MSI Wind U115 Hybrid: SSD+HHD = REALLY Long Battery Life
August 3 2009 Categorized Under: netbooks Tags; $350 netbook, hackintosh, MSI, MSI Wind, MSI WInd netbook, MSI Wind U115 Hybrid, netbook longest battery life, SSD netbook No Commented
MSI Wind netbooks have been very well received in the market so far and now their new netbook is likely to have a similar or greater amount of success. MSI claims that the new Wind U115 Hybrid netbook has the world’s first hybrid storage technology in a netbook that enables it to have amazing mobility and battery life. The hacker community has not said anything about the Hackintosh-ability of this new MSI Wind, so we just have to wait for that one.
The MSI Wind netbook has been a well-loved netbook and it received more love when hackers announced that it is a great machine for making a portable Hackintosh out of. Hackintosh as the name suggests, is a machine that runs the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware through low-level hacks and pacthes. This essentially breaks all EULA (End User License Agreement) rules regarding how a user is to use the OS but when has that ever stopped the hackers?
Anyway, the new MSI Wind U115 packs something entirely new that just might prove to the next best thing. This new netbook has a combination storage made up of an SSD and an HDD. The idea here is that the SSD can run the OS itself (Windows XP) and the HDD can be used for storage.
MSI tells you that you can switch to the SSD with an included hotkey and shut off the HDD completely. This will result in two things. One – the system will run much faster thanks to it becoming an SSD based system for the time being. Two – the battery life will be increased by a great amount. MSI claims that the netbook can run for up to 12 whopping hours on this setting! Now here’s the best part – individual testers have reported that this figure actually can be achieved when running on the SSD. This opens up a whole new range of possibilities.
The SSD is mounted in a shock resistant casing (according to MSI official website) and gives a hassle free operating environment on the move. I do not know about the shock mounting part because SSDs do not have moving parts anyway. But the idea of a stable system without any hang-ups about working through a bumpy ride sure appeals to me.
As for the design – the netbook is more or less sleek and has a nice smooth glossy finish. A lot has already been written about the banes of glossy surfaces on electronic devices, so I will not waster words here. Just keep a cleaning cloth handy – you will need one.
The overall build quality is said to be good and people like the silver finish better than the yet-another-black-netbook finish. The dimensions are 26 centimeters long by 18 centimeters wide by 3.15 centimeters at the thickest. This makes it quite a portable device. It can easily be slipped in to backpacks and luggage’s sleeves.
The screen on the MSI Wind U115 Hybrid has a matte finish (cue: sound of relief). Hence it takes care of all the annoying reflections that the glossy screens are guilty of. This 10.1 inch screen is a bright one and testers have reported it being easy to work with under most lighting conditions. This TFT-LCD screen is also LED backlit, so that goes a long way towards saving the power used to light up the screen. The native resolution is 1024×600 pixels, which is a decent resolution to have.
The keyboard is well built and has keys large enough for comfortable typing. These are traditional style keys that are set close together and have tapered edges to help with the demarcation. I know a lot of people like these keys still but personally I am fan of the isolated keys that high end products from Apple, Sony, etc. use. They may have a shorter travel and muted click but I like them better for those reasons.
There’s a long row of LEDs on the edge of the lower right palm rest area. These LEDs indicate network activity, HDD, SSD activity, sleep, etc.
The top function keys are backlit as they were in the previous model and the power button on the top-right corner glows as well. It keeps the familiar touchpad, which tracks pretty well. The touch pad is quite comfortable to use, as has been reported by previous and current MSI Wind users.
The new Wind U115 Hybrid runs on the Intel Menlow platform Atom processor running at 1.6GHz. It uses the Intel Poulsbo US15W chipset and ships with 1GB of DDR2 RAM running at 533MHz. The Onboard Graphics chip takes care of the limited amount of graphics capability that this system has.
The audio on the Wind U115 should be good with the in-built HD audio but I am not expecting it to keep audiophiles happy. It includes stereo speakers.
It has a built-in webcam that is rated at 1.3 megapixels and offers an option to upgrade to 2.0 megapixels. The option to upgrade also exists for the HDD-SSD combo. You can either get a 120GB or a 160GB 2.5” SATA HDD. In SSD you are limited to either 8GB or 16GB. Anymore SSD and we will see the price skyrocket faster than you can say ‘SSD’.
It has all the usual ports and not much is missing here. There is one VGA out, 3 USB 2.0 ports, one 10/100 LAN port, one 4-in-1 card- reader slot, one audio in and one audio out port.
Other than the LAN it has wireless at 802.11b/g with the option to upgrade to 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth.
Thus the new MSI Wind U115 Hybrid has proved to be quite a contender in the crowded netbook market. The price is on the steeper side at around $350 but this is the SSD showing its effect. This price may be worth it for the extended mobility that you will get from the netbook but do look around for other options first if you are not too sure about this.
