MSI netbook gets second Wind…

Friday, July 11th, 2008

You may have read our review of the MSI Wind earlier in the week. If you didn’t, here’s the deal: we liked it. A lot.

So we were even more pleased to discover that the very same laptop was going to be available from PC World for signicantly less cash – £32 to be precise at £238 exc VAT. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, we reckon.

Aside from the slightly different colour scheme – the Advent 4211 Netbook has a black lid where our MSI review sample was all decked out in white – it’s an identical piece of kit. A decent 10in, 1,024 x 600 resolution wide screen is complemented by one of the most usable keyboards we’ve yet seen in a netbook – and the trackpad’s not bad either.

Inside is an 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor and this is backed up by 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard disk and around the edges is a decent array of ports and expansion slots. With this specification, the 4211’s XP installation will run at a fair old lick.

The battery is, unfortunately, also the same – with a minimal capacity of 2,200mAh promising similar, underwhelming battery life.

Still, we gave the MSI Wind U100 five stars in our original review, and the lower price means this version looks even better value for that rating. Look out for a full review very soon…