15 hours of battery on Wind U160 from MSI

Friday, 05 February 2010 23:01 Mathias Wedelholm

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MSI logo Today MSI announced their newest Wind netbook by the name of U160, a sleek little device at 10.1 inches. Wind U160 comes with specs befitting a "newer" netbook, namely Intel's Pine trail platform and Windows 7 Starter. The main attraction, however, is the claimed 15 hours of battery life.

But before you drop your jaw, keep in mind that MSI came up with this number by running their own tests. While they do not cheat (we hope), a manufacturer's battery test usually involves the computer being in a standby state, and at best brightness is reduced to a minimum and WiFi turned off. Still, it could translate into something like 8-10 hours of real world use, and that is not too shabby either.

Wind U160 is a pretty mobile device in general, what with its 10.1 inch LED-backlit display (1024 x 600 pixels), 2.5cm thickness and a weight of just 1kg (although that is with a 3-celled battery; you need the 6-cell battery option to reach the maximum battery life). It also sports all the connectivity possibilities you might wish with both 802.11 b/g/draft-N WiFi, Bluetooth v2.0 + EDR and optional integrated 3.5G.

Wind U160 is, as noted, based on Intel's somewhat new Pine Trail platform that integrates the IGP and memory controller into the processor, which should allow for greater performance and lower power consumption. In this case the processor is Atom N450 (1.66GHz), and it is accompanied by GMA 3150 graphics. Otherwise there is up to 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM (Intel will launch some new Pine Trail CPUs later this year that support the faster DDR3 RAM) and a 160GB hard drive. The OS is Windows 7 Starter.

Ports are pretty much as you would expect, with three USB 2.0, VGA output, 2-in-1 card reader and the mandatory audio jacks. Other features include a 1.3MP webcam and MSI's chiclet keyboard with extra space between the keys. The design also won an iF award in Germany. Fancy that.

Wind U160 will supposedly be available in March at a starting price of $399 (or around £330 in the UK), but MSI have not confirmed this.

Source: MSI

MSI Wind U160