MSI Wind U100 review

MSI's Wind did very well when we reviewed it in our last round-up and different versions of it have been sold by numerous other manufacturers, including LG and Medion.

This model is black and its lid has a glossy sheen, so it picks up fingerprints easily.

The biggest flaw of the previous Wind was its short battery life of just two hours and 37 minutes. This model has a bulkier battery that lasted nearly five hours - a remarkable improvement. It does make the otherwise slender design chunkier to hold, but it also props up the keyboard at an angle that can make typing easier. Fortunately, it still fits into the bundled slip case.

The Wind's keyboard has the same layout as the Akoya's so it's large and comfortable to use. Some of the punctuation keys are smaller than the others, though, and the Fn key takes the Control key's usual place, which could trip up touch-typists. The small but accurate touch pad and its small buttons are identical to those on LG's X110, Medion's Akoya and the previous Wind.

The 10.2in screen has a matt, anti-glare finish, but it's brighter than the Akoya's. Images look a little grainy and have a slightly blue tint, but it's more than adequate for office work and browsing the web.

There's plenty of storage space thanks to the 160GB hard disk, although you'd expect that at this price. Only Asus's N10 has a larger hard disk, but it's a shame there's no built-in 3G modem like LG's similarly priced X110. Bluetooth is built in, though, so you could use a Bluetooth-equipped 3G mobile phone as a wireless broadband modem, instead of having a dongle occupy one of the three USB ports.

MSI's Wind is a great netbook thanks to its comfortable keyboard and large hard disk, and its long battery life corrects the only big flaw in the previous model. However, Samsung's NC10 has a longer battery life and a 160GB disk, yet costs £29 less. Unless you can find the Wind cheaper elsewhere, the NC10 is a better buy.