After Long delay (Yes this is ALL my fault and I do take all responsibility for it, sorry :( ) here without further ado is the MSI Wind U135 Review:

When I first emailed MSI A few months ago about getting a review unit MSI Wind, I did not immediately get a response. A month or so later I did get a response from someone who was very willing to send me a Wind. I asked about a U160 which they did not have in stock (Which I will attempt to review later) but I did manage to get a U135, which is second best.

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The MSI Wind U135 we got contains an N450 Atom Processor running at 1.66GHZ, and 1GB Onboard RAM. It has a 160GB or 250 GB Seagate HD and it comes preloaded with Windows 7 Starter (More on that later). The first thing you notice when you open the machine is gloss, and by gloss I do mean gloss. The machine is pretty much ALL glossy apart from the bottom case. And as you can imagine, fingerprints begin to occupy the glossy surfaces quite quickly.

The rest is after the jump.


Compared to it’s ancestors the U100 and the U120 there are some visual cues shared from both models. The U135 has the LED lights from the U120 and the general rounded design of the U100. The Trackpad button is shiny faux metal like the U120 but is a single rocker like the U100. The Trackpad itself is much larger as proudly proclaimed on the box. The trackpad has an interesting design on it, a striped gray pattern, which is also shared on the glossy lid.

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The Keyboard gets it’s own paragraph, because it might be one of the biggest reasons to upgrade. It’s in the awesome chiclet format, which places spaces between the keys. MSI really did get down to the nitty gritty with the design with the spaces between the keys being glossy. The Right shift key got shrunken because of the smaller keys, but that is a small price to pay for the improved typing experience.

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The Screen is bright and has a glossy shine to it, which of course causes reflections and it shows vivid colors well.

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In some circumstances you can see your face in the screen.
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As demonstrated here

The Hinge of the machine appears to have improved and is smoother than the U100 and U120 hinges.

The ports on the machine remain unchanged from previous versions of MSI Wind, 3 USB, VGA out, Sound in/out, Charger, and SD Slot reader.

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Windows 7 is really nice and zippy on this laptop, and it comes preloaded with a nice bundle of software including: Kidoz (Browsing for little Kids), Magic-i Webcam suite (PhotoBooth clone). The Windows 7 install comes installed with the normal suite of programs that windows normally comes with. HD Video playback on YouTube is essentially a slideshow, as the N450 struggles with flash, 720p and 1080p suffered. Standard def plays very smooth and nice.

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The Battery life appears to be fantastic, I haven’t done many tests with it yet, but the machine had been on hibernation with on and off use for 30 days and is just now running out of battery. The Battery is a standard MSI Wind battery with it being compatible with the U100, U120, etc.

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Showing the 6-cell battery

This U135 is a great upgrade for Wind users looking for a new style of Netbook. While in performance this U135 offers a modest bump in speed.

Here is a Slideshow of pictures of the MSI Wind U135:

Pros
- Better looking design.
- Windows 7 preinstalled
- Depending on Model bigger HD
- MSI Quality.
- Tried and true design, which is sturdy and overall good.

Cons
- Relatively meager performance bump
- Almost same design.
- No OSX compatibility thus far
- Gloss is a fingerprint magnet.

8/10 stars.

Direct Link to photo album:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mars478/sets/72157624666562168/