Netbook Computers
Netbooks are the latest type of wide spread portable computers. These little laptops became very powerful and energy-efficient in the last few years, thanks Intel’s Atom and other types of ULV (ultra low voltage) processors and the ever improving Intel chipsets with integrated graphics.
One of the cheapest Intel-based netbook computers is made by MSI with a $270 price tag. The MSI Wind U130-416US is based on the 5.5Watt Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz 64bit single core processor with HyperThreading and also with integrated graphics, right in the processor. The Intel GMA 3150 with shared memory is not a very fast GPU, but it gets the job done at a very low power consumption, supporting basic 3D acceleration and partial HD decoding.
64bit support is not something that a small laptop with maximum 2GB of memory really needs, although in the future 64bit computing may come to dominate the software market, so it’s good to be ready for it. Screen resolution and size are not the best, only 1024 x 600 and 10.1”, so for HD resolutions you’ll have to buy something bigger, 12” minimum, that will support 1366 x 768.For storage it has a standard 160GB 2.5” 5400RPM notebook hard disk, theoretically upgradeable to the biggest capacities available (640GB, 750GB or even 1TB in the near future), practically there may be some issues with power consumption or drive thickness. Wireless network cards, Bluetooth modules and USB ports are mandatory for such small netbook computers, mostly because they don’t have internal optical drives.
Unfortunately AMD (the second largest CPU, GPU and chipset manufacturer) has just entered the netbook computer market recently, in 2010. The first netbook computer with and AMD CPU was also made by MSI. The MSI Wind12 U230 is a somewhat bigger laptop, with a 12” HD Ready screen, but still in the same (netbook) category (available at amazon.com for $480). The AMD Athlon Neo X2 L335 is a very powerful dual core processor, despite the fact that it’s still made with 65nm manufacturing process. According to PassMark – CPU mark it’s faster than a Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL56 but a little slower (<1%) than a Core 2 Duo P7500 or T5300. With this CPU AMD managed to introduce a 18Watt TDP notebook grade processor in the netbook market. The ATI Radeon 3200 GPU is also superior to anything Intel or nVidia has to offer in the on-board category. It supports DirectX 10 and hardware HD decoding thanks to the UVD and AVIVO technologies.
Although it’s a 12” netbook (bigger than most), it still doesn’t have an internal optical drive. On the other hand the battery is has a 56Watt-hour capacity, making this netbook an optimal combination of notebook and netbook properties.
Another very important part of the MSI Wind12 U230 is revealed when you remove the battery:
A standard SIM card slot, very useful on long trips when no Wi-Fi is available, but you manage to connect to a 3G/HSPA network. It seems like MSI forgot to mention this module in the official launch announcement.
Written by Karpat Zoltan, date May 24, 2010 in Related topic
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