MSI Wind U115 Hybrid review

MSI’s Wind U115 Hybird is so-called because it has an 8GB solid-state disk (SSD) and a traditional 160GB hard disk.

The idea is that Windows XP is loaded on to the faster, more reliable SSD, while the slower, cheaper hard disk can be used for storing files. During testing, Windows didn’t boot any faster or feel any more responsive, though.

The other benefit of the Hybrid storage is that the Eco On mode can disable the hard disk, leaving the U115 running with just the more power-efficient SSD to increase battery life. Not that you need to worry about battery life, as with both the hard disk and SSD running we tested a battery life of nine-and-a-half hours. That’s the longest battery life of any netbook we’ve seen.

Apart from the battery life and storage arrangement, the U115 is very similar to the U100. The keyboard and touchpad are unchanged, which is a missed opportunity, since there’s room for improvement. Although the touchpad is accurate and responsive, it’s rather small and the tiny pivoting mouse button doesn’t give as much feedback as we’d like. The responsive keyboard is comfortable to use, but many of the punctuation keys are half the size of other keys, which is annoying for touch-typists.

This Wind has a newer 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor. Z-series Atoms have tended to be slower than their N-series counterparts, but the U115 was just as quick in our Windows benchmarks as the U100. The drivers for the Intel GMA 500 integrated graphics chip still need improvement, as some frames were dropped while playing standard-definition DivX and iTunes videos.

The 10in display is very bright, but is still limited to a resolution of 1,024×600. The matte finish cuts out reflections.

The Wind U115 tries to provide the best of both worlds by having Windows XP on the SSD, leaving you plenty of space for documents and large media files on the hard disk. The trouble is, it’s just too expensive, especially when other, cheaper netbooks have battery life that’s almost as long.