
When it comes to upgrade I would go AMD again for sure.
ibook killer
@mattlev15
It's not exactly difficult to kill a 5 year old laptop line.
@shinratdr
and the rest! I had an ibook in 2001!!
Hey Engadget if you're not going to put the source links in the iPhone (and possibly the others) app could you please link them in the story as well?
@AltairDusk
Click on the pic.
@Voxer18
Well, I feel foolish now. Thanks for letting me know though!
@AltairDusk
Ironically, this was the first article I found it. Good timing, I guess.
So...it has none of the advantages of a laptop (performance and size) and none of the advantages of a netbook (battery life)...so what exactly is this thing supposed to be good for?
@newdeal did you miss the part where its much faster than other netbooks, has slightly better graphics, and still under $500? plus its not like the battery life is THAT bad, its just not great
@newdeal Competition like this is always good for innovation, progress and your wallet. I'm going to kill someone next time a company annouces yet another intel atom n270 based device for $400 and more.
Hmm i wonder how this would fair against similar amd system such as a HP DM3??
i'm listening, go on
You lost me at Seagate drive!
AMD are simply horrible
4 hours when the UL30VT form Asus gets 10~ hours and it has a switchable GPU solution.... Hmm I think I know what I'd choose.
@robbiekhan you're comparing an $800 laptop to a netbook that will cost less than half that.
If we're now calling this a "netbook" what exactly is a "netbook"? I made the assumption of Atom = netbook.
@BigJayDogg3
Netbook = Tiny. Atom = Intel. Athlon = AMD.
Sure, Intel's managed to dominate most of the netbooks around, but I'd love to see some AMD/ATI in netbooks. Unless they can stuff a Xeon or Core i7 or something in a 10.1 inch netbook. Or even TWO! How insane would that be? 12 core 24 thread Netbook, it could probably have my children if it wanted.
And once again the battery sticks out... WHAT THE HELL!?
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WTF Engadget! I can't reply!!!
Just another crappy netbook. Nothing to see here.
Still amazed how some people find the 4hr battery life as "not bad"...
My bad, I must've glossed over the other 11 Winds.
The CTRL key has finally made its way to the left of the FN key. And the touch pad has separate keys for left and right now. It's good to know that MSI is learning from its mistakes.
That's one thick netbook. It's thicker than most of other netbook I saw.
Go AMD!
its really ugly.