MSI Wind U135

The MSI Wind has been one of our favourite netbooks since we first saw the Wind U100 back in 2008. Two years on and MSI hasn’t messed with the formula too much for the new Wind U135 and with the lid closed, you can’t tell the two models apart. Some cosmetic changes have refreshed the Wind for 2010 though, and the specification is bang up-to-date with the latest Intel Atom platform.

It may still look like the first MSI netbook we ever reviewed, but that’s not to knock the Wind U135 — although chunky, it’s feels well made and is still reasonably stylish. The rounded case with a matter underside and glossy everything else isn’t anything we haven’t seen before from any number of manufacturers, but short of going down the ASUS route and taking the netbook up-market (with a price tag to match), there isn’t that much that can be done with a low-cost portable.

MSI has paid some attention to one of the most important aspects of a netbook, though — the keyboard. Gone is the traditional design of old and in its place is a low-profile layout with isolated keys. This still fills the whole width of the case and is just as comfortable to use as the old (and excellent) keyboard, although a few keys have shrunken as a result — most notably the Return and Shift keys.

The Wind U135’s trackpad is larger than that on the U100 — it’s the same height, but it’s now wider with a bigger button to match. There’s no multi-touch (not that there’s enough room for two-finger gestures), but the textured finish registers a fingertip accurately — and that’s what counts.

We’re not sure that the switch from a matte to a glossy screen is such a good idea. Shiny displays like the one used here certainly give a bright, vibrant image, but the inevitable problems with reflections under bright light are a problem for any kind of laptop — and more so that’s small enough to use just about anywhere. Still, it’s a personal preference and the Wind U135’s screen at least sits on hinges that fold back far enough to avoid too much glare.

Netbook specifications really haven’t changed that over the last couple of years and the Wind U135 is still powered by a 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor with 1Gb of RAM. This is one of the newer Pine Trail chips — the single-core Atom N450 — but it makes little different to overall performance. A single SODIMM slot also means that you’ll need to ditch the supplied 1Gb memory chip if you want to expand the Wind U135 to 2Gb, but Windows 7 Starter runs smoothly enough as it is.

Sadly, Pine Trail doesn’t do much to improve netbook graphics performance and the Intel GMA 3150 chipset is just as lacklustre as ever when it comes to anything overtly demanding. Since it lacks support for hardware H.264 decoding, Flash 10.1 won’t support this chipset for accelerated video playback, either.

Pine Trail is supposed to be more energy efficient, which means better battery life, but we’ve yet to see a netbook built on this platform that really blows us away. Not that the Wind U135 disappoints when used unplugged — it ran for five hours in BatteryEater Pro’s Classic test and seven hours in the Reader test on its 4400mAh battery, but this still lags behind the Samsung N140 with its older Atom N270 chip.

At around £300 online, the MSI Wind U135 is good value, but it looks a little expensive when you consider that it has essentially the same specification as the Samsung N140 ( around £250), but its battery life isn’t quite as good. So, not a bad choice for a well-made, long-lasting netbook, but far from the only one these days.