Recently, my Asus S96J had its battery die on me. From then I had been thinking for a while, if I should get a new battery. Since I go to college and I like to take notes on my computer, I knew I probably should get one. That is until, I was surfing the internet and found the Asus EEE 701. I saw it and thought, man, THATS what I need. So, I was at a Brandsmart USA looking for a new camera and I saw a 701. I then noticed that the screen was too tiny to be comfortable and the keyboard was too cramped for extended use. So I did my research, and settled on the Wind, the Dell E, and the Aspire One. I noticed that the Aspire One, has that weird touchpad, an 8.9" screen, and the hinges looked funny. The Dell E was a contender for the spot, however, ever since the "Dude, you got a dell" commercials, I have boycotted them.

After settling on the Wind, I began my vigil to purchase this awesome laptop. And wait I did...

It was a dreary morning on the 17th of June in Shanghai, China. I had just woken up and it was about 6:00 AM. I turned on my laptop and I saw that the Wind was for sale. I almost dropped my laptop. I then attempted to purchase one, but alas, they were all gone. I sat contemplating my fate. I knew there were other preorder sites, but do they address the 6-cell issue? Who knows. I decided to say screw it and spend my days out and about.

My recent trip out to the Digital Square in Shanghai on Xuahaijlu, I purchased a 4gb card for my friend, only 80RMB!, as well as searching for a Logitech v470 and a Holux 240/m1200 to hack into my Wind on a future date. As I was riding up an escalator, I saw it. The Almighty Wind.

I stood in shock for a moment, before I became a flurry of action. I had to hold it. So I casually ran to it, pushing an elderly person and a small child out of my way. And I held it.

First thing you notice upon holding a Wind is the weight. It feels like the perfect weight for you to carry with you. All the reviews state the 6-cell makes it noticeable heavier, thats compared to the ORIGINAL weight. I mean its literally completely undetectable any change in weight, but I'm a big guy and that might just be me.
After setting the Wind down, I made some small talk with the clerk to find out more about it and its availability. He confirmed that they do have 6 and 3 cells and that the official 6-cells will be made available at nearly the same time the Linux 3-cell will be released. However, the unofficial 6-cells will start trickling out of manufacturers before the end of the month. The 6-cell does at noticeable height, but nothing that seems to be too much.
The Wind was noticeably warm. The clerk told me that the laptop had been on since 9 AM and it has had moderate use. Nothing uncomfortable, but it was warm enough that it would be good for you to use on your laptop in a room temperature room and nothing too hot.
The other thing I noticed on a surface inspection was the glossy finish. For those of you who don't like fingerprints, this is not the finish for you.

After this initial examination of the laptop, I began to use the laptop it self. It was fast for a little laptop. I'm sure it would lag on other things but to me it was good enough. I was only going to use this for Firefox, Thunderbird, MS Office, WMP11, VLC, and some WC3. I noticed the WC3 icon and the firefox icon and wanted to see how these would run. So I started WC3 and firefox at the same time. The clerk noticed the Warcraft and asked if I played DotA, to which I replied yes and our battle became. I noticed that on load the computer would lag just a wee bit but after that everything was smooth sailing. As I was beating him with my buriza/mkb Clinkz(almost started humming basshunter at this point), the fan was running hard, but it was still relatively quiet. (Note:I was in a crowded building) Throughout the match at points were my creeps were owning his base, I would alt-tab out and try to load a few things to see the "multi-tasking" that could be done. A youtube video loaded well, however, hulu produced a few hiccups. I was sure that without warcraft running that Hulu would have played fine, albeit slow because of the archaic internet still used in China.
After the match, I decided that I want to see how it would react to loading all of its programs at once. As I stated before, the clerk was not amused. After some placating, I asked to see the box which it came it. The box was fairly plan compared to other packaging people are used to see, i.e. the evil corporation know as Apple, but it suits the Wind. The box itself came packaged with the bag, 3 cds, and a few pieces of paper. The CDs seemed to be a driver/manual CD, a System restore CD, and finally a CD that said BIOS. The choice of using a CD, I felt was poorly made. However, there are no alternatives, they couldn't package a flash drive with the Restore CD and drives, nor could they package an external optical. The bag disappointed me. The outside was made of some sort of plastic, I am not a Material specialist nor will I ever be one. The inside was a foam like material, that felt like it offered no protection. The sleeve was not very good looking, it was like all the ones you have seen in the pictures. It does fit snuggly around the Wind. I would recommend getting a different type of sleeve though. After all the examinations, I realized that I had to get back. So I left, the Wind and its keeper for another day.

I plan to go back either Monday or Tuesday to take more pictures and to make more observations, such as the monitor wobble on movement.

(Note:This is my own opinion and this opinion does not represent that of Msiwind.net and of Fox and the Clinton News Network, I mean CNN)

Well thats nice to hear that the Wind can multitask on a reasonable level.

A BIOS CD thou? I hope they intend to release some kind of ability to update the BIOS by USB for those without CD drives.

That's quite a story. Thanks

Nice write up, thanks!

Thanks for the story hamshu.



What color was it? I read the white gets less smudgy looking than black. True, not true?

I played with the Black model. I think those CDs are maybe a missend. It doesnt seem to be a good way to update the bios. I dont know what they want to do with that, but we'll see when they ship the american versions out.

Hamshu, I applaud you on the most descriptive and cute story I've about ever heard of. Well told!

Yeah, everyone said the black gets all smudgy. This confirms it even more. I'm definitely getting white.

As for the CD's, well they're OK IMO. It's easy to copy them to a USB drive or something like that if needed.

Lol they should follow the WiBrain. I played with one and it came with a 2GB thumbdrive for reinstalling Ubuntu on it.

HAHA!!

Any chance you can run GPUZ on it and tell us whether the GPU runs at 133mhz or 400mhz?

Great write up.

However, the thing I would like to know is how the heck did you get Hulu to work in China??

I'm also in China and whenever I try to watch videos on Hulu, they say that the service is not yet available in this country.
Even when I use a proxy server it still doesn't work.

Help me out!

Nice writeup hamshu I really enjoyed the part when bolted past those people to grab the wind. Makes me feel a little better with a normal person's thoughts on the wind. Can you grab a wind (6cell)there?

Nice stuff Hamshu, thanks for that
Lets hope all goes well and the Wind is released on time around the world!

To asnwer mv1175:

Hamshu said in the writeup:

I' guessing that's a no for now, it'll be available in the future.
Unless of course hamshu meant that you can buy a 6 cell with your unit now, and then buy a spare 6 cell battery afterwards?

Interesting read! Im planning to play DOTA sometimes on my wind. So it ran well? What resolution and detail level did you play in? How was it playing on such a small screen?

Hamshu, nice write up. can you post what is the shop's name, I will go to Shanghai next month. thx

Libertyaa, and Kevinc628, Welcome to the WORLD OF TOMORROW! I mean the MSI Wind forums.


800x600, everything on high.


Take the subway line 1. Go to xuihaijlu. Take a left as soon as you get off the stairs, then walk to Exit 10 and then go up the stairs. This will take you to the building. Go to the second floor.

Avoid all the people who will badger you and find a nondescript man and tell him to take you to the "Air Train". The password will be "Running Wild". Then he will ask you a series of 10 questions, the answers are true, true, false, true, 10, no, an unladen swallow, John Cusack, "There is no spoon" and Ed Norton is really Tyler Durden. Then he will take you to a room with 5 doors, pick the far right one, the Wind should be on a table. (Note:Joke, don't seriously do this)

You should see a guy standing around a table. There are 3-4 Winds, a couple of boxes, fliers, and like 3 guys standing around. 2 of the guys speak Shanghai Dialect if you can speak it, as I can. If you cannot speak chinese, I would suggest bring a guide/girlfriend/wife/lackey to help you get around, the area can be very overwhelming for some foreigners.

If you can't find them in said building, go outside, go to your immediate left and there should be a rather large mall with a Pizza Hut and a KFC, go inside and keep walking till you see a Watson's and a camera store, your almost there. Walk past the mouse/webcam/memory card sellers and you should see an escalator, their other stand should be at the top of the stairs. To order one, you will have to speak to the head guy, who works like 1 hour a day, and gets paid like twice what the other guys are being paid.

wow hamshu .. i wish there was something like that in Singapore ... anyways if u ran a 1v1 with everything on high ... it sure sounds like a 3v3 with everything on low should run fine! maybe even a 5v5! (but i think that's really really pushing it ...)

Thanks for the really entertaining and informative write up on the Wind, hamshu

One thing I would really like to know, how did you find the screen hinge? Does it wobbly when you use the laptop/type/pick it up?
Is there any flex in the screen?

The screen hinge is of the utmost importance as this is one thing that goes bad in a lot of the laptops and makes usability difficult.

Monitor wobble? Please elaborate on this.