The MSI Wind U100 PLUS will be available in the usual white, black and red colors, and this time it can also be bought in Rose Champagne (pink) and Metallic Blue. MSI didn’t announce this netbook’s official release date and price, but it does look interesting for now (if you don’t already have an MSI Wind or similar netbook model, that is).

Via MSI

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

MSI Wind U100 PLUS makes an official appearance with Intel’s N280 Atom processor

Via UMPCFever

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

MSI Wind U115 Hybrid stars in unboxing session

Amazon via Liliputing

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

MSI Wind CS120 starts shipping in the U.S.

Via MSI

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

MSI offers free Q-Face and Windy applications for Wind netbook users

But what’s this? Looking at the recently exposed photos of the MSI Wind U120 innards, JKOnTheRun has found that an extra RAM slot is nowhere to be found. That means no matter how delicately a user manages to open its casing, the MSI Wind U120 will be stuck with 1GB of RAM, forever.

Perhaps MSI has done this on purpose in order to put a kind of gap between its netbooks and full-blown notebooks, but don’t you think that’s a bad idea? Limiting a product’s performance when it comes out of the box is one thing, but taking away a user’s options completely is just cruel. We’ll see how well consumers receive this when they get their hands on the MSI Wind U120. Which they can, now that it’s already available for order online.

Via Portable Monkey

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

MSI Wind U120 suffering with 1GB RAM limit?

Thanks to Brad at Liliputing for the heads up on the new BIOS update from MSI for the Wind U100 netbook.

The update reportedly works fine if you are running Windows XP or a hackintosh Wind running OS X and fixes a few small problems such as an issue affecting the S4 sleep mode. The update is also reported to work on the Advent 4211, which is a Wind clone so it figures that it would, too.

Full changelog for version 1.0A of the BIOS:

1. Fixed auto into S4 issue.
2. DOC percentage item add warning message in setup menu.
3. Update EC file.

Only minor changes but, for owners of  an MSI Wind (or perhaps, a clone of), the BIOS update can be found and downloaded here on the official MSI website.

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

BIOS Update v1.0A for MSI Wind

The Asus Eee PC has already had the Windows 7 treatment and it ran pretty well on the new Microsoft operating system, the pre-beta version anyway. Next netbook up to take the Windows 7 test was the MSI Wind and sure enough, it ran the OS well and passed the test with flying stars. Of course, feeling a little left out and sure that it could compete with it’s Atom based netbook cousins, the HP 2133 Mini-Note came along shortly after and has also been tested running Windows 7. Unfortunately the results aren’t quite so impressive for the HP netbook.

The MSI Wind U100 was tested by Lee Mathews, who previously tested Windows Vista successfully on his Wind.  The test was positive generally with Lee commenting that he “was a little disappointed to have the same missing drivers (wireless, LAN, display) but the original MSI XP drivers worked just fine” but his general summary of this netbook experiment was that considering the edition of the OS installed on the Wind – Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, the MSI netbook was “running great”.

Now for the less impressive test. Over at HP Mini Guide the guys have tested the HP Mini-Note in similar fashion, loading the 2133 up with Windows 7 and letting it run and unsurprisingly, the Mini-Note struggled to run very far. To be fair, the HP netbook isn’t a powerful Atom based netbook like the Eee PC and the Wind, coming fitted with a VIA C7-M processor, so less was expected of it. The install took 25 minutes and the result was that Windows 7 ran a little faster than Vista on the HP but, not as fast as Windows XP.

Overall it’s encouraging to see Windows 7 running at all on netbooks without a specific mobile edition and the Wind/Eee PC results are a good indication of what an Atom based netbook can cope with.

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Windows 7 Tested on Wind and Mini-Note

Due to the ‘rebrandability’ of the MSI Wind netbook, DigiTimes have reported that sales have been boosted hugely and the Wind (and all of it’s rebranded brothers and sisters) is expected to have shipped around 700,000 units by the end of 2008 – more than MSI expected to sell, pushing them closer to the top ten hardware vendor list.

There are many rebranded versions of the MSI Wind in Asia and Europe, which are simply the MSI netbook with a different name attached to them. It seems that customers are clambering to buy these ‘clones’ of the Wind and with a solid build and decent specs for a netbook, it’s easy to see why.

Ironically, 700,000 sales would equal the amount of Asus Eee PC’s sold in September 08 which clearly shows that MSI still have a long way to go if they are going to compete with Asus in this market.

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

MSI Wind Sales Soaring

A member over at the msiwind.net forums named tankboyben has posted up pictures of their home designed netbook, a rebranded MSI Wind, the Advent 4211. The budding netbook designer has used wood effect sticky vinyl to cover the lid of the 4211 and to cover the trackpad too:

The creator acknowledges that the design isn’t going to be to everyones taste and in fact his dad thinks it looks like a school canteen tray which, I admit was my very first thought when I saw it! Love it or hate it though, it’s individual and it seems to be a job well done.

Burning issue for me though is does that trackpad still work with the vinyl stuck on it? Tankboyben hasn’t logged back in yet to answer that question unfortunately.

Anyone else have the urge to back their netbook in sticky back plastic?

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Wooden Effect for MSI Wind Clone

Medion and Sainsbury’s have reduced the price of the Medion Akoya Mini netbook to £279 in the UK. That works out at around $480 for the MSI Wind U100 clone.

The medion netbook is only available across Europe and comes complete with a 10.2 inch screen, an Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of memory and a 80GB hard drive. It comes in at the same price as the Advent 4211 (£279 at PC World – UK) netbook and with similar specs they are both decent value netbooks however, the 4211 does come with Bluetooth built in for extra connectivity.

It’s good to see another UK retailer selling netbooks and becoming competitive in doing so, it can only be positive for UK netbook buyers and EeePC.net have also discovered that Medion have reduced the price of their Akoya Mini on their own website here in line with the reduction by Sainsbury’s which is great news all round.

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Medion Akoya Mini Netbook Price Drop