MSI Wind U123-002US Intel Atom N280(1.66GHz) 10.2" WSVGA 1GB Memory 160GB HDD Netbook - Retail

Reviewed By: on 11/1/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: 6-cell battery lasts a long time. about 4-5 hours of normal use. laptop is small and light, you really don't miss the cd drive.

Cons: processor seems a bit slow after using a full size computer or laptop.
MSIs Rebate never came

Other Thoughts: minus one egg for the rebate con job. Overall I am getting tired of the hassle of these rebates, Half of them never pan out..

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Excellent Little Machine

Reviewed By: Huffimus on 10/1/2009

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: This system runs really well. Battery lasts for about 4-5 hours on a charge. System is pretty fast for the specs. At least it's fast running linux. The system also stays pretty cool. Running it for 4 hours straight and it's still comfortable on my lap.

Cons: Wireless card isn't the best, but it works well enough.

Other Thoughts: I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix on this. The only time I've installed linux on anything that everything worked right away. I didn't have to install any drivers afterwards, didn't have to configure anything.

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Reviewed By: Nulpher on 8/30/2009

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: This is overall a well built netbook. It has Windows XP on it instead of Vista, so that is great. My particular U123-002US had the Synaptics touchpad instead of the much hated Syntellic one.

For web surfing and light applications (Anything not either Gaming or stuff like CAD), this netbook works well. It is also very easy to crack open to upgrade internal components (The MSI tech support says the warranty is not affected by upgrades despite what that sticker on the case says). I have found that most of the components are easily accessable without the need to completely disassemble the entire computer.

Cons: The Speakers are very poor. The sound chip itself is fine, but the speakers are very quiet and lack a low end. It doesn't help that the speaker grille is on the bottom of the case either facing the surface it is on.

Another issue is that MSI's placement of the DC jack is rather flawed. Unlike newer notebooks that put the DC jack on its own board to make it easy to replace when it does inevitably fails, it uses the older method of soldering it directly onto the mainboard. As many notebook users have found, this is a huge and expensive problem whenever the jack ends up separating from the board. In addition, the placement of the jack on the left side of the computer will cause some stress on the jack if you rest this netbook on your lap when it is plugged in.

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