Introduction
The word netbook conjures up images of small notebooks whose primary aim is to provide a rich Internet-centric experience. Able to be held in one hand and generally powered by Intel's Atom processor and either 945-class or Poulsbo chipsets, netbooks start at around £175 and, at just 1kg, including battery, are eminently portable.
I want one, you probably do too, but the current choice is bewildering, to say the least. You could go for any number of Eee PCs from ASUS, a Mini Inspiron from Dell, Aspire from Acer, NB100 from Toshiba, NC10 from Samsung, etc, etc - and that's just scratching the surface.
As the nascent netbook genre has matured throughout 2008, manufacturers have been keen to add feature-rich models on top of bargain-basement offerings, usually with more-capacious hard-drives and greater wireless connectivity.
MSI's original netbook, The Wind U100, bucked the make-it-as-cheap-as-you-can trend and was launched with a plush 10in screen, 80GB mechanical hard-drive, and, importantly, a decent keyboard. Our review, which was generally favourable, pointed out a few shortcomings - namely 3G support or SSD option.
Now, at the start of 2009, MSI aims to get it right with the release of the U120(H) - or Wind 2 as it's commonly known.
Read on to find out if MSI has made enough of an advancement to keep pace in frenetic netbook world.
