Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Long battery life, excellent performance

Thumbs Down:

Expensive, touch pad is wonky

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

MSI Wind U160-007US is 10.2 inches wide, 7.1 inches deep, 0.7 inch high, and weighs 2.2 lbs. The Netbook is powered by Intel Atom N450 / 1.66 GHz processor and is based on Intel NM10 Express chipset. It has L2 cache of 512 KB. The Netbook has 1 GB DDR2 SD RAM at 667 MHz. For storing data, there is a 250 GB SATA hard drive. The 4 in 1 card reader supports following formats – xD-Picture Card, SD Memory Card, MultiMediaCard, and Memory Stick.

The display is 10 inches big and has a resolution of 1024×600 pixels. The graphics processor is Intel GMA 3150 Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0. Above the display, there is a 1.3 megapixel Webcam. Interfaces include Headphones – Output – Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, Microphone – Input – Mini-phone 3.5 mm, Network – Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX – RJ-45, 3 x Hi-Speed USB – 4 pin USB Type A, Display / video – VGA – 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15). The Netbook is powered by six cell lithium ion battery. Preinstalled OS is Microsoft Windows 7 Starter and the Netbook comes with one year warranty.

Razzle Dazzle:

MSI Wind U160-007US has what the manufacturer calls ‘Fancy Gold’ theme. It is just a glossy brown dark finish but at least it is a welcome change from the usual matte or glossy black that we usually get in our labs. There is also a black version available. The interior is lighter than what you get on the outside and there is the manufacturer’s logo on the back of the lid.

Inside Dope:

MSI Wind U160-007US is an entry level Netbook which is based on the standard simple formula – Intel Atom 450 processor, Windows 7 Starter, 1 GB RAM, and 250 GB hard disk. This formula is followed by wide range of Netbook players like HP, Acer, Asus, and others. MSI was one of the early entrants in the Netbook market and its Wind products have been driving down the same lane as its competitors which make them good alternatives in the Netbook market.

MSI Wind U160-007US is a bit better than crowd in a lot of ways. To start with, the battery life is really impressive. You don’t get a seven hour backup battery for Netbook everyday in your labs. Secondly, this computer was a tad faster than other Netbooks which we have seen. You might not realize the small difference but it does exist. We will recommend you this Netbook if you are looking for big battery life.

MSI Wind U160-007US may have a big battery life but you have to pay a premium for it. The battery protrudes out from the chassis’s bottom and it feels like some kind of kickstand. Apart from that, this Netbook will set you back by $380 (official price is even more at $429) and this is $80 more that other Netbooks in the competition.

MSI Wind U160-007US’s keyboard has a island type design for the buttons, just like that of MacBooks. Typing was comfortable for most of the parts but around the middle, our fingers had to be flexed a lot. The right Shift key is shrunk down in size and we really hate it when important keys like Ctrl, Shift or Return are compromised on size. The touch pad could have been better, it is flush along with the wrist rest and demarcated by a group of raised dots. This is not quite comfortable for us but you might not feel the same way.

One interesting thing to note about this Netbook is that there is no vertical or horizontal scroll bar on the sides which some Netbooks have. Instead, MSI Wind U160-007US has scroll points on the mouse pad, where in your just you place your finger on the point and the page will automatically scroll in the directions.

MSI Wind U160-007US has a 10.1 inch wide screen display and gives a resolution of 1,204×600 pixels. This is pretty much the same in all basic Netbooks. The feel and look is a bit cramped especially since HD Netbooks have started to come in and they just cost $20 more.

Port assortment on the MSI Wind U160-007US is typical, you get audio out/in jacks, SD card slot and three USB jacks. There is also Bluetooth which is nice to see on this Netbook. Lots of budget Netbooks skip this feature. We didn’t expect much difference in terms of performance with Intel’s 1.66 GHz Atom N450 chips but we were pleasantly surprised to see that this Netbook edged a couple of seconds faster when put through Apple iTunes encoding test. It was also on par with HP Mini 2010 in photo conversion tests. But this machine was far behind Asus, HP and Sony Netbooks in multitasking tests.

These differences, however, are quite minimal and you won’t notice the difference as you’ll be using the MSI Wind U160-007US for basic computing tasks like Web surfing, office documents or e-mails. The battery life of this Netbook is what makes it a show stealer. We were amazed at a battery life of seven hours and eighteen minutes in our battery drain tests. This computer is powered by six cell battery. That is quite close to the top battery performing Netbooks. Only Dell Inspiron Mini 1012 and Asus 1005PE could do better. But some people still might prefer the Dell or Asus Netbooks their batteries are neatly tucked in to the chassis where as MSI achieves this by protrusion of the battery pack.

Nitty Gritty:

This Netbook has a long battery life and this is big bonus in a Netbook. Be wary of the high price though.