so amazingly i have owned all 3 of these.
i got rid of the wind and the s10e... so you know which one i think is best that said heres my comments for people interested in netbooks.
now it completely depends on what is important to you on a notebook which one you will think is best. for me build quality and keyboard layout are most important. all the machines are atom anyway so thats not much of a differentiating factor and all 3 had effectively the same screen too...
msi wind
pros:
biggest community i'd say
uses 2.5" sata drive
comes with an OS cd
3 usb ports
cons:
pretty crappy build quality compared to the other 2. i.e. the battery area was even too tight for the battery (made it hard to take the battery out). that and the plastic is very thin, keyboard flexes etc, palm rest feels cheap.
touchpad is horrible, and not only that it only has a single somewhat stiff button
keyboard has super small period and comma keys and the shift key is more to the left than it should be.
hard to upgrade ram / hdd
lenovo s10e
pros:
good build quality
2.5" sata hard drive
much easier to upgrade hard drive and ram than msi wind
easy to upgrade bluetooth module as well
synaptic multi touch touchpad is very nice
express card 34 slot
cons:
keyboard is also weird... super small right shift key, and the 1 key is too far left for touch typists (this is really annoying, especially the shift when you want to press !@#$)
only 2 usb ports.
bottom gets hot (uncomfortably hot if you are sitting on a couch sometimes)
there is no OS restore cd (this is really horrible, i mean c'mon lenovo its like 5 cents)
hp mini 1000
pros:
available ssd (which is what i got)
the best looking by far, i'd say the only thing more stylish is that $900 sony one
keyboard is about as good as it gets (the samsung nc10, 10" acer, and the new dell mini 10 have the same layout so i think netbook manufacturers have figured out this is the right way layout)
very good build quality
very easy to upgrade ram, fairly easy to get to hard drive
cons:
a little more expensive
upgrading to a hard drive needs a 1.8" pata zif which is not fast or cheap
only 2 usb ports (well it sort of has 3 if you want to use the weird recessed one)
touchpad buttons are to the side like the acer one 9" (its not that bad though)
because the battery is in the center not the edge, there are much less after market battery options right now
no vga port (and hp hasnt released the dongle yet at who knows what cost)
anyhow, basically i'd say out of these 3, if you value being able to say chat on aim and type out long anandtech posts the hp mini is probably the best. probably not the best for adding stuff to, or modding with new hard drives and such. the lenovo or msi are probably good if you want to mod, and i'd say the msi is probbly slightly better since theres a bigger community for it. the lenovo is built better though, so it feels more expensive and may last longer. it also has its own issues though.
i got rid of the wind and the s10e... so you know which one i think is best that said heres my comments for people interested in netbooks.
now it completely depends on what is important to you on a notebook which one you will think is best. for me build quality and keyboard layout are most important. all the machines are atom anyway so thats not much of a differentiating factor and all 3 had effectively the same screen too...
msi wind
pros:
biggest community i'd say
uses 2.5" sata drive
comes with an OS cd
3 usb ports
cons:
pretty crappy build quality compared to the other 2. i.e. the battery area was even too tight for the battery (made it hard to take the battery out). that and the plastic is very thin, keyboard flexes etc, palm rest feels cheap.
touchpad is horrible, and not only that it only has a single somewhat stiff button
keyboard has super small period and comma keys and the shift key is more to the left than it should be.
hard to upgrade ram / hdd
lenovo s10e
pros:
good build quality
2.5" sata hard drive
much easier to upgrade hard drive and ram than msi wind
easy to upgrade bluetooth module as well
synaptic multi touch touchpad is very nice
express card 34 slot
cons:
keyboard is also weird... super small right shift key, and the 1 key is too far left for touch typists (this is really annoying, especially the shift when you want to press !@#$)
only 2 usb ports.
bottom gets hot (uncomfortably hot if you are sitting on a couch sometimes)
there is no OS restore cd (this is really horrible, i mean c'mon lenovo its like 5 cents)
hp mini 1000
pros:
available ssd (which is what i got)
the best looking by far, i'd say the only thing more stylish is that $900 sony one
keyboard is about as good as it gets (the samsung nc10, 10" acer, and the new dell mini 10 have the same layout so i think netbook manufacturers have figured out this is the right way layout)
very good build quality
very easy to upgrade ram, fairly easy to get to hard drive
cons:
a little more expensive
upgrading to a hard drive needs a 1.8" pata zif which is not fast or cheap
only 2 usb ports (well it sort of has 3 if you want to use the weird recessed one)
touchpad buttons are to the side like the acer one 9" (its not that bad though)
because the battery is in the center not the edge, there are much less after market battery options right now
no vga port (and hp hasnt released the dongle yet at who knows what cost)
anyhow, basically i'd say out of these 3, if you value being able to say chat on aim and type out long anandtech posts the hp mini is probably the best. probably not the best for adding stuff to, or modding with new hard drives and such. the lenovo or msi are probably good if you want to mod, and i'd say the msi is probbly slightly better since theres a bigger community for it. the lenovo is built better though, so it feels more expensive and may last longer. it also has its own issues though.
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