MSI Wind U210 Mini Laptop review – price – Indian version
1 Nov
MSI Wind U100 has enjoyed moderate success despite poor marketing in India. Not learning from their mistakes, MSI has launched U120, a netbook that will now officially replace the aging MSI U100 netbook.
Also called the Wind 12, it costs more than the U100, Rs 23,500 ($500). However, we must note that it has an 12-inch display compared to the U100 that has a 10-inch display.
Battery life is around 4 hours with its 6-cell battery. U100 came with just 3 cell battery. The improvement in battery life in U120 is less due to the use of bigger display and AMD Neo platform. Note that MSI would be selling ones with 3-cell battery too. So, make sure to check the battery capacity before purchasing.
The display is really really nice. At 12-inches and 1366×768, it is bigger and packs more pixels than the normal netbooks that you see around. We are impressed by its contrast ratios and widescreen experience.
Most of the netbooks in India either use the aging Celeron 900MHz processor or the Atom processors. U120, do not use either of them and instead uses AMD Yukon MV40 processor that is also popularly known as AMD Neo processor in the world of netbooks.
Other than that, its specs are netbook-ish. It has 1GB RAM, 160GB hard disk and AMD Radeon X1250 graphics. It has 3 USB 2.0 ports, 4-in-1 card reader, VGA and LAN ports. The body is rugged enough to take up few bumps.
Again, unsurprisingly, it has been launched with weaker specs than the other International versions. International versions have 2GB RAM and have 250GB hard disk. Indian versions have 1GB RAM and 160GB hard disk. Oddly, they are both priced at the same rate (indian vs international version)
A 1.3MP webcam is also there for video-calling. HDMI-out is also there so that you can connect it to your Hi-Def monitor and watch videos in their native resolution.
Another thing to note is that we had some trouble in making the MSI Wind U210 playing the 1080p videos. Even while playing the 720p videos, it ran very hot.
Also, we were not much impressed with the boot time. Is the processor to be blamed for this? No. Blame MSI for bundling Vista on this machine.
Keyboard is great on it. Although we think that the right shift key could have been a bit bigger, we are not complaining as the keyboard is, otherwise, very nicely designed and has good feel to it.
It lacks optical drive. Keep that in mind.
