Advent 4211 – MSI Wind Netbook
I recently bought an Asus EeePC 2G to use as my mobile laptop, The default OS, Xandros wasn’t very flexible and there was only 2Gb storage onboard, so I ran eeexbuntu from an 8gb SDHC card. Unfortunately I couldn’t get on with the 7″ screen and it was very limited with the non-expandable 512Kb memory. I decided to go for something a little bigger with a better screen resolution and better performance.
The MSI wind at a price of around £329 looked very good, but then I noticed that PC World were selling a rebadged version of the Wind called the Advent 4211 for the bargain price of £279. This comes with the latest Intel Atom processor, Ten Inch Screen, webcam, wifi, 1 Gb ram & an 80Gb HDD. It is only available with Windows XP preinstalled. Surprisingly it was a nice clean installation of Windows without all the usual trial software that often litters new PCs. The only junkware I found on it was an ad-serving version of MS works which I immediately replaced with OpenOffice 2.4.
It didn’t take too long to make the 4211 dual boot using a USB DVD drive with a freshly downloaded & burnt Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 CD, however a few things such as wifi drivers needed fixing after the installation, but the steps were all well documented on the unofficial MSI Wind Wiki. I decided to keep XP as a boot option as I still rely too much on CorelDraw and Photopaint for image editing.
Accessories
Slip Case
I looked everywhere for a suitable slipcase for the 4211 and eventually found a good zipped slipcase which fits my 4211 perfectly.
Memory
I have added a 1gb memory SO Dimm. At the price this upgrade is a bit of a no-brainer. There are fitting guides on various web sites it wasn’t too a little fiddly, its just a matter of removing 9 screws and snapping the DIMM in. I managed to upgrade in about five minutes without bricking my PC.
Hard Disk Upgrade
The most cost-effective way to upgrade the Hard Drive is to buy a Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB USB Portable External HDD, opening it up and swapping the disk inside with the one in the 4211/MSI Wind. You then get an external 80gb drive for external storage along with the added benefit of 320Gb inside the PC.
Mouse
As the Wind/4211 has bluetooth built-in it is more convenient to use a bluetooth mouse than a conventional wireless mouse as a dongle isn’t needed. My favourite mouse to use with my 4211 is the Logitech V470 Cordless Laser Mouse. A laser mouse tracks much better on most surfaces than a non-laser optical mouse.
8Gb SDHC Card
Its always handy to have a large portable storage card and I use SanDisc 8Gb ones in the Zoom H4 recorder (aka the o5b mobile) and my camera. The files from these devices can easiest be transferred to the 4211 by putting the card into the internal card reader of the 4211. The speed of transfer is much faster than by connecting the two devices via a USB cable.
- Gadgets