MSI announced its U115 "hybrid" netbook on Tuesday. What's a hybrid netbook? One with the ability to use both a solid-state disc drive as well as a spinning hard drive, apparently.
MSI didn't release a price or a ship date for the U115 netbook, which includes a 10-inch display and is designed around Intel's 1.6-GHz Z530 Atom processor and its "Menlow" chipset platform. Other specs include the usual 1 Gbyte of RAM, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth EDR, a few USB ports, either a 1.3-Mpixel or 2.0-Mpixel Webcam, and 4-in-1 card reader. MSI didn't draw any overt comparisons to the MSI Wind, the company's more famous netbook offering.
The real innovation, at least according to MSI, is the 8- or optional 16-Gbyte SSD working in conjunction with the 120-Gbyte or optional 160-Gbyte rotating hard drive.
Within the U115, the SSD is used to store system files, while the magnetic hard drive is used to store data. In essence, the hybrid technology is basically an expanded version of the Intel Robson or Microsoft ReadyBoost technology, where the flash drive is used to increase the overall system performance through local caching. MSI powers the system using Windows XP Home, incidentally.
The netbook can also be placed in "ECO on Mode," which provides "super long" battery life -- without saying exactly how long. In this state, only the SSD is used, and the netbook apparently stores data on the SSD as well, later backing it up on the rotating drive. It's not clear whether this backup is done manually, or automatically.
One ergonomic note: MSI said it increased the distance between the keys to 17.5mm, making it a bit more comfortable for fat fingers.
The MSI U115 measures 260 mm x 180 mm x 19-31.5mm, and weighs about a kilogram, MSI said. What's missing, of course, is the price: SSDs usually don't come cheap.
MSI didn't release a price or a ship date for the U115 netbook, which includes a 10-inch display and is designed around Intel's 1.6-GHz Z530 Atom processor and its "Menlow" chipset platform. Other specs include the usual 1 Gbyte of RAM, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth EDR, a few USB ports, either a 1.3-Mpixel or 2.0-Mpixel Webcam, and 4-in-1 card reader. MSI didn't draw any overt comparisons to the MSI Wind, the company's more famous netbook offering.
The real innovation, at least according to MSI, is the 8- or optional 16-Gbyte SSD working in conjunction with the 120-Gbyte or optional 160-Gbyte rotating hard drive.
Within the U115, the SSD is used to store system files, while the magnetic hard drive is used to store data. In essence, the hybrid technology is basically an expanded version of the Intel Robson or Microsoft ReadyBoost technology, where the flash drive is used to increase the overall system performance through local caching. MSI powers the system using Windows XP Home, incidentally.
The netbook can also be placed in "ECO on Mode," which provides "super long" battery life -- without saying exactly how long. In this state, only the SSD is used, and the netbook apparently stores data on the SSD as well, later backing it up on the rotating drive. It's not clear whether this backup is done manually, or automatically.
One ergonomic note: MSI said it increased the distance between the keys to 17.5mm, making it a bit more comfortable for fat fingers.
The MSI U115 measures 260 mm x 180 mm x 19-31.5mm, and weighs about a kilogram, MSI said. What's missing, of course, is the price: SSDs usually don't come cheap.
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