Word of MSI’s latest line of Wind netbooks has surfaced. Attempting to beat out its netbook competitors in battery life, MSI has unveiled the Wind U110, U115 and U120. The U110 and U115 stress battery longevity,  with a 6-cell battery that comes standard, an upgraded Intel Atom processor that uses 20% less power and a hybrid storage device that also uses less power, these latest netbooks hope to come close to a seven hour battery life.

As for the U120, it holds the same features as the original U100 except with 3G added in to the equation. Internet anytime, anywhere? So much for the competition.

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Don’t you hate it when you buy something just to have it become old and outdated the moment it arrives at your door? That’s what happened with my Acer Aspire One netbook but I’m not too worried about it. You see, this kind of thing happens to me all the time. So much, in fact, that it doesn’t even bother me. I welcome it.

Personally, I’m fine with my netbook’s 8.9-inch screen. The company behind it, however, wants to kick the size up a notch. According to Scott Lin, Acer Taiwan president, Acer plans to launch 10-inch Aspire One netbooks in February or March next year. That might warrant some consumers to hold out just a bit longer. As for myself, I have no regrets.

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When it comes to netbooks, a Linux operating system drops the price down significantly as opposed to it’s more pricey XP counterpart. As anyone who has ever worked in retail knows: consumers are cheap. Very cheap. It’s no surprise that when they see the price tag of a Linux-based netbook they buy it without thinking twice. They quickly find that they aren’t getting quite what they expected (Windows).

“They don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.” said MSI’s Director of Sales Andy Tung.

As for myself, I would’ve purchased my Acer with Linux had I found one that fit my specifications. Linux boots up faster and is less prone to some of the nasty bugs on the Internet that are geared towards XP. Plus, any person who knows computers and has touched computers that run on anything other than Windows knows: Microsoft operating systems are haggard. Don’t believe me? Try Vista.

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My new netbook arrived today! This computer takes me beyond the realms of popular. It’s the Acer Aspire One, and I’m about to open this box up to see what’s inside! Hit the jump to take a peek.

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The holiday season is upon us and pretty soon, Black Friday is going to roll around. Why not convince your loved one to go wait overnight in a line for a deal on an MSI Wind? The ultra-hackable netbook is now on sale at Best Buy for just $350 and the specs are updated quite nicely. You’ll score a whopping 120GB hard drive and a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, as well as WiFi and a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera. 1GB of RAM tops it off. The 3-cell battery kind of sucks, but you can easily buy a bigger, longer battery for about $100.

It’s awesome that you can walk into a Best Buy and purchase a netbook, finally. Too bad it’s Best Buy.

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2008 has been the year for netbook madness. Ryan ordered an Acer, my friend John got an Eee PC and now HP is coming out with a new netbook that appears to be quite the offering. The Mini 1000 features a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom CPU, either a 8.9-inch or 10.2-inch display and up to 2GB of RAM. SSD is available in a 16GB drive or you can get a 60GB HDD for more storage. You can, of course, expand your storage via a USB memory stick as well.

As far as the OS goes, you can choose an Ubuntu Linux install that HP is calling the “MIE OS.” MIE stands for Mobile Internet Experience and essentially, it presents you with a bunch of commonly used apps and tasks that looks like an HP TouchSmart PC. Not bad. XP is also available for those looking to go a little more mainstream. The XP version of the Mini 1000 is available today for $399 with 512MB of RAM and an 8GB SSD with the 8.9-inch screen. For $50 more, you can score the 10.2-inch version. Look for the Linux version in early 2009.

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It’s the holiday season and you know what that means: toys! That’s why Toys ‘R’ Us is expanding its tech side by adding Apple iPods and Asus Eee PC netbooks to its inventory. The iPods will be sold within specially designed “iPod boutique” wall displays. iPod Shuffle,  Nano and Touch will all be available come next month, but for how long is anyone’s guess.

The netbooks will be available in Linux and Windows XP versions which are priced at $269 and $299, respectively. Has your kid been bugging you lately for a laptop computer? Netbooks are the affordable solution which provide all the basic necessities of computing without the superb specs. Even better, most kids will never know the difference.

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Early last month, Dell went and launched the highly-awaited Inspiron Mini 9, a small laptop with a 9-inch screen designed for browsing the net and doing things that netbooks do. Now Dell has announced the Inspiron Mini 12, a bigger, beefier version for those who need more power.

Inside, you’ll find 1GB of RAM, 80GB of storage and even Linux on some configurations. Unfortunately, the Mini 12 will feature Windows Vista Home Basic instead of Windows XP, so you’d better be ready to upgrade to Vista Premium or downgrade to XP. At 2.7 pounds, it’s very light, just like it’s price. Under $600 and due out late next month.

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Found on Gizmodo, this above image is apparently a leaked picture of a new Mac netbook of some sort. Right now, this whole situation is kind of sketchy but it appears to be a legit photo from Apple that was spotted in the logs of a “unnamed search engine company.”

What do you think? Real or fake? I tend to learn towards the latter.

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Netbooks are all the craze these days. Everyone is wondering if Apple is going to hop on the netbook bandwagon and produce a mini MacBook. As of now, no word from Apple regarding that. On the other hand, a member of a German MSI Wind forum just couldn’t wait on Apple. He used a Dremel and six white LCD lights to turn his MSI Wind netbook into a Mac look-a-like.

He even put together a mock commercial of his MacBook mini. You’d think it was an actual Apple product.

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