Holy crap, you could drive a truck under that thing. That’s a nine cell battery for the MSI Wind netbook, which is available on Ebay’s UK site according to a post in the MsiWind.net forums. The item ships from China for a grand total of around £70 – roughly $115 in US dollars. Owners of this gigantic lump are reporting over 6.5 hours of battery life. When I tested the six-cell MSI Wind, I was able to get a little over five hours before having to recharge so I’d almost think you could squeeze 8+ hours out of a nine-cell battery with everything tweaked to maximize power consumption. [via Wired] → Read More
The Averatec netbook that we caught “wind” of (pun majorly intended) back in August is now shipping. It’s called the Averatec Buddy and you’ll remember that it’s actually pretty much a rebranded MSI Wind, except that the Buddy has dropped the Bluetooth connection and popped in a 160GB hard drive. Oh, and the 10.2-inch screen features AveraBrite! Also, Averatec lists the Buddy’s weight at 1.65 pounds with its three-cell battery, even though the 3-cell Wind weighs 2.3 pounds. I’m going to assume that Averatec’s weight is incorrect, because the site also says that it’s got a 12.1-inch WXGA screen even though the product’s title lists it as the “Averatec Buddy Notebook 10.2 in” – if they’ve got a 12.1-inch MSI Wind that only weighs 1.65 pounds, I’ll buy three of them. Averatec Buddy [ShopAveratec.com] → Read More
Wow, lotsa good deals today. J&R is selling the black MSI Wind with Windows XP for $399 after a $50 price break and $50 mail-in rebate. And – and! – it would appear that they have them in stock, too. This is the three-cell battery version, if you’re wondering. But for $399, that’s a hard deal to pass up if you’re looking for a good netbook. The $50 mail-in rebate is good until the end of the month. MSI Microstar WindBook U100-016US [J&R via dealnews] → Read More
The fine folks over at Fudzilla have managed to wrangle photos of the upcoming MSI Wind U120, which should be available at the end of the year. Specs appear to be very similar to the current MSI Wind U100, except that the U120 will feature a SIM-based 3.5G wireless chip, presumably to attract a more business-oriented crowd. The netbook will still have a 10-inch screen and decent keyboard, and hard drive options are reported to be either a 120GB conventional drive or a 20- or 40-gigabyte SSD, which seems odd since we normally hear about 16GB and 32GB solid state drives. I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the processor would be one of the dual-core Atoms, since the U120 isn’t supposed to ship until December. Fudzilla claims it’ll cost under $600, which would be consistent with MSI’s aggressive pricing strategy. A couple more photos after the jump… → Read More
The wait is over, netbook fans. MSI just announced that the U100 netbook is now available nationwide at Best Buy. The Intel Atom 1.6GHz equipped 10-inch netbook comes with 1GB of RAM, Windows XP Home Edition, a 120GB HDD, and weighs only 2.3lbs. It comes in black and white and starts at $399. I just checked Best Buy’s online store, but it doesn’t look like the U100 is available there yet. Update: The U100 netbooks will be available at Best Buy sometime this week. → Read More
Sylvania had the right idea when it rebranded the 7-inch Everex Cloudbook as the Sylvania “g” netbook except for the fact that the Cloudbook never really took off. Then came the 8.9-inch Sylvania MESO, which was a kinda-sorta rebranded Amtek Elego by Digital Gadgets, a licensee of Sylvania. Huh? Now, Sylvania seems to be on the right track by rebranding the 10-inch MSI Wind as the Sylvania g MAGNI. Price and availability aren’t known yet but we do know that it’ll have a 120GB hard drive, run Windows XP or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and have 1GB of RAM. [Laptop via SlashGear] → Read More
Will wonders never cease? It wasn’t so long ago that water-cooling your CPU or video card meant expensive modifications at the risk of ruining your whole setup. This MSI GeForce N280GTX is already set up with water cooling, and what’s more, it only takes up one slot! Now you can actually have dual water-cooled GeForces, something that sounds like something you upgrade your Zealots with in Starcraft. → Read More
Our friends across the pond will soon have some options as far as the MSI Wind netbook is concerned. Three new versions will be available soon, although there’s no definite time frame apart from “contact a local official MSI distributor,” per MSI. So here’s what’s coming. First, the U90X-007UK (pictured far left) will have an 8.9-inch screen instead of the standard 10-inch screen. See that black border around the LCD panel? Looks like the body and everything else is the same standard Wind, just with a smaller screen. This one will have the standard 80GB hard drive, but it’ll be running SUSE Linux and will cost only £269. → Read More
Above, these agents are investigating claims that MSI infringement from patent firm Sisvel. And, yes, pics show that these ladies and gents are in fact armed because we all know, us nerds can get a little territorial over our gadgets. via Reg → Read More
MSI has a heaping handful of new notebooks set to be released at undetermined dates for undetermined prices. The important thing is that we have specs, right? → Read More
Possibly in response to Acer’s recent price-lowering extravaganza, HP has cut prices on its flagship netbook, the Mini-Note. While HP’s lowest price of $499 is still a long way from Acer’s $329, with any luck we might be witnessing the beginning of an industry-wide price war should ASUS, MSI, and other netbook manufacturers start to feel the heat from Acer. HP’s price cuts are good until the end of August, while Acer’s are permanent. It’ll be interesting to see if HP pops prices all the way back up to previous levels or perhaps meets somewhere in the middle. HP 2133 Mini-Note Models [HP.com via Infoworld] → Read More
Remember Averatec? I sure do. I’ve owned two Averatec computers. One when the company used to be Sotec and another when it used to be Averatec. Now it’s sort of called TriGem, but sometimes called Averatec. Something like that. Anyhoo, Joanna Stern of Laptop Magazine spoke with Averatec’s marketing director and found out that Averatec and MSI are in cahoots. It turns out that Averatec will be selling what’s basically an MSI Wind under the Averatec brand name. The netbook will be similarly configured to the Wind except that Averatec is considering bumping the hard drive from 80GB to 160GB, dropping the Bluetooth (whaaaey?), and only offering it with a three-cell battery. Production will start in the coming weeks and we’ll likely see these things for sale in the middle of September for between $400 and $500. → Read More
MSI recently announced the EX310 line of notebooks in Taiwan. The line is a 13.3-inch affair with many of the standard features that you’d find on similar offerings from various companies – 1280×800 resolution, dual-core mobile processor (AMD Turion X2), Vista Home Premium, integrated webcam, choice of 160/250/320GB hard drive, etc. There are also a few nice extras, though, such as a DVD burner/Blu-ray player, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 graphics card, HDMI output, Dolby Surround Sound, weight of just over four pounds, and 4GB of RAM. Unfortunately, pricing and availability are unknown and there’s no telling if these will make it to the US. [via Electronista] → Read More
Hey, looks like Best Buy hasn’t jacked up the price of the MSI Wind! If you’re still looking for one for under $500 and you’re okay with waiting 1-2 weeks, you may be able to grab one through Best Buy. It’s online-only, so don’t bother heading out to your local store. It’s also the three-cell battery version, too, but don’t let that dissuade you. It’s still a nice little lappie. Q2 – MSI Wind Laptop with Intel® Atom™ Processor [BestBuy.com] → Read More
What can we learn from this MSI Wind video review from our friends in Denmark? It is NOT waterproof. Not really. It’s what everyone on the blogs — on “The Engadget” — is talking about We may see a $100 Atom-based laptop within ten (10!) years Again, the Wind is not waterproof. The OLPC has a waterproof keyboard. Nobody knows when we’ll see the first ARM laptops running Google Android. Thanks to Charbax for sending this in. Enjoy! → Read More
MSI, most recently reviled by us for essentially pulling a bait-and-switch earlier this month, is perhaps hoping to regain some of the credibility it lost when it raised the price of its tiny notebook by $50 after the fact. Quick, kiss some babies! Recognizing our corporate social responsibility, MSI Notebook is taking the initiative to launch the “Love with the Wind” global charity program. This will take the form of charity donations in Taiwan, China, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Korea and India to give poor children a chance to learn how to use computers. Sounds good to me, charity is always nice, but considering the level of responsibility they demonstrated earlier, I’d like to take a good look at just how much of my purchase is going towards actually helping needy children. Call me cynical, but I do occasionally question corporations’ motives when they make moves like these. → Read More
Announced today from MSI is the GX series of gaming laptops packed with oodles of goodies that include Blu-ray drives, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 3D graphics cards and Intel Core 2 Duo procs. The ability to overclock the proc is pretty simple with the push of a touch sensor that’s located above the keyboard. Another seemingly cool feature via touch sensor allows you to switch between five different ECO Engine Power Management modes (gaming, movie, presentation, office, or Turbo Battery) to conserve battery life depending on the tasks you choose to do on your MSI. Full specs after the jump. Oh, the GX620 has a 15.4-inch screen while the 720 is a 17-inch screen. → Read More
If you’re not yet turned off by MSI’s recent price hikes or you have a three-cell version of the Wind already, a post over in the MSI Wind Forums details how to turn the small-ish three-cell battery into a whopping nine-cell battery. It looks relatively easy if you’re really determined, although I’d likely not attempt anything that involved slicing the battery open with a box cutter. Finding the extra six cells to add to the standard three cells might be a bit difficult, too, as the forum poster simply says that he was able to “get a source of the same batteries that are in the Wind” but doesn’t detail how the rest of us could get our hands on those batteries. If you’re the daring type, though, here’s a brief overview of the process. → Read More
Oh wow. Wow. This is a really odd decision. MSI has raised the prices of its Wind notebook (see our review here) from $479 to $499 for a version with Windows XP and a three-cell battery and from $499 to $549 for the version with XP and a six-cell battery. An MSI rep told Laptop the following: “Since the cost of the battery and materials raise (sp), we had no choice but adjust the MSRP to $499.99 with 3-cell battery and $549.99 with 6-cell.” To make matters worse, some retailers are hiking the price of the six-cell version up as high as $599. And – AND! – if that’s not enough, apparently some pending retail orders are being canceled because MSI now wants to sell them at the higher price. → Read More
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