Earlier in the week, I told you I had ordered the MSI Wind.  Well, it arrived on Wednesday, and I thought it would be fun to take you along as I took my first peek into the box.

Before we get into the unboxing itself, let me tell you exactly what I got.  This is the MSI Wind U100-016US.  You can see all of the specs over at Newegg, which is where I purchased it for $499.99.  Just a few highlights (and lowlights).  It features a full gig of RAM, which is great, as is the 120 GB hard drive (the only netbook I am aware of with a hard drive larger than 80 GB).  The biggest selling point for me was the weight.  This thing weighs in at only 2.3 pounds, by far the lightest netbook I have ever seen (the comparable ASUS eeePC 1000h weighs in it over 3 pounds.)  As Kevin Tofel mentioned over at JKOTR, however, the difference in weight is almost completely eliminated if you carry the AC adaptor, since the MSI Wind has a fairly large AC adaptor.  I am working on finding a spare adaptor to leave at work so I will not need to carry mine with me every day.  On the downside, when I purchased the Wind, I could only find the 3-cell battery.  So, I really need that extra AC adaptor.  Hopefully, I will be able to upgrade that battery soon, as I have been enjoying only an hour to an hour and a half before the tiny battery is overwhelmed.

OK.  Enough of that.  What you guys really want to know is what was inside that box.  So, let’s take a look.

Here, you can see that the box actually included two packages in it.  The bottom one is obviously going to contain the Wind, and we will get to that in a minute.  First, I want to take a quick detour to that top package.

The top package contains the case.  Nothing special, but it is a fairly nice touch.  The case itself is a gray/silver vinyl with the MSI Wind logo printed on top.

It unzips on three sides and opens to reveal a fair amount of soft padding on the inside, as well as a small mesh pocket which you can use to carry a small accessory or two.  Nothing too big because this is a tight fitting case.  The nice thing here, though, is that the case offers just enough padding that I will not need to use my large, padded notebook bag  I can toss this padded case into my significantly smaller messenger bag.  This thing just keeps cutting weight off of my commute…both directly and indirectly.

I know.  I know.  That case is nice, but what you really want to see are the contents of that blue box.  So, let’s go ahead and check it out.

When we lift the lid, the Wind is right there on top.  Let’s go ahead and set that aside for a moment.   Don’t worry.  We’ll get back to this in a moment.

Underneath the Wind, there are only a few accessories.  First, you will find the usual assortment of CD-Roms and literature.  Like most of you, I pretty much ignored all of this so I could get to the “good stuff”.

The only other thing in the box are the power accessories.  On the left is the AC adaptor I mentioned.  it is 20 volts and 65 watts of power, though it is a bit larger than it really needed to be.  On the right is the three cell battery.  Like I said, although it is rated for 2.5 to 3 hours, once you start using the Wi-fi or mobile broadband, that quickly starts to slip.  Once I got going, I could squeeze an hour or maybe 1.5, but no more than that before it needed another charge.  Hopefully, I will be able to find a spare AC adaptor or even better, a six-cell battery to replace or supplement the three cell battery.  Incidentally, Newegg is now selling the six-cell battery with the Wind for $549.99, but it does have the more standard 80 GB hard drive.

All right.  Enough about the accessories.  Let’s get to it.  There it is, the MSI Wind.  The outer surface of the lid is a glossy black plastic.  While this looks, great, it is a real fingerprint magnet.

To open the lid, all you have to do is lift it from the front.  It would be nice if there had been a latch of some kind to secure it.  Since I mainly keep it in the case, however, this was never a big deal.

The keyboard is 80% the size of a standard keyboard.  While it was a bit of a tight squeeze for my hand, it only took a day or two to get used to typing on it.  Before long, my typo rate was really not significantly higher than my typo rate on any other computer.

It is a little hard to see in the above pictures, but there are 10 quick launch buttons across the top row of the keyboard.  Just hold the function button and press the appropriate key to:

• toggle external monitor
• deactivate the touchpad mouse (if you are using an external or Bluetooth mouse)
• increase/decrease the screen brightness
• activate/deactivate the web camera
• increase/decrease/mute the volume
• toggle power saver modes when using the battery
• toggle the Wi-fi and Bluetooth radios
• standby mode

In front of the screen is the touchpad mouse controller.  Nothing special here.  I have never been much of a fan of touchpads, because they are prone to accidentally move the curser or make a selection unbidden.  I had heard some complaints about the touchpad on the MSI Wind.  To be honest, though, I did not find it to be significantly different from the touchpad on any laptop.  It probably will not take me long to get my Bluetooth mouse back out.

Near the front of the device, there is a bank of indicator lights.  From here, you can quickly monitor the status of:

• Bluetooth radio
• Wireless network
• power on/off/suspend
• battery indicator (amber means you had better find an outlet fast)
• caps lock
• number lock
• scroll lock
• hard drive in use

There is nothing on the back of the device.  On the left, you will find two USB 2.0 ports near the front.  Behind that are the heat vents (always make sure these are not covered or blocked when the MSI Wind is in use.)  Then, you will see the power connector and the Kensington lock space (sold separately).

On the right hand side, there is another USB 2.0 port, for a total of three.  One thing I noticed was that these USB ports were all near the front, which meant a USB accessory could interfere with your hands while typing.  It would have been nice if one or more USB ports were further back in order to accommodate larger accessories.  Then, you will find the 4-in-1 reader.  This can access SD (including mini- and micro-SD with an adaptor), MMS, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro.  You will then find the audio jacks (microphone and headphone); and the VGA out jack for an external monitor.  Finally, there is an RJ-45 Ethernet connector.

This all brings us to the 10 inch WVGA screen, which weighs in at 1024×600.  I really liked this screen, which was very easy to see, even in bright glaring light.  It is not necessarily the screen you want if you are playing 3D video games or long videos.  Then again, this is probably not the device you want for these activities.  I thought this was a great screen for the job the Wind is intended to perform (web surfing, email, and writing).

It may be a bit difficult to see in these pictures, but above the screen is the 1.3 megapixel webcam.  Nothing to write home about there, but having it built in is very nice, and results in one fewer accessory that I need to lug around in my bag.

Something else I found to be a bit odd.  You can’t really see it in this picture of the bottom of the device, but there is no easy way to upgrade the RAM.  The MSI Wind includes 1 GB of RAM, but is upgradeable to 2 GBs.  The only problem is that there is no access door for the memory, like most computers offer.  Instead, you need to completely remove the bottom of the laptop in order to upgrade the memory.  A sticker covering one of the screws indicates that opening the case in that manner will result in voiding your warranty.  That is unfortunate and disappointing.

The MSI Wind runs Windows XP, and I have to say that I am impressed by how well this works.  It is really a fantastic XP machine.  I have run a number of programs on it, and they all worked flawlessly, even the new Google Chrome web browser worked great.

so, what is my quick opinion?  After a few days of use, difference in the size and weight of the Wind is amazing.  at 2.3 pounds, it has shaved nearly ten pounds off of my commuting bag (between the computer itself, and the host of accessories and other items I carried, including my heavy laptop bag itself).  I might have expected a computer so small and light to suffer from significant performance issues, but this was not the case at all.  This tiny Windows XP machine works at least as well as any Windows XP computer I have used.

I will be writing a much more complete review of the MSI Wind once I have had more of an opportunity to test it out thoroughly.  In the meantime, if you have any questions about the Wind or tests you would like me to perform, please leave them in the comments or send them in using the contact form.  I will try to address as many of them as I can.

You can find the MSI Wind at the MSI website, newegg, and many other retail outlets.  They typically cost $479.99-$499.99 for the 3-cell battery and $549.99 for the 6-cell battery.

Related posts:

1. There’s a new MSI Wind in town, and it’s bringing the battery life!
2. MSI: Blowing Its Wind Through My House
3. MSI Wind Provides All the Power You Need for the Day – 13 HOURS!
4. MSI Wind: A Day In My Life
5. Overclock the MSI Wind! BIOS 1.09 update