MSI Wind U90X-007UK-WT80B

...the bullet and bought the MSI wind U90.

I've never been keen on netbooks since their release mainstream release, you'd be paying over £200 for slow machines with rather minuscule 8gb flash drives. However i was pleasantly surprised that the prices have dropped and the specs improved massively. The model I picked up was £230 at argos, and impressed me greatly in terms of it's specs, which are as follows:
Atom processor (1.6ghz dual ...
...whole. Great size, great appearance, great specs, and for the price, i'm astonished at what I could get! I really recommend the MSI wind U90 to anyone looking to buy a portable computer. It's also available in Black, white and pink variants so should cater for most audiences! Excellent product.  ... more

I stand here in honesty when I say this is so far, the best purchase I have made this year. I'm very much 'into' computing and have recently felt the need to have computing on the move. However I have since been put off laptops due to the premium prices and lack of power and battery life. Sure there are some powerful laptops out there, but a similar spec desktop pc costs a fraction of the price! But I really did get to the point where i needed a laptop and I am glad i bit the bullet and bought the MSI wind U90.

I've never been keen on netbooks since their release mainstream release, you'd be paying over £200 for slow machines with rather minuscule 8gb flash drives. However i was pleasantly surprised that the prices have dropped and the specs improved massively. The model I picked up was £230 at argos, and impressed me greatly in terms of it's specs, which are as follows:
Atom processor (1.6ghz dual core),
1GB of ram which can also be upgraded to 2GB
120GB hard drive
Built in Intel graphics
built in wifi, bluetooth and a 0.3 megapixel webcam.
Pre installed with windows XP (service pack 3)

overall it performs like a regular laptop with windows XP, and it performs well. The dual core processor and 1Gb ram mean that even for such a low price, it performs very well, and multi-tasks seamlessly. it's lack of a DVD drive is likely to put off some people, but I was well aware before I bought it and it's not an issue for myself.

The netbook itself is really small and very lightweight, but structurally very sound and strong. It has a nice shiny finish to it (I got the black model myself) and really looks very pleasing to the eye. It's style really does match it's performance! It's also supplied with a small carry bag which is quite handy, however does not have enough space to fit the charger in with it!

The screen is fairly small naturally, but has an impressive resolution of 1024X600. So width ways it's still well sized, just expect to do a bit more scrolling as the screen isn't very long! But it can easily display full size web pages and applications and it's as clear as any laptop screen i've seen. It can also achieve outstanding brightness levels, which really do well to combat glare from sunlight. But of course the higher the brightness, the more the battery drains.

Speaking of the battery, it claims that the standard battery lasts 2 1/2 hours (there is a 5 hour battery available) and it's certainly true to it's word. However this is when you save as much power as possible. So screen on the dimmest settings, and extra features such as wifi and bluetooth turned off. Like most laptops it has the 'Fn' key which you hold down to change the actions of various keys, particularly the Function keys (F1, F2 etc). These Fn functions are very useful as they give access to the various power saving features at the touch of a button. Such as screen brightness, Wifi and bluetooth toggles and 'power saving mode', which just seems to bring the screen brightness down even further. Although in my experience, apart from when there is a huge amount of screen glare, the very lowest setting is certainly adequate, and preserves the battery, particularly useful as I have Wifi on at practically all times.
Other functions are the standard volume up and down and webcam toggle.

As far as the additional features go, it's pretty good. The Wifi connection is fast and efficient, accepting wireless B & G signals, and it has very impressive range. Bluetooth works as well as anything these days, and the webcam does the job. 0.3 megapixels is nothing special, but for a built in camera on the cheapest netbook money can buy, just having one is impressive enough! And it's very much a peripheral extra for me, I have no real use for it.

it has 3 USB ports which is most useful, one of which is on the opposite side to the other two, useful as sometimes it's inconvenient for laptops to have them all on one side. It also has an output for a full size monitor as well as a LAN port if you have a wired internet connection.

it comes with a sheet that helps you start it up, and there's a full manual on the desktop as a PDF file that has everything you need to know. It has trials for anti virus software installed as well as a few little games to amuse the children, or me in my case!

I'm very impressed by the machine on the whole. Great size, great appearance, great specs, and for the price, i'm astonished at what I could get! I really recommend the MSI wind U90 to anyone looking to buy a portable computer. It's also available in Black, white and pink variants so should cater for most audiences! Excellent product. 

...less