Finally I received my white U100 6 cell MSI Wind. I wanted to have a office computer which is small, light and has long battery life. My G50V is too big and heavy to carry around. So, I ordered a Wind hoping that it would be perfect for my office work since I don’t need powerful system.

So, I opened the box and when I saw this baby, I was like WTF? This thing is freaking small! I never thought 10 inch would be THIS small. Now I wonder how small 7 inch eeepc would be. I doubt I can work on this small screen for 10 hours everyday. Screen is ridiculously small. I wish it had end-to-end 1280*800 screen.

Config is pretty standard like other Atom based netbooks: 10 inch ( WSVGA LED), 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Card reader, 1.6GHz atom, bgn wireless, bluetooth, 3 USB, VGA, 1.3 MP webcam, XP Home.

So, here are my impressions:

1. Screen: Now as gorgeous as my G50. Not even close. Again, I’ve not seen other netbooks; so I’ll assume netbook screens are like this due to small size.

2. Speed: OK for normal work such as word processing, browsing etc.  Processor can be overclocked 8%-24% dynamically without going to BIOS. Even at 8% 720p video runs choppy (about 20fps) but at 15% it runs smooth.

3.  Keyboard & touchpad: OK, my biggest complain is Fn key placement. Both my HP and ASUS has Ctrl key at the left most corner but this one has Fn key (like Dell, Lenovo). So, I always press Fn key when I want to press Ctrl key. Pretty frustrating. Also, touchpad is very small and there is just one button for left and right click and its very narrow. Since I use bluetooth mouse that’s not a big issue. Keyboard is good. But I’m making a lot of typo. Arrow keys and “,./” (3keys) are narrow compared to other keys. I need some time to get used to.. lol

4. I tried to upgrade RAM with a 2GB RAM but it won’t recognize 2GB stick. It has onboard soldered 1GB RAM. So, you can add one more 1GB RAM. Built in speakers are crap but sufficient. I pluggd a pair of PX-100 and it sound nice. Webcam is OK for video chat.

5. Other thoughts: One nice thing I noticed is that unlike other laptops, MSI has made two partitions: 40GB OS partition and about 110GB another partition. Saved my time from resizing OS partition. Wind comes without any crapware preinstalled like ASUS. There was a folder with some software such as Norton and Powerdvd but I deleted it. I’ve not run a battery test but I’m hoping it should be 5+ hours with a 6cell battery.

Overall, it’s an excellent netbook. If you plan to buy an affordable 6cell netbook then look no further. You can turn it into a MacBook Wind if you want to I liked the new HP netbook but 3 cell is deal breaker for me.

MSI Wind Picture

Wind U100	Keyboard size
15.4 inch vs 10inch	G50V vs Wind
Too small	Size comparison
Back	in my hand
T-mobile G1 vs Wind	G1 vs Wind

Ah after a long time. I’ve been so busy with job and stuffs. Now I’m bit free to do things I love to do.. GAMING!

Finally I got rid of my old Compaq laptop and bought a new ASUS G50V-X1 Gaming laptop from Newegg. It has been a long time since I played a good game. I’ve received my new laptop yesterday evening. Since then I’ve been trying out some of the highest rated games such as Crysis, COD4, Portal etc. So far I’m very impressed with this baby. It looks like a gaming laptop and performs like one. I wish ASUS had put a 9800GT in this system.

Config: Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26G, 15.4″ WSXGA+, 4GB DDR2, 200GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT 512MB DDR3 VRAM and other usual stuffs. It comes with 2 years international warranty and 1 year ASUS Accidental Damage Warranty.

I’m not going to do any review since there are plenty of them over notebookreview.com. But I did a little benchmark with 3DMark06 and Crysis (with Crysis benchmark tool) and the results are pretty much same with notebookreview benchmark.

Apart from the laptop which comes with 200GB 7200RPM HDD, I purchased another 250GB 7200 RPM HDD. Now I have a sweet 450GB HDD. I also got a Cyber Snipa Gamepad because I don’t want to torcher the keyboard like I did with my last laptop (had to replace the keyboard once :p). Along With the Laptop I also received a Logitech MX518 Gaming mouse, Alone in the dark DVD,  and a cool Backpack for FREE! Overall I’m pretty satisfied with my purchase.

My laptop is pretty old and configuration is not that great: Intel core solo 1.8GHz, 945GM, and 1GB RAM. Initially I thought Leopard won’t run on this config, but I thought of taking a chance. Previously I tried Tiger on this same laptop which worked as expected. So far Leopard is running great. It takes about 15 seconds to boot up and 5 seconds to shut down.. :O Speed is amazing. It takes less than 500MB RAM with all those eye candies and runs pretty smooth and very responsive. Applications open up in within a second. It is hard to believe considering the fact that its a non Apple computer. I have Arch Linux installed which takes about 300 MB RAM with default Gnome installation without any eye candy and windows XP which takes about 500MB RAM with many startup programs. Overall I’m very impressed with speed, simplicity and of course look!

Now the bad news. As usual, Intel 3945ABG wireless card is the culprit; my wireless is not working. Not a problem. I’m ordering a USB wireless card which is mac compatible. And headphone jack is not working. So I have to stick to boring laptop speakers till I get a USB sound card (not anytime soon).

I’m planning to transfer all my works from Windows to Leopard once I get that wireless card. Let me try out leopard for sometime. Specialy I want to see how web development goes on Mac. If I like it then a MBP is locked on my wishlist.