Sylvania g MAGNI (MSI U100)

A “new” netbook from Sylvania is on the way. It’s the Sylvania g MAGNI, which, as LAPTOP Magazine reports, is a rebranded 10.2″ MSI Wind U100.

LAPTOP Magazine interviewed Paul Goldenberg who is the Managing Partner of Digital Gadgets (they sell products using Sylvania’s brand) about the MAGNI and they got the rundown on specifications:

- Intel Atom CPU
- 120GB HDD
- 1GB RAM
- Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Windows XP Home

They did not get any information about pricing or availability, but as you can tell, it’s basically a Wind. That’s not a bad thing either. The choice of Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a good one as well.

Read: Laptop Magazine

MSI Wind U91 and U120 - A Few Details

Impress spoke with MSI Notebook Product Manager Neo Lin about the future sequel to the 8.9″ MSI Wind U90 as well as a derivative of the 10.2″ MSI Wind U100 netbooks.

They are being dubbed the U91 and the U120. The U91 is more of a pure sequel / update to the U90 while it appears the 10″ U120 is a new model in the Wind series.

Mobile broadband options will be available for both, while memory limitations (not actual limitations but limitations by Microsoft concerning Windows XP and netbooks) were discussed.

An interesting bit of info came up - MSI considered VIA’s new Nano CPUs at one point, and they are still looking at the dual-core Intel Atom 330 for the U120 which is a nettop / desktop CPU in the Atom lineup. Their problem with the 330 is that it impacts battery life quite a bit. The 330 is still low-power, but not nearly as much as the single-core netbook-based version. Unfortunately it looks like 2009 at the earlier for any dual-core netbooks, at least from MSI (although it still looks like they are considering it).

Here’s some trivia from the interview as well: Wind stands for “Wifi Network Device”

- Read: PC.Watch.Impress.co.jp (translated/Japanese)
- Via: Engadget

MSI Wind U90 - Unboxing

The 8.9″ MSI Wind U90 (the smaller version of the 10.2″ MSI Wind U100) has started appearing. It’s not available in the US, but a Liliputing forum member ordered one from Canadian retailer NCIX after he found out they will ship to New York. He bought it for about $370 shipped.

Keep in mind that because this was a Canadian model, it did have French symbols on some of the keys (the OS - SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) did come installed in English). His model came with a 3-cell battery, 512MB memory, and a 120GB HDD.

He’s posted some videos of the U90:
- Video #1 (YouTube)
- Video #2 (YouTube)

Read: - liliputing

Netbook Sales and the Industry

DigiTimes has an article up about how Asustek is using netbooks to take on the top notebook suppliers in Japan next year.

Their Asus Eee PC line (including the 7″ Eee PC 700 series as well as the 8.9″ 900 series) now accounts for around 85% of their sales in Japan (although Asustek wants to increase their regular-sized notebook sales which would drop that number).

Through August, Asustek has sold 188,000 Eee PC netbooks in Japan through August.

The 1st place Eee PC901-X and 2nd place Eee PC 4G-X accounted for around 70% of the under 100,000 Yen (US$946.52), while the 3rd place 8.9″ Acer Aspire One accounted for 9% of sales, with the 4th place 10″ MSI Wind U100 account for 8% of sales. HP’s 8.9″Mini-Note 2133 came in sixth.
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MSI Wind U90 Product Page

The product page for the upcoming 8.9″ MSI Wind U90 netbook is now online. The U90 is the smaller version of the 10.2″ MSI Wind U100 and shares the same design, chassis, keyboard, etc. (the major difference being the display - you can see the larger bezel around the LCD display).

It’s still powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, with a 2.5″ standard Serial ATA (SATA) HDD (which can probably be upgraded like U100’s drive if you don’t mind breaking your warranty). It lists 512MB and 1GB of RAM, but that is also probably upgradeable to 2GB like the U100. While Windows XP Home is listed as the OS, it’s a safe bet that a Linux version will be around.

You have the option of a 3-cell or 6-cell battery, and three colors: Angel White, Romantic Pink, Empire Black.

Nothing has been officially said about pricing or release dates.

via: MSIWind.net

MSI Wind U100 - USB DVD Drive

MSI has designed a new USB-powered ultra-slim DVD drive for netbooks (for MSI’s Wind U100 but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind selling a bunch to Acer and Eee PC owners as well).

It’s called the MSI Wind Drive, with an aluminum chassis, and it’s not much bigger width / length wise than a DVD.

It’s powered through a USB 2.0 connection (the USB cable has a Y / splitter that allows you to plug it into two USB ports if one is not providing enough power). It can read and write CDs and DVDs and can even burn Dual-Layer DVDs .

Fudzilla says it’ll be available by the middle of September with a price of around €45 (around $65 USD).

Read: Fudzilla

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