It certainly looks like the MSI Wind is taking point in the mininote race right now. Everyone seems to love the design that’s slightly bigger and heavier than the Eee PC 900. The price, style and specifications seem to be spot on. There’s a tough 2 weeks ahead for all mininote product managers but with reports like this one from Crave being published, MSI’s product managers can be happy that they have the right momentum at exactly the right time.

…it could take the throne from the Asus Eee PC as the best mini laptop on the planet.

Crave mention a few ‘tricks’ too, like the TurboDrive button and a keyboard that is ‘miles miles’ better than the Eee PC 900. We’ll have to see about that but it’s not often you hear the Brits getting over-excited about something so maybe, just maybe, this is the one!

More images and notes over at Crave.cnet.co.uk

Thanks to Expansys last week, the UK prices and specs for the MSI Wind were revealed but the only US prices we had until now were import prices. Today, LAPTOP magazine has revealed the US-local specs and pricing and rather than charging similar prices for both the Linux and Windows versions of the Wind as in the UK, the MSI US marketing team are choosing to offer an Eee PC 900 12G (Linux) competitor at $399 with the 80GB drive, 512MB and Novell SUSE Linux. If you want XP you’ll be paying $150 more and getting an additional 512MB into the build. It doesn’t seem to be worth $150 but there could be additional specifications that  haven’t been revealed  through the LAPTOP magazine article. I’ve been using Suse Linux for about 8 years and have always been very happy with the desktop interface and the ‘YAST’ system management tools. I even ran it on my work-supplied Pentium 1Ghz notebook with 512MB RAM for 2 years and only went back to Windows when I started  getting into UMPCs. [more after the break]

Read the full story

Expansys have put their pricing up for the 10″, XP and Linux versions of the MSI Wind.

The XP Home version based on the 1.6Gz Diamondville (assumed) Atom processor, 10″ LED-Backlit, 80GB (2.5″) hard drive, 1GB of RAM, Wifi, Bluetooth and a 1.3MP WebCam is available for pre-order for 350 pounds. The Linux version is 30 pounds less. By Expansys pricing, this puts it at only 70 pounds (about 25%) more expensive than the 4GB Eee PC. The XP version of the wind is even the same price as the Linux version of the HP 2133!

Looking across Expansys Europe, the German price (for the UK, XP Version) is 459 Euro’s which makes the Packard Bell Easynote look expensive at 499.

Update: US price (UK version export through expansys-usa) is $610.

At these prices, I think the MSI Wind might take the cheap mininote crown, especially with the girls! Interested parties can make their way over to Expansys. (Affiliate link.)

Specifications and details available on the MSI Wind product page.