As if the ultramobile PC space weren't already crowded enough, MSI Computer Corp. has blown in with its Wind UMPC. MSI basically (though not literally) took the ASUS EeePC 900, improved it, and slapped its own branding onto it. The Wind doesn't go out of its way to differentiate itself from the crowd, but it's still a top-tier UMPC in many ways. At $480 (street), it's the best deal on the market, complete with the Intel Atom platform, Windows XP Home Edition, and a very good user experience. The HP 2133 Mini-Note PC still has the upper hand in configuration options, but until the Mini-Note can deliver a cheaper price, the Wind is our Editors' Choice for UMPCs.

It's hard to one-up one's rivals when the price of a UMPC has to fall within the $500 range. The Wind doesn't break any ground with its design: Clad in white plastic, the unit weighs less than 3 pounds, like the Acer Aspire One and the ASUS EeePC 900. The HP Mini-Note, by contrast, thinks out of the box by using anodized aluminum, which makes it appear sturdier and appeals to business users as well.

I think the ideal size for a UMPC screen is from 8.9 to 10 inches. Anything larger than that and I'd have to question whether it's still a UMPC or an ultraportable like the Sony VAIO VGN-TZ298N. A smaller screen, on the other hand, like the one on the first-generation ASUS EeePC 4G would make you squint. The Wind elected to go with a 10-inch screen, a practical size for both Web surfing and word processing. Even though, at 92 percent, the Wind's keyboard is bigger than the ASUS 900's (84 percent), it's still not full size. If the HP Mini-Note can accommodate a 92 percent keyboard with an 8.9-inch screen, the Wind can certainly offer a bigger keyboard, considering its 10-inch screen. Still, the typing experience is pleasant for both touch typists and two-finger hunt-and-peck typists. The mouse buttons, on the other hand, are so tiny and narrow that they're hard to find in the dark, not to mention difficult to press.

MSI, for the most part, figured out the right parts to put into a UMPC. Although SSD drives are more durable and battery efficient, double-digit gigabyte capacities at reasonable prices are still at least another year away. The 80GB spinning drive is a good fit for the Wind (note, however, that the HP Mini-Note offers both SSD and spinning drives). Three USB ports, a four-in-one media card reader (SD, MS, MS Pro, MMC), VGA-out, an Ethernet port, and a 1.3-megapixel webcam are standard UMPC features. Bluetooth and 802.11g Wi-Fi are your standard embedded features. I think HP is slightly ahead of the features curve because it integrates an ExpressCard slot for expansion devices such as cellular modem cards.

The Wind's 1.6-GHz Intel Atom N270 processor helps it avoid a problem that plagues the HP Mini-Note: running warm in your lap from heat that it generates. Unlike the HP Mini-Note's VIA C7-M processor, the Atom is more energy efficient and is a much better performer. Its video-encoding score of 5 minutes was almost twice as fast as the HP's (9 minutes). And the 1GB of memory is more than enough to run Windows XP.

As energy-efficient as the Atom processor is, battery life is still restricted by the size of the battery: Its 24-Wh battery (alas, no upgrades are available) yielded only 2 hours 24 minutes on MobileMark 2007. Because the HP Mini-Note has a 55-Wh battery option, you can get up to 4 hours of battery life, according to HP. (Because of limitations inherent in the MobileMark 2007 test, we were unable to use it to test the Mini-Note.)

UMPCs have their innate limitations. They're all underpowered and feature depleted, and will almost certainly serve as a second laptop rather than a primary one. Out of all the ones reviewed so far, the MSI Wind has the best feature-to-price ratio. It comes with an Intel Atom platform, arguably the best UMPC platform on the market. It runs Windows XP Home Edition—the ideal operating system for a UMPC—and runs it smoothly. Is it the best-equipped UMPC? No. The HP Mini-Note is better designed and better equipped, but the MSI Wind's sub-$500 price and top-notch features earn it our Editors' Choice.

Check out the MSI Wind's test scores.

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