Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've only had this a week but I've already started using it a lot and have been pleasantly surprised seeing just how far I can push this little rascal!
You can take it anywhere as it's the size of a small book and is very lightweight for a laptop. Traditional notebook laptops are designed to be desktop replacements, so they can end up too big, too heavy, and generally just too *much* for checking your email or editing a Word document in the few minutes you have whilst waiting for the train.
The U100 however, appears to more suitable for moving around frequently and using whenever you get a few moments to spare. It's a great size, any larger than 10" and it would no longer classify as a "netbook" class of laptop, any smaller and the screen would be less practical for serious use. Also, 10" screens have the correct aspect ratio for webpage viewing, you don't get wasted blank space at the sides as I've heard can happen with smaller screens.
It's incredibly portable, surprisingly powerful when overclocked and RAM doubled, good value, nice to type on (80% size keys), and even looks good. It's much more responsive running XP than I had expected, it actually behaves like a desktop PC! Microsoft has clearly removed a lot of their bloatware from XP to give these smaller systems the best chance of running quickly.
It performed well straight out of the box, but I spent a good couple of evenings setting it up *properly.* ie. removing the usual bundled bloatware (came with 3GB of Encarta pre-installed. *shudder*), 30 second trial versions of things you wouldn't use anyway etc.... and now this baby is positively flying along!
So after removing the bloat, installing my own software (Office 2003/2007, MSN, Skype, AVG, Firefox 3, ZoneAlarm, Adobe PDF, heck even Photoshop CS3! Disabled unnessary processes from running in MSCONFIG. After setting everything up just the way nature intended, running PerfectDisk defragmenter and a boot-time defragmentation pass- my U100 was good to go. (well nearly) But there were a couple of things to do first...
On to.... the 1.6GHz Intel Atom PROCESSOR... well, overclocking it to be precise:
It's great as it is out of the box, but you can get it to go 24% faster if you upgrade the BIOS to 1.10B then toggle Turbo mode with Fn + F10 when plugged into the mains. This won't void your warranty as this is an official BIOS update from MSI. Fn + F10 when running on battery *underclocks* it so the processor only runs at 800Mhz and the screen brightness is reduced, prolonging the battery life. I know, it's pretty cool. The light on the power switch shows you which of the 3 power modes is currently in use.
I tested the computer with a freeware utility called "cpuinfo.exe" to see what clock speeds *really* were when it was running at 1) "Eco mode" (green power light) 2) normal power mode (blue power light) and 3) "Turbo mode" (power light goes orange) I found that the CPU of the U100 now happily purrs along at 1984MHz when overclocked -so it's basically increased by exactly 24% as the option states in the BIOS. You can choose between 8%, 16%, or 24%, but from what I've read it's running stable for everyone at 24% (myself included) so you might as well set the overclock to maximum in the BIOS, you can always change it if you need to later.
This 24% increase in speed to just under 2GHz is awesome, especially when all the other Atom processor netbooks use the same processor and can't be overclocked (to the best of my knowledge) so are stuck at 1.6GHz. So the U100 has a clear advantage over its rivals here.
What about the MEMORY?
Comes with 1GB, takes about 20 minutes and only about $40 to double that to its maximum 2GB. You don't void the warranty to do this, and it's dead easy. Take the 9 screws out underneath, pull the bottom half of the case off, just remember there is an on board stick of 1GB DDR2-667MHz RAM, and the expansion slot won't recognise a 2GB module. So you fill the empty slot with 1GB and that's it, memory doubled. I nearly bought a 2GB module by mistake before I read about the onboard memory.
The newer U120 apparently cannot be upgraded from its 1GB of RAM, has the same processor, and has a shorter battery life. You're *much* better off with the U100 if only because you aren't stuck with the 1GB RAM.
What about the HARD DRIVE?
The 160BG hard drive on this tiny 1Kg laptop is very generous- you wouldn't be surprised to get half that capacity on a device such as this. In fact, some versions apparently do ship with an 80BG drive instead. With all my software installed on top of the Windows operating system, I still have 129GB to play with!
The inbuilt card reader works well with my camera's Sony Memory Stick Pro card, and also takes SD cards and probably all the main memory card types.
WIRELESS card:
The built-in wireless card provides outstanding reception and I haven't had any dropped connections since I bought it. It works with all 3 WLAN standards (802.11b/g/n) and naturally works with WEP/WPA wifi encryption.
The 1.3mp WEBCAM is good enough, the SPEAKERS are fine for a small laptop and quite usable, though when I'm at home I plug in my Creative I-Trigue 3300 (my favourite 2.1 system)
Thankfully the TOUCHPAD keys are beneath rather than to the sides of the touchpad which so many other netbooks I've seen have. That's something I would struggle to ever be comfortable with. Although I like the touchpad, I plug in my USB mouse when using it at home as it's easier to use.
PORTS: There are 3 usb ports (two left, one right), VGA port (when connected to my Samsung Syncmaster it can support the large 19" LCD monitor's native 1400 x 900 and looks great!) This is great, bearing in mind the onboard graphics card normally spends its time churning out the U100's 1024 x 600 native resolution instead. It's only when you want to duplicate the video output to an external LCD *as well* as the U100's own screen that it will be forced to display the same 1024 x 600 resolution on the external monitor. This isn't a problem, just an observation. Normally you'd only have one active or the other at any given time.
BLUETOOTH 2.1 is supported. I haven't used it yet but it it's nice to have with all the BT devices around these days.
Very useful row of 8 LEDs shows you Bluetooth, WLAN, sleep, battery, caps, num, scroll lock, and hard drive activity all in the same place.
Criticisms:
Full stop key and comma key are a slightly reduced size, but I'm used to it already. Only took a few days of touch typing to adjust.
Watch out you don't buy the bilingual version in Canada. In London Drugs they sell it with the good old US keyboard, but in Staples they stock a U100 plagued with all sorts of extra keys meant for typing French accents more easily, and most of the keys have everything in French and English, the clutter is annoying. Too bad no one pointed out it's probably no use to anyone outside of Quebec.
It is slightly front heavy due to the battery position, not a problem really, but something to bear in mind when positioning it on your lap for typing.
There's no CD/DVD drive. You don't need one anyway though, just transfer the contents from CDs onto a USB stick in another PC (or over the network) and use them as per usual. Optical drives take up space and use battery power, so not having them is no big loss, even though it seems strange to have a laptop with no CD drive in the 21 Century!
Two other important points:
YOU CAN INSTALL MAC OSX86 (a hacked version of OSX which can run on non-apple hardware. Google for the installer and a how-to guide.) It's a hugely popular mod... so I hear.
You can install Linux on it- this deserves more attention than I just gave it.
(You can have dual boot, or even triple boot systems with Windows, Mac OSX86 and Linux depending on your personal preference and computer literacy)
"Netbooks" are supposed to compromise on power and functionality to increase their portability. Hence they are often thought of as mobile internet access devices incapable of doing anything even moderately groovy...
...but when you have one running at 2GHz, with 2GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive and all the onboard peripherals you could wish for -it doesn't look like such a compromise after all!
Youtube shows people playing various games on it, so don't think that's not a possibility either!
Warcraft 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cT0KxnDoYM
Need for Speed Underground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms8SuIzeJM8
F.E.A.R.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWT5_DypySs
I hope my ramblings have been informative! Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts.
I typed all this on my U100 :)
Click Here to see more reviews about: MSI Wind U100-641US 10-Inch Black Netbook - 3 Cell Battery
Click here for more information about MSI Wind U100-641US 10-Inch Black Netbook - 3 Cell Battery
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