MSI Wind U230: One Last Hurrah for the AMD Athlon Neo X2 Congo
by Dustin Sklavos on August 4, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- AMD
- MSI
- U230
- Athlon Neo X2
MSI chose to outfit the Wind U230 with the typical glossy 1366x768 screen found on other 12.1" portables, but mercifully it's a pretty good screen from cursory inspection. The hinge doesn't tilt the screen back very far, but the limit is actually about where the ideal angle is going to be. Viewing angles and uniformity, at least from first glance, are solid.
Solid relative to the competition, at least. The results sit right in the middle of our charts, but the fact of the matter is that outside of the high contrast LCD on the ASUS 1001P (and the older 1005HA), all of the LCDs look similar. The higher resolution of the U230 display is a real selling point over standard Atom netbooks, but there's not much else to recommend it.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
32 Comments
View All Comments
shabby - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
Maybe if this was $299 it might sell, i just cant imagine anyone paying this much to get such shoddy battery life.Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
You're not paying for the battery life, you're paying for the performance and form factor.vol7ron - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
so basically a "keep it plugged in like a desktop...and if you have to move from your bed to the couch, it won't die on you between plugs"?wintermute000 - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
Way to troll, boy genius. Since when has 4 hours been in the 'keep it plugged in like a desktop' ballpark?RamarC - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
gotta agree that $479 for so-so battery life is too much regardless of the compact form factor. heck, i just got a core-i3 14" laptop that has almost 4 hrs battery life for $499.shabby - Thursday, August 5, 2010 - link
What performance? It can barely keep up with the culv laptops.Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, August 5, 2010 - link
It beats the tar out of Atom, CULV laptops are barely in its price bracket (please don't quote me refurbs on NewEgg), and Intel's IGP sucks royally compared to the HD 3200 in the U230.dmjazzijeff - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
Dustin, by fiddling with the voltages and such, did you notice any appreciable gain in battery life? The drop in temps would be nice, of course, but increased battery life would be nice as well. I realize that the majority of a portable's power consumption is the screen and rotating media - I'm curious how much of this laptop's so-so battery life is processor related.megakilo - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
I would really like to see some results and reviews of the new Nile platform. The Congo platform uses a K8 CPU. Nile has a 45nm K10 processor.whatthehey - Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - link
Isn't that what they said in the conclusion? Interesting laptop, and at least it's not the putrid pile of feces that the Ferrari One is, but for $480 it needs to do more than outperform Atom. CULV performance and battery life with a decent IGP is what we're looking for.