Back in May, we first got a glimpse of the MSI Wind Pad 100 at Computex and today, MSI released a handful of images of the tablet.
The images show the Wind Pad 100 sporting a black and white finish, along with several shots of the tablet’s bottom. The tablet’s underside has a headphone jack, one USB port, an input for an AC adapter and an additional spot that appears to be a mini-USB port. The images also show a tablet mounted in the docking station, which has two USB ports, a headphone and microphone jack, an AC adapter jack, HDMI output, a VGA port and an Ethernet jack.
The 10.1-inch Windows 7 tablet is powered by an Atom Z530 CPU and features a screen with a 1024 x 600-pixel resolution, 2GB RAM, a 32GB SSD and up to eight hours of battery life. Check out our gallery below В for additional images.
Last year, we reviewed MSI’s original X-Slim notebook, the X340, and though we loved its slim sense of style, we were disappointed in its weak performance and lackluster keyboard. What a difference a year makes! We’ve just reviewed the new MSI X-Slim X350 and we’re really impressed. The X350 has a snappy1.3-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 7+ hours of battery life, and one of the best keyboards we’ve ever tested. In fact, its keyboard allowed us to beat our previous high-score on the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor test.
In addition to its highly-responsive keyboard, the X350 has one of the best looking chassis we’ve seen, including a deck that has a textured honeycomb pattern that reminds us of leather wallet or watch band. Leaving our wrists on the softВ palmrestВ as we typed was extremely comfortable, though we did feel a little warmth to the left of the touchpad from time to time. The main drawback to the X350 is its rather luxurious $899 price tag, but the light weight and stylish design justify the expense.
Sure, you’ve already seen some real world hands-on photos of MSI’s upcoming Wind Pad 100 tablet running Windows 7. But you know you want to see the glossy promo shots from MSI that show you exactly what the device makers want you to see and nothing else.
Well, if press shots are your thing, French news site Blogeee is the place to go for a few more like the one above. The tech blog managed to snag about 4 promotional shots of the Wind Pad 100.
Last I heard, the tablet sports a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor and runs Windows 7 Ultimate. It has a finger-friendly program launcher, which you can see featured prominently in the press shots.
But it’s worth noting that while apps like this might make it easier to launch software on a touchscreen tablet, they rarely do anything to make the experience of using apps that were designed for a keyboard and mouse easier to use with your fingertips. I suspect Windows tablets won’t really take off until developers start to write third party apps that are really designed for touch, much the way that iPad and Android apps already are.
Move over iRobot, you’re in danger of becoming obsolete. Today MSI, a company largely known for its computers and computer components, demonstrated the MSI M800, a robotic vacuum that could wipe clean the competition.
The M800 has a powerful suction system, an arm that swipes at dirt and helps push it into the line of fire, and sonic sensors that stop the device from bumping into furniture. Perhaps the creepiest thing about the M800 is that it knows when it is running out of juice and it goes and plugs itself into the charging station automatically. That means that it’s always charged and doesn’t need a human. Sounds like Skynet, doesn’t it?
There’s no word yet on whether the M800 is coming to America, though based on what we saw, we certainly think it should be brought here. If it does come, it will be priced around $400 U.S. В MSI also makes two other robotic vacuums, the fancier R-1300, which features a webcam you can watch from your computer and use for household security, and the R-500 which has a super slim design but lacks the sonic sensors and self-charging capability of its siblings.
We had a chance to witness both the cleaning and the charging in action. Check out our video and gallery images below.
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MSI has quietly introduced two new netbook concept designs. There aren’t a lot of details about the MSI La Mode and MSI Serene at the moment, but here’s what we know:
MSI Serene
This model will be a fanless netbook using “MSI’s thermal technology” and heat dissipation. Because there’s no fan, the 10 inch netbook will be almost silent while operating. MSI says it will integrate the same heat dissipation into all its future products.
MSI La Mode
The 10 inch La Mode concept netbook looks like a slightly tweaked vesion of the Wind U160 with an overhauled exteriod design. It features an “ebony cloth case with wave-pattern and luminscent MSI logo.” While the case gives the MSI La Mode a bit of flare, it’s also designed to help dissipate heat.
There’s no word on the specs for either model, and the fact that MSI is referring to the La Mode as a concept would seem to indicate that it might never see the light of day. But you never know.
Asus ain’t the only company launching a few tablets at Computex this week. MSI just unveiled two new models, the MSI Wind Pad 100 and Wind Pad 110. Both feature 10 inch touchscreen displays, but under the hood they’re two very different machines.
Wind Pad 100 Windows 7 tablet
The MSI Wind Pad 100 packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor and runs Windows 7 Ultimate. MSI has developed a finger-friendly program luancher called Wind Touch.
The tablet has 2 USB ports, a webcam, and an HDMI output for handling 720p HD video. The tablet weighs 1.7 pounds and has a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel capacitive display.
Engadget reports the Wind Pad 100 should hit the streets later this year for about $499.
The MSI Wind U135 is a 10 inch netbook with an Intel Atom N450 Pine Trail processor and a chiclet-style keyboard. That sentence could describe virtually every netbook released in the first half of 2010, but the Wind U135 stands out from the crowd just a tiny bit due to decent build quality and an excellent keyboard.
But the computer isn’t without its issues. There are no access panels for upgrading the RAM or hard drive, and the touchpad lacks support for multitouch gestures.
MSI sent me a demo unit to review for a month. It has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, and 250GB hard drive. The mini-notebook has 802.1b/g/n WiFi and a 58Whr, 5200mAh battery. The netbook runs Windows 7 Starter Edition and sells for about $305 after rebate from B&H.
Plug an iPhone or iPod into pretty much any computer with a USB port, and you should get enough power to charge your phone or media player. Try the same thing with an iPad and your results are likely to be a bit less predictable. That’s because an iPad needs more power to charge and most older PCs ship with USB ports that simply don’t pump out enough juice.
Newer Macbooks do provide enough power to let you use your iPad while it’s charging. Most older computers will charge your iPad slowly if the screen is turned off, but if you turn on the display you’ll probably see that the tablet isn’t charging.
Up until now, it seemed like the simplest solution was to plug your iPad into a computer only when you needed to sync data — and to plug it into a wall jack when you needed to charge. But it looks like there are firmware updates that let you tweak computers with Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte motherboards so that they provide more power to USB ports — enough power to charge an iPad.
Your results may vary, and of course you may run the risk of shorting your motherboard if you don’t know what you’re doing. But if you’re willing to take that risk, you can find download links from all three motherboard manufacturers at Engadget. You can see a video of an iPad being charged from several different laptop USB ports after the break. That includes a Sony Vaio P mini-laptop which isn’t exactly a high power device.
MSI has been showing off tablet computers since January. Now Digitimes reports that the company will begin selling them in the US and Europe through partnerships with regional wireless carriers as soon as the third quarter of 2010. But DigiTimes says that MSI chairman Joseph Hsu doens’t really expect tablets (with the possible exception of the Apple iPad) to make a big splash until next year when there are mroe applications and services available for the devices.
The tablet will reportedly have an Intel Atom Z-series processor, a multi-touch display, and run Windows 7.
Hsu also tells DigiTimes that the company is streamlining its netbook lineup and will launch just two or three models per year from now on. I’ll believe that when I see it. MSI has already introduced several new models this year including the Wind U130, U135, and U160. And the company is expected to show off new models at Computex next week including a netbook with a dual core Intel Atom N550 processor and another with support for single core Intel Atom N455 and N475 chips and DDR3 memory.
NVIDIA has done a pretty god job of demonstrating that low power netbooks and notebooks can actually be pretty effective machines for watching HD video and playing games if you add a decent graphics card. But that doesn’t have to mean throwing an NVIDIA ION or similar graphics card inside a laptop. You can also boost performance by adding an external graphics card — like the upcoming MSI GUS (Graphics Upgrade Solution).
MSI says the card can connect to a notebook using a PCI Express card slot. While those ports aren’t as common as they used to be, MSI also plans to launch a USB 3.0 version of GUS down the road.
MSI GUS will have a base price of about $100, but for that price you just get the enclosure. YOu’ll have to pay closer to $200 if you want the unit bundled with a graphics card. In addition to powering up the graphics performance of notebooks, the GUS system should add multi-monitor support, allowing you to connect up to 3 monitors to your notebook (for a total of 4 displays including the notebook screen).
MSI is expected to showcase the graphics solution at Computex next week.
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The MSI Wind U135 is a 10 inch netbook with an Intel Atom N450 Pine Trail processor and a chiclet-style keyboard. That sentence could describe virtually every netbook released in the first half of 2010, but the Wind U135 stands out from the crowd just a tiny bit due to decent build quality and an excellent keyboard.
