MSI is about to start a new round of the “How Should We Define Netbooks?” debate with their new Wind U230 machines. The company is calling the 12-inch replacements for the Wind U210 netbooks, but they have awfully ultraportable-ish leanings.
To start, they have 12.1-inch screens — not unheard of for netbooks, but rarer than 11.6-inch form factors. Then there’s 2GB of RAM, the Windows 7 Home Premium (instead of Starter), and, oh yeah, the dual-core processor inside. Not a dual-core Atom as we saw on the Eee PC 1201N, but an AMD chip coupled with an ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics chips are responsible for processing all images sent to your computer?s display.
Learn Moregraphics card.
These new Winds, whatever they are, come in two models: the U230-033 has an AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 CPU and a 250GB The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.
Learn Morehard drive; the U230-040 has an AMD Athlon X2 L335 CPU and a 320GB drive. Otherwise, the two models are identical from their HD displays (16:9, 1366 x 768 WXGA), b/g/n wi-fi, 1.3MP webcam and 6-cell batteries. And, of course, HDMI out amongst the usual ports.
Lest this sound too exciting, there’s a fly in the ointment as concerns that battery: it’s only rated for 4 hours of life by MSI. I imagine that size display combined with the power-hungry AMD chip makes for an ultraportable that still needs tying to an outlet.
The MSI Wind U230-033 will set you back just $429 and the beefier Wind U230-040 ups the price to $479. They’re available now at Newegg.
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