MSI Wind12 U210-008US Mystic Black AMD Athlon Neo MV-40(1.60GHz) 12.1" WXGA 2GB Memory 250GB HDD Netbook

Pros: I have purchased three netbooks in the past three months - an HP with the Neo x2 processor and ATI 4330 graphics, an Acer (purple) with the Atom processor and Intel graphics and the MSI Wind12 with the Neo processor and ATI x1200. After making sure each of them had the installed version of Windows 7 Home Premium, I compared the Windows Experience Index.

--- HP Neo x2 ---
Processor: 4.2
Memory (RAM): 5.9
Graphics: 4.4
Gaming graphics: 5.9
Primary hard disk: 5.8

--- MSI Neo ---
Processor: 3.2
Memory (RAM): 4.8
Graphics: 3.0
Gaming graphics: 3.1
Primary hard disk: 5.7

--- Acer Netbook ---
Processor: 2.2
Memory (RAM): 4.5
Graphics: 2.1
Gaming graphics: 3.0
Primary hard disk: 5.3

As you can see, the MSI Netbook soundly beats the Atom netbook - I am also able to run the 64 bit version of Windows 7 (Atom can only run 32 bit). For the price, this netbook is hard to beat. I paid about twice as much for the HP with the upgraded processor and graphics card.

Cons: Would like the option to have a better graphics card and the option of the Neo x2 processor. I would also love to have the option of a blue netbook.

Other Thoughts: I love that this thing has HDMI, bluetooth and a decent keyboard.

Pros: I've had this little powerhouse for quite some time now and I'm feeling fuzzy inside to review it. I'm a developer and if you like to program, use Adobe CS4 products, play games, etc... This thing does it. Its small, but hell, you can plug a 23'' 1080p monitor in to the HDMI port and be perfectly fine.

Much more than a netbook, for sure.

Also, I have long fingers, so the keyboard is PERFECT.
The keys are actually larger than my laptop's keyboard and it spans across the whole netbook. Lovely feature, MSI.

Have had no issues with the wireless, connects up to N access points just fine. gigabit port is useful too.

LCD resolution/brightness is perfect.

Cons: Webcam isnt too good, but it serves its purpose.
I bought this when it was over $500 :(

Other Thoughts: Buy it now.

Pros: I use this laptop to do work travel. Its also fine for light programming duties, I can bring up eclipse and edit a couple of projects with little problem. This laptop works well under Fedora 11 and 12. Vista performs OK too. I love the weight of this machine, and the sharp screen.

Cons: RaLink drivers not available as kmod (like rt3070). Their latest driver (Aug 03) doesnt work with Fedora 12 kernel 2.6.31. A small hack got this to work however, and its been smooth sailing. With aggressive powersave under Fedora/KDE I am getting roughly 3 hours on battery.

Other Thoughts: Would have been nice to have bluetooth included, but I can live with an external adapter. Only other regret is that the U230 is coming out and looks even better.

Pros: quick little machine for the size and weight, handles everyday computeing with ease. decent battery life at just under 4 hours while in constant use. Perfect size for bringing on a plane, can watch 2 full length movies on one charge while in the air

Cons: no bluetooth, but there is a mini pcie vacant inside to put one but opening the case will void your waranty

Other Thoughts: the wind u230 will be coming out soon it will have 4gb of ram and a dual core neo with hd3200 graphics and 7 home premium preinstalled and will be the king of all netbooks power and performance wise, well at least till the next beast is released

Pros: Uses better graphics chip, ATI X1250 than any other netbook with the outdated intel graphics. The screen size is awesome with a HD supporting resolution to boot! Battery life is good with 4+ hours. Keyboard is large enough and yet this netbook is still compact. Great for viewing and converting RAW pictures into JPEG while on vacation.

Install Win7, this netbook is definitely more responsive under 7 compared to Vista.

Cons: Vista and Office 2007 updates and patches takes over 5 hours of downloading and installing.
No bluetooth but resolution and size are more important to me.
Minor but the raised surface on the F and J keys needs to be more pronounced.

Other Thoughts: After finally getting Win7 HD videos 1080i from my camcorder are now playable without stutter, something Vista was incapable of doing.
I also played 720p Quicktime trailer but you need to have that be the only open window to prevent stutter.
MSI thanks for all the drivers online in case I format and redo my hard drive or upgrade to a SSD in the future.

Pros: Looks and feels nice. Great newegg customer service team.

Cons: I had to RMA twice for problem with the display panel. The first one had an area near lower left which was like a flash light beam. It was visible only when the background was in black. The second one had an additional problem in addition to the problem mentioned earlier. It had a dark area in the right upper corner unlike other area. It covered approximately 4 sq in of an area. It did not get brighter.

Other Thoughts: Is this problem prone to MSI U210? I am hoping they were just 2 unlucky netbooks. I sure like to get one that has no such problem.

Pros: Currently Running Opera Internet Browser, Copying 12gigs from one drive to another, installing VLC player, running windows mail, with windows update running in the background... no problems, and no lag. This thing is incredible. No 'atom' netbook can do that.

4GB Max RAM (not sure this is true with ALL models) although you need x64 OS.

Processor easily OCed with RMclock.

Relatively little bloatware (compared to HP and Sony)

Runs very cool - no real hot zones detected, compared to my old Acer with a VERY hot celeron.

Fan is fairly quiet, not sure why people thought it was loud.

Battery is acceptable; its no Z520 netbook, but since those can't even watch flash, this is in another league altogether. I get ~2.5 hours while watching flash (max performance, with only brightness turned down) almost 6 with some tweaked settings and no wifi, etc.

Very light, compact, and extremely well built (for price)

Shiny and attractive.

Small power inverter.

Love at 1st sight

Cons: Keyboard sounds rather metallic. Almost like its resting on a sheet of aluminum foil. Its solid, just loud. very loud. Definitely not a laptop to bring to a quiet study room. This is the only real con I've managed to find so far.

Speakers are... eh. With stock vista settings, barely audible with most flash. A few tweaks and they're better. I understand even 2x 1W speakers are a major power draw (comparatively), but having the option of more power when you want it is nice. For this price, though, I'm not about to complain.

Recovery Disk Creation software crashes a lot. Haven't had a lot of time to get it working; not a big deal, I have OEM Vista Disks already.

Other Thoughts: Incredible! Comes with Driver Disk! Nothing except Dell does that anymore.

For techies: Under the hood is a free Mini-PCIe slot; not sure if the BIOS will support SSD booting, but its a great place to put a Broadcom HD decoder to give you full access to 1080p (AMD chipset supports 720p just fine, even with flash, but 1080 has issues. Haven't tried 1080i)

Customers who claimed flash stutters: certain resolutions do, yes. anything 720p runs smoothly as full screen, however, because there's no scaling required. Other codecs/res work fine. Some tweaking is required (in services.msc) to get flash running smoothly on battery saving mode. It is possible, however.

Windows Vista is actually relatively smooth. Nothing on XP or 7, but its adequate. Don't miss the chance to update, though.

Available BT port internally.

Haven't experimented with linux OSes yet. Will try soon and post results in more detailed follow up (along with Benchmarks)

VPR: 3.4, 4.8, 3.0, 3.0, 5.6 Not bad

Pros: * Runs both Windows 7 Pro and Ubuntu 9.04 great. I use it to surf, chat, webchat (quoted great quality on other side), study, and code. It even plays 720p movies!
* Runs Visual Studio 2008 pretty well: compiles fast, runs programs fast.
* Good 1366x768 screen with LED backlighting + HDMI out!!!
* Good battery life for an Neo chip. I get almost 4 hours in Ubuntu 9.04. Even then, the charger is nice and small enough to carry with you.
* Has a Wireless-N card.
* Lightweight.

Cons: A few problems that gave me headaches:
* No AMD/ATI made graphics driver (and there probably will never be) for Ubuntu 9.04+. Not really MSI's fault since ATI decided this chip is 'legacy'.
* Has one problem with Ubuntu 9.10 right now. The wireless rt3090 ppa driver doesn't work for me. This will probably be fixed soon.
* Weird downward angle for the webcam. You'll have to open the lid further than normal.
* Microphone is not very sensitive. You'll have to boost it by about 25dB.
* Comes with a lot of bundleware. Get rid of these as fast as you can!
* Touchpad is a little weird in Windows. Install a Synaptics driver to get scrolling function in Windows.
* Don't expect to watch Hulu/Youtube in ED (480p) in fullscreen without jitter. Other modes work fine including ED non-fullscreen, though.

Other Thoughts: Comes with Vista but you can upgrade it to Windows 7 Home Premium for $10. It's not really free like they say. The $10 charge is for shipping a piece of paper (coupon that you send to Microsoft) to you. Instructions are in the box.

I get a weird 18khz-ish noise coming out of my screen when I'm in Windows, but not when I'm in Ubuntu. If anyone else can hear this annoying noise, post a review about it.

Pros: very nice 12" subnotebook,crisp HD display,comse with HDMI port which is very handy this days with HDTV.I wish it came with at least 3gb of ram or two memory slots, this baby can handle 4gb of mem and 64 bit OS.
newegg as usual rocks! ordered friday and receivd it monday

Cons: Was not preinstaled with Windows7

Pros: Once you correct some MSI idiosyncracies, this is one hot little laptop for carrying much more power than a netbook and with a nice 12 inch screeen. The keyboard is a good as 90% of the laptops, and easy to use. The system runs smoothly and fast for a really compact machine. I got the machine before it was introduced and it is well tested now. Make no mistake about it- this is 64 bit machine and will run Win7-64 with addition of 2 GB's of memory. The screen is exceptionally clear and energy saving. So far, the minimum use I have gotten out of battery charge is a 4 hours!

Cons: MSI has non-existant documentation. The less than brilliant engineers send it out with a recovery partition that spawns a 40GB "OS-Install" partition and a 200 GB 'Data' Partition" With Vista HP, that leaves about 8 GB's for programs - ha! (or cry) - blow away the data parition first!!!
The MSI Win7 upgrade website charged my ccard 6 tiimes and they have not responded to nuerous telephone calls, no have I received Win7. Going to put Ultimate on it anyhow. The bluetooth switch is not connected to anything but "might" work with a mini-pci-e b/t card in the slot - I use a micro-dongle for my mouse. Screen is great, the led indicators are not - I just ignore and hope for the best. The built in sound is not existent but that may be the drivers - there are two on the net but nothing to indicate which one to use.
DO NOT USE MSI'S autodownload service - a system on geritol and always picks the wrong drivers to download. Most drivers are Vista but sure could use a touchpad driver

Other Thoughts: Out of the box, this makes a good small machine, and have lent it to a customer with a 23 in Viewsonic and they were happier with this than their own Desktop. It is just waiting to be goosed up a bit with a WD 7200 black drive from NEgg, and a dose of 4 GB ram from NEgg. The mini PCI-1 1x slot is getting a 64 GB SSD from Negg when they restock and Linux is going to fly of that.

Wait for results!