Author Archive: Matt

MSI Wind U100 Review

The MSI Wind U100  – Less is more

Only just recently I was writing in the Gigabyte M912 review about how yet another sub-notebook had appeared and, guess what? Here’s another! For those of you, who like to fast-forward to the conclusion bit first, let me save you the trouble: this is my idea of a proper portable computer.

Buy one!

The MSI Wind

Introduction

Right, now that we’ve got that out of the way, if you want to know more then read on.

It seems that the sub-notebook/ultra-portable market has exploded like an egg does in the microwave. From the pioneering EeePC of a little over a year ago, we suddenly find ourselves swamped with the things. There’s very much a bandwagon feel about the whole idea these days with so many manufacturers getting in on the act and with not much innovation going on. To some extent Asus have themselves to blame for that with their very own bloated range of EeePCs.

MSI themselves are well-known for making motherboards and graphics cards, but like Gigabyte they are less well-known for their computers. How does their interpretation of the sub-notebook stack up? Well if you read my opening paragraph then you’ll probably know.

What’s in the box?

1. MSI Wind.
2. Mains charger.
3. Drivers/utilities CD.
4. Sleeve case.
5. Quick-start guide.

General

The form factor of the Wind is entirely conventional: a sub notebook of approximate EEPC 900 size, but with a larger 10” TFT screen. It’s conventional in all senses in terms of appearance – there’s nothing really new or revolutionary about it, but where it differs is in the complete sum of its parts, the quality of the build and design, and the way it translates into the user experience.

Overall the Wind is a little bit bigger and heavier than the EeePC, but the upside of this is that the chassis feels sturdy, it doesn’t creak or distort and it feels right in the hand. Its appearance is fairly sober being dressed in all black (the more flamboyant might elect for the pink version though!). I like the result – it looks right too.

Controls and ports:

• On the main chassis, right side beneath the screen: On/Off switch.
• Above the screen: 1.3Mp webcam and microphone.
• Below the front lip: two speakers.
• On the left: Kensington lock socket, power socket, cooling vents, 2 x USB2.0 ports.

MSI Wind left side

 

• On the right: Ethernet port, VGA out, headphone socket, microphone socket, SD card slot, 1x USB2.0 ports.

 

MSI Wind right side

 

• On the back: access to the battery.

 

The MSI Wind U100 closed

 

MSI Wind U100 Specification:

• CPU: Intel ® N270 Atom 1.6GHz
• Operating System : Genuine Microsoft Windows XP Home
• Chipset: Intel ® 945GSE
• System Configuration Memory: 1GB
• 10”LCD panel, 1280×600 pixels with LED backlight.
• HDD 2.5", 9.5mm SATA HDD
• Keyboard 80 key keyboard/Touch Pad
• I/O Port USB X 3,Mic in, Earphone out, D-SUB RJ45, SD/MMC/MS/MS pro
• Audio Speaker x 2
• Bluetooth 2.0 built-in
• Web Camera 1.3M pixel web camera
• Networking: Wireless LAN 802.11b/g, 10/100 LAN
• Protection: Kensington lock
• Battery: Li-ion 2200mAh, Battery life 3.5 hrs (claimed)
• Dimensions: 260 x 180 x 19-31.5mm
• Weight 1.15kg
• 1year RTB warranty

Highlights:

• Bright, large and sharp screen
• Speedy performance
• Lightweight
• Ample connectivity
• Good hardware specification
• Good build quality

Lowlights:

• Battery life
• Not easily expandable

Review

The Wind comes in a variety of specifications with the differences being a choice of combination between Windows Home or Linux and 1GB or 512MB or RAM. The review machine ran Microsoft Windows XP Home. XP Home is not my favoured version of XP, but its choice for this application is a sensible one well-suited to modestly-specified hardware.

In use the machine proved to be very responsive at all times. The 1GB of RAM and 1.6 GHz Intel Atom cpu were more than amply sufficient for all tasks I threw at it. Applications launched quickly, menus popped up with no noticeable lag and boots times were very short. In general use it felt as fast as my dual core Toshiba laptop. I am the sort of geek who likes to strip out unnecessary clutter from operating systems and using something like XP Lite would probably yield some significant performance improvements again.

As a test of the Wind’s portability and usability I took it with me on holiday to the wilds of north-west Scotland with my very limited luggage aboard my motorcycle. The Wind was ideal – back at base in my hotel in the evening I was able to view high-quality photos I had taken on my travels and watch high-quality video filmed with my onboard camera, whilst picking up mails, doing a bit of surfing and drinking some very fine Isle of Skye Blaven beer in the bar. Fantastic – this is what the portable computing experience should be about.

The keyboard was spacious; it felt solid and better than many vastly more expensive laptops. It gave good tactile feedback and proved to be easy to use – again the best by far of any sub-note I have used. As one might expect, there’s a number of function keys situated on the top row of the keyboard to allow quick access to wi-fi/bluetooth, speaker mute, screen brightness and lock controls.

The MSI Wind keyboard

 

The mouse glidepad was good for a machine of this size and the mouse buttons I am pleased to say were the best of any sub-note that I have used to date – better than the Acer Aspire One or any of the Eees. Nothing more needs to be said.

The screen is a 1024×600 affair capable of displaying enough information for the sort of use intended. Unlike the M912 I reviewed it’s bright and sharp. It is also physically bigger than any other machine at 10” which, means that everything is bigger and clearer. I suffered no eye strain using it for several hours at a time.

Video and mp3 playback was faultless. As with all laptops the speakers were lightweight, but audio performance through headphones was just fine. This is a machine I would be happy to watch a movie on at any time. Several movies in fact.

The 80GB 2.5” SATA hdd was speedy and capacious enough. It was also divided into several partitions with one for the main operating system, one for data and another for backup purposes. I’m pleased to note that the latest revision of the Wind at the time of writing had received an upgrade to a 120GB drive for no price increase. Nice.

The MSI Wind comes with built-in 802.11/g wi-fi, Bluetooth and an Ethernet port to satisfy all connectivity requirements. For me these are essential and I suspect that this would be so for anyone else. There’s no firewire port, but one could argue that it’s superfluous on a machine that is unlikely to be used for video editing work.

The battery is a 2200mAh item that proved to be disappointing when it came to endurance – lasting only for about 2hrs of general use. More could possibly be squeezed from it when using the “turbo battery” mode which basically downclocks the processor to 800Mhz, but as most drain is due to the hard drive and screen then I doubt it would deliver a significant improvement. This sort of life is perhaps the only chink in the Wind’s armour because its sheer usability encourages one to use it lots and this is only limited by the short battery life. The battery itself is housed very securely within the rear of the chassis which, adds to the overall feel of good quality.

One other disappointment is the lack of access to the hard drive bay and memory slots/s. Basically there is none – access would require the machine to be taken apart and would, of course, void the warranty. The good news is that with XP Home extra RAM is not really ever going to be necessary.

Software

As already mentioned this machine comes with Windows XP Home. It also comes with a trial version Office 2007. I’d be tempted to take this off straightaway and install the free Open Office instead. I am glad to say that there was no other software installed, this is good because I prefer to add software of my choice rather than have the price lifted by unwanted clutter.

Conclusion

So how does the MSI Wind stack up? As you can tell, I liked the machine a lot. As a portable computer it succeeds totally. Whilst the individual components differ little from much of the opposition, the end result is somehow “more” and incredibly effective. It’s small without being too small. It’s light but feels well-built, it’s roomy but highly portable, it’s reasonably powerful and noticeably quick. It’s a proper small computer that feels like it has been designed to be an effective proper small computer without being toy-like.

EeePC devotees might complain that the price is perhaps getting on for being on the high side of the market at £349 (it can be found cheaper), but it’s a price worth paying and one that I am happy to dig into my pocket for considering the quality of the overall package. Of course, full-size laptops can be had for this amount of money, but that ignores the merits of this machine.

It’s by far the best of the breed to date and puts everything else in the shade.

 

Review by: Nigel

Samsung i300 review

Introduction

I’ll be honest. The i300 passed me by on release, and when Matt asked me to check out a WM2003 device, I wasn’t exactly excited by the prospect. However, the i300 does have a few unique selling points, and you could say was ahead of its time, meaning it could be worth a look even today.

The Samsung i300

What’s in the box?

As usual for Samsung, there’s a box full of goodies, two batteries and even a dock included.

• Samsung i300
• AC Charger
• Docking cradle
• Standard battery
• Extended battery
• Direct USB connection
• Headset

Samsung i300 Specification:

• Dimensions : 113 x 48 x 20 (mm)
• Weight : 121 g
• Talk time: up to 7 hours
• Standby time: up to 200 hours
• Display type: TFT, 256K colors at 240 x 320 pixels
• Camera: 2 Megapixel, 1280×1024 pixels, video captue/playback, with flash
• Bluetooth, v1.2
• MP3/WMA/AAC/MPEG4 player
• Operating system: Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 SE
• Memory: 3 GB microdrive, 64 MB internal memory, expandable via TransFlash memory cards
• Tri band: GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900

General

There isn’t much to see on the top of the Samsung i300, just the black iRDA ‘window’.

Samsung i300 top view

On the bottom you’ll find plastic cover over the proprietary Sync/Charge connector.

Samsung i300 bottom view

On the left hand side you can find another plastic cover over the proprietary headphone connector. Below there a buttons for voice recorder, keylock and volume control.

Samsung i300 left side

Looking to the right side there’s yet another cover, this time it covers the MicroSD/Transflash card slot. There’ also a dedicated camera button and two additional soft keys.

Samsung i300 right side

The Samsung i300 has a decent looking keypad with regular numeric pad and standard smartphone shortcut keys. In the middle is a rotating jog dial that works to scroll through the phone’s menus as stored media files.

Samsung i300 keypad

Unusually, the Samsung i300 package includes a neat docking station that allows you to charge the device and the spare battery at the same time.

The Samsung i300 in its dock

 

Review

So why are we reviewing an older smartphone? A few reasons really. For a start eXpansys want you to buy one, but I was also interested in the retro looks of the device, and of course the 3gb “microdrive”.

3gb isn’t a great deal now with the iPhone, but then this isn’t anywhere near the cost of one. It’s was, until the Diamond, the only WM based device to have built in storage. It’s an interesting phone and is as quick as any of the devices being launched today.

The retro look comes from a mix of black and silver plastic, but feels very well built. The sides are filled with various shortcut hardware buttons, and although these make it look a bit business orientated, most are of some use.

Throughout it’s life, it has, perhaps oddly, been pushed as a consumer device (and in the marketing, you’d be forgiven for thinking the hard disk only accepts music files!). This seems a little strange to me, as its crying out to be used in enterprise. Its a true USB Stick/phone combo, and 3gb of storage, plus a decent well spec’ed phone for £70 seems good.

The i300 of course does beat the likes of Sony Walkman phones in terms of storage, but the teenage girl crowd are not going to want to carry around i300! Style wise then, it is in a niche market, but I do firmly believe it retains its use even now – especially with now stupidly low pricing – it even comes with a decent set of headphones and a headphone adapter for those wishing to use their own headphones.

i300 headphone adapter

As you might expect, music (and anything else) is easily synced to the device with a combination of Windows Media Player and ActiveSync, but unfortunately the built in speakers are pretty awful. As usual, and as most people do, using earphones improves the quality no end.

As well as the full scale hard disk, the i300 still supports external micro-sd cards, which can be hot swapped without removing the battery.

There’s is sadly no way of upgrading the device from its rather old WM2003 Second Edition despite the fact that later builds of the i300 did include WM5.

The usual array of software is available on the device immediately – and Samsung have also added “Picsel viewer” which opens most Office documents.

The built in camera at 1.3meg is acceptable, but does struggle to perform at the levels expected these days. The camera button is on the right hand side of the phone, next to a button dedicated to the standard profile selection screen. This doubles up with a long press to activate flight mode. A third button applies the keylock.

On the right hand side, there is the volume rocker switch, the headphones port, and a voice control/voice recorder button.

The front of the phone is typical retro candybar looks. Screen at the top, buttons at the bottom, and the standard WM softkeys. The navigation ring is really useful though. First off its the usual 5-way direction pad, but the ring itself also spins, with a ridge to make it even easier to navigate through websites and other documents. It is also the method used to digitally zoom the camera.

I really do want to love this phone, and considering its age, its still amazingly useful and easy to use. It is big, and perhaps a bit too heavy. It just about gets away with it, because you do get something for the hassle – the hard disk. I do hope it can withstand a few heavy falls though!

The battery life is acceptable, although you will lose access to the hard disk when the battery drops to a certain level. This will at least in theory give you a little bit of extra time to get home and recharge! The package does include an extra battery that you can carry for the emergency situations.

Samsung i300 battery packs

Highlights

• Nice retro look
• 3gb memory
• High quality screen
• Decent battery life

Lowlights

• A little too heavy
• WM2003 and seemingly no WM5 upgrade available

Conclusion

For all its minor niggles, I can’t help liking the i300, despite its age, and the older OS. The 3gb storage is a really nice addon, and its what separates this from other devices of its time – and makes it a worthwhile purchase for some even now.

 

Review by: Mark

Gigabyte M912 review

It seems that not a day passes by without yet another sub-notebook PC appearing on the scene. For years the laptop/notebook market has been fairly stagnant. The arrival of the Asus Eee PC changed all that. Suddenly light, cheap and low-powered was in. A year on and we have a rapidly expanding choice. So, where does that leave the new M912 from Gigabyte?

The Gigabyte M912 (click to enlarge)

Introduction

People are beginning to wake up to the fact that for general all-round everyday computing tasks a hugely powerful, thirsty and expensive computer just isn’t required and, what use is a computer if it’s tethered to a desk back at home or in the office? 17” laptops are all very well, but if you have to carry one for any distance then the attraction soon pales and by default they almost become irrelevant. In steps the sub-notebook with its small form factor, adequate power for mail/web/media etc and a decent battery life. The Asus Eee PC started the current trend off, but in fact Psion were probably the first back in 2000 with their lovely little Netbook running their own superb O/S.

The M912 is one of the latest of the breed and at first glance would appear to be almost the ideal portable computer.

 

What’s in the box?

1. The Gigabyte M912.
2. Plug in wall charger.
3. Drivers/utilities CD.
4. Stylus
5. Carry case.
6. Quick-start guide

General

Gigabyte are perhaps better known for their motherboards, but they have actually been manufacturing laptops for quite some time now – they just aren’t one of the more well-known brands.

The form factor of the M912 is what we’ve come to expect: a sub notebook of Eee PC size with an 8.9” TFT screen. It’s conventional in all senses in terms of appearance, but literally with a slight twist on things – it has a swivel screen that allows it to transform into a tablet PC using a touch-screen interface (more of this later).

 

Control and ports:

On the front face: two speakers and the LCD touch screen.

Gigabyte M912 screen

On the left: Ethernet port, USB2.0 port, memory car slot, PC Express card slot.

Gigabyte M912 left side

On the right: power jack, VGA out, headphone socket, microphone socket, 2x USB2.0 ports, On/Off switch.

Gigabyte M912 right side

On the back: access to the battery

 

Gigabyte M912 Specification:

• CPU Intel ® Atom 1.6GHz
• Operating System : Genuine Microsoft Windows VISTA®Home Basic
• Chipset Intel ® 945GSE
• System Configuration Memory : 1GB, HDD 160GB
• LCD 8.9”LCD panel/WXGA 1280×768, w/Touch screen, LED Backlight, as 180° rotation angle
• HDD 2.5", 9.5mm S-ATA HDD
• Keyboard 80 key keyboard/Touch Pad
• I/O Port USB X 3,Mic in, Earphone out, D-SUB RJ45, Express card, SD/MMC/MS
• Audio Speaker 1.5 watt x 2
• Bluetooth 2.0 built-in
• Web Camera 1.3M pixel web camera
• Wireless LAN 802.11b/g by mini-card
• Protection Kensington lock
• Battery Li-ion 4500mAh, Battery life 3.5 hrs (claimed)
• Dimensions: 235 x 180 x 28~42mm
• Weight 1.3kg (include 2.5"HDD)

Highlights:

• Speedy performance.
• Lightweight.
• Ample connectivity.
• Good hardware specification.
• Fully featured powerful operating system.

Lowlights:

• Feels a little bit delicate.
• Screen is not one of the brightest and has a gritty appearance.
• On/Off button is small and placed in an unconventional position.
• Battery life is on the low side.

Review

The 912 uses Microsoft Vista Home Basic. Obviously it is a fully-featured operating system and once all of Vista’s eye candy was turned off, in use it felt responsive enough with applications launching quickly. Occasionally there was some lag with menus appearing, but I think this is probably more of a Vista quirk than anything thing else. The 1 gig of RAM in theory is to close to the minimum requirement for Vista, however, in practice coupled with the 1.6Ghz Intel Atom cpu the 912 proved to be more than ample for most general computing tasks. The machine never felt like it was short of horsepower and, as a result, it felt like a proper computer capable of handling most normal tasks thrown at it – only smaller. Perhaps the only limitations to this machine’s ability would be video editing.

The 160GB 2.5” SATA hdd was speedy enough and it’s inconceivable to me that this would be insufficient for all but the most hungry of power users. No doubt this could probably be upgraded to something larger again if you felt the need.

With built-in 802.11/g wi-fi, Bluetooth and an Ethernet port there is ample connectivity. Bluetooth is a real boon from my point of view as it allowed easy tethering of my mobile phone and PDA. Well done Gigabyte.

The power supply did not come with a UK plug and lead – I suspect that this would be because I was using a review unit. The battery is a 4500mAh item that proved sufficient for about 2hrs of use – somewhat less than claimed. This lower than claimed life was probably due to me using the screen almost always on maximum brightness and no doubt more could be eeked from it with careful adjustment of the power-savings functions. This sort of life a little bit on the low side when compared to the latest sub-notebooks, particularly the Asus EEPC 901 which has a battery life in excess of 5 hours. However, it is unlikely anyone would want to use one of these machines for such extended periods due to their small form factor.

There is a webcam placed centrally above the screen so, video conferencing is entirely possible using something like Skype or MSN Messenger. Personally, I am happy for my contacts not to see my ugly face, but if you’re a teenager then it will certainly appeal!

The mouse glidepad was adequate and featured a scroll area that allowed pages to be scrolled up and down. The left-right buttons mouse buttons had a slightly stiff action, but at least they were positive and caused no problems.

The keyboard was easy to use once I had got used to the physically smaller layout. I wouldn’t want to spend hours writing a lengthy dissertation on it, but it is fine for most uses. It was firm and tactile with good feedback – I’ve used worse on many much larger laptops. Those of you with big hands might struggle, but I was happy with it. There’s number of function keys on it to allow quick access to wi-fi, speaker mute, screen brightness and lock controls – pretty much as one would expect of any other laptop.

Gigabyte M912 keyboard & Touch pad

The screen is a 1280×768 affair capable of displaying more than enough information. However, it’s somewhat disappointing in that it’s not very bright and it has a gritty appearance. I found I had to keep the backlighting on maximum at all times and it’s nowhere near as good as many pdas, mobile phones or other sub-notebooks. Clearly some compromises have had to be made to keep the cost down and it does spoil the experience somewhat because in all other ways the 912 a fine portable computer.

Gigabyte M912 hinge detail

The screen is swivel-screen that allows the 912 to function as a tablet computer and in this mode it is fine is all respects. The hinge doesn’t feel like it’s particularly robust and if I owned one of these I would be taking great care of it as it’s easy to try to twist and rotate the screen in the wrong direction – this is potential for disaster as this would most likely render the machine uneconomic to repair. Most curiously, there was no receptacle for the stylus. I am not convinced that Vista is a good o/s for this sort of use, but that’s a different discussion altogether and not really any fault of the machine’s design. Personally, I can see no use for tablet pcs and I much prefer to use the 912 as a conventional highly portable computer.

MP3 playback through headphones was good enough and I noticed no skips or pauses. The speakers were lightweight of course. Video performance was good with some of my own Windows Media Video files filmed from my motorcycle, the only limitation being the screen. Watching a DivX movie is a realistic proposition.

Software

As already mentioned this machine comes with Windows Vista. You either like it or you don’t. There is nothing extra in terms of software it’s very basic – there’s no office suite for example. Again this is probably a cost-cutting measure, but installing something like Open Office is easy enough and the machine will run it without effort.

Conclusion

So how does the M912 fare? As a portable pc it succeeds very well. It’s small, light, reasonably powerful and well-connected. It’s a proper computer in a small box and it coped with everything I threw at it without breaking into a sweat. For someone who travels a lot like myself it’s almost perfect. The price of £440 inclusive of VAT puts it very much at the higher end of the market and well into the budget “full-size” laptop zone where it compares unfavourably against dual-core machines in terms of performance. However, portability always has come with a higher price tag.

I think I would have preferred it to have been equipped with a lightweight flavour of Linux that would allow all sorts of software expansion at no extra cost and which would have probably boosted performance to very pleasing levels. This would also have had the advantage of reducing the cost of the device which, I feel is on for the high side of acceptable. However, if you’re in the market for an accomplished portable computer then the 912 is a good choice and I would be happy to own one.

 

Review by: Nigel