I have been interested in netbooks from the start. Why wouldn’t I be? Small light weight laptops that are perfect for surfing the web among other tasks at decidedly affordable prices.

After reading some articles, showing how to load OS X onto one of these beauties I decided to take the plunge with the MSI Wind, the most OS X compatible netbook available. I received the unit today from Amazon and have spent the last several hours p \laying with it including writing this post. So far, I have not been blown away – pun intended…(Note: I have not yet loaded OS X so these impressions are based on using the machine with the default OS – Windows XP Home)

While the Wind has the makings for a very impressive machine, there are some serious issues that make me temper that admiration with a bit of what the hell frustration…The main problem is the cursor/track pad. Prior to buying the Wind, I did read some forum posts warning of a sketchy track pad but I figured how bad could it really be? Well in my opinion its pretty bad. Yes it is responsive enough but the problem is that it jumps all over the page which is super annoying. For instance, three eight times writing this review the cursor has moved to a random spot on the page. Irritating to say the least. Additionally, when trying to use the track pad to navigate, it randomly jerks around even opening new links and pages. The consistency of both issues has me concerned.

My other gripe is the display. While no fault of the manufacturer, it is just too small for me and the small size exacerbates the track pad issue because of the increased of amount of scrolling needed. I also find myself hunching over it more than I normally do giving me a fairly sore neck and shoulders. I do wonder though if this will continue as I get more used to the size.

It is not all bad news though. The keypad took a few minutes to get used to but once I did, I have found it to be nice and solid. I am typing only a little bit slower than my normal rate on a full size keyboard. The overall build quality is more than acceptable for price as well. The case in entirely plastic but the fit and finish is top notch.

So at least after a few hours, I have found myself to be a netbook man in concept only. In reality, I need a full size machine to be the most comfortable and productive.  I will update my thoughts as I use it more this weekend and decide if I am keeping it or saving my nickels for that 17″ MacBook Pro…after all its only 10 times the price…

Grab It: MSI Wind U100-432US 10-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) Black

Tags: MSI Wind, Netbook, OS X

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 10:48 AM and is filed under Computer Hardware, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.