MSI Wind U230-040US 12.1-inch Netbook

Introduction

Intel has owned the netbook market since the whole segment kicked off back in 2007. Intel was the first out of the gate with a cheap processor that was specifically aimed at the low cost netbook machines. The Intel Atom line proved to be a very popular processor and sold in droves as consumers flocked to the Atom line and netbooks in general in the face of the poor economy.

AMD for a long time said that it would cede the netbook market to Intel and simply offered no parts that were appropriate for netbook use to compare against the Intel Atom parts. That has changed over the last several months with AMD now offering up its own line of CPUs aimed at netbooks and ultraportables called the Athlon Neo X2.

Today I have the MSI Wind U230-040US on my test bench and at first glance, the machine looks great. The screen is larger than you typically see with an Intel-based netbook and the keyboard is large as well. The real question is if the AMD hardware has what it takes to compete against the Atom line that dominates the market today.

Read on to find out if the MSI Wind U230-040US performs well enough to go with a netbook not sporting an Atom CPU.