MSI Wind U160 review

An important aspect of any laptop is how comfortable it is to use. The Wind U160 does a good job. We found its chiclet keyboard very comfortable to use with responsive keys. The usual range of short-cut keys exist, such as for controlling volume. We like the fact that there’s a physical wireless switch, as it’s easier to reach and you can turn Wi-Fi off before Windows has started, which is what you need if you’re on a plane.

As you’d hope for a modern laptop there’s 802.11n built-in, so it should be fast on your home network. We were pleased to see Bluetooth built-in so that you can tether the laptop to a phone for 3G internet access.

The textured touchpad is responsive and its buttons are easy to reach with a thumb. The touchpad doesn’t support multi-touch gestures, although you may not find this a huge loss. You can disable the touchpad when typing so that you don’t accidentally move the cursor.

The 10.1in screen is mostly very good. Its glossy coating helps boost contrast and we found that it was very bright, producing rich and vibrant colours and pure bright whites. Viewing angles aren’t perfect, although the screen hinges back far enough that you can always sit straight-on to it for the best picture. As with the majority of netbooks, the screen has a resolution 1,024×600, which is enough for web browsing and some office work, but can feel a little cramped.

The only slight disappointment is that, as mentioned earlier, turning the brightness down can result in a picture that’s too dim to view properly. This is a minor complaint, as the screen’s perfectly viewable at normal brightness levels.

Otherwise it’s business as usual for this netbook, including a 250GB hard disk, three USB ports, an SDHC memory card slot and a VGA output for connecting to an external monitor (you can’t run two displays at once due to a restriction of Windows 7 Starter, though).

Overall the Wind U160 is a sleek and stylish laptop with decent battery life and a comfortable keyboard. Its only problem is that you can get better. The Toshiba NB305 (chiclet keyboard) or NB300 (normal keyboard, but no Bluetooth) both cost a similar amount, and lasted for almost an hour longer in our battery test. They’re slightly better buys.