MSI’s Wind has been out in the market for some months now, and most, if not all reactions to it has been positive. Everything, from the looks, portability, expandability, screen, and power, while not so different from that of its competitors, were put together so well, with such good build quality, that the Wind soon became a favorite for many people looking for a secondary PC. All except for the battery – a 3-cell that is merely adequate for a portable device.

                                             It's the MSI Wind - I'm sure you've seen it before, but this one has a different twist to it...

This 3-cell battery is the inevitable blemish in an otherwise high-quality netbook, but MSI has early on heard the comments and complaints and is planning to launch the 6-cell battery locally this coming first week of October. Being the persistent editors we are, we somehow convinced the local distributor to send us a sample a week in advance. Battery rundown figures, while not as sexy as say, benchmark numbers and processor speeds, is vitally important for the many road warriors and anybody else who can’t find a convenient power socket just to continue working/browsing/playing.

                                             This one has a battery that has twice the number of cells (and it's white too).                                         

                                             This 6-cell battery is for evaluation/testing only, no black 6-cells were available at the time - hence the horrible color combination.

This being the case, we ran a couple of run-down tests both for your edification, and to satisfy our intense curiosity (two of the editors in our office owns an MSI Wind 3-cell). First, the baseline. Claimed run-time for the standard 3 cell is 2:30 hr:min with moderate use. This “moderate use” doesn’t specify which features are turned on and what the Wind is used for during that two-and-a-half hours, but it is easy to assume that this simply means light browsing, typing, and perhaps some MP3 playback.  The 6-cell was also tested under the same scenario – a highly unscientific “turn on and use” that’s somewhat random, but more realistic than a “turn off everything and don’t touch the Wind” kind of scenario. This way we will get numbers closer to the normal user’s case.

                                             The 6-cell raises up the Wind quite a bit - good for ventilation.

At the same time, we look for a theoretical “heavy-use” scenario, wherein we played a 720p video in a loop with the sound off, WiFi off, and on full screen brightness, with only the Windows XP desktop and an Objectdock bar in the background. This represents a workload that will be encountered by 90% of netbook users out there – a single “task” that’s heavy enough to tax the Atom CPU to around 60-70% constant loading, on full brightness setting because it’s how most people like their video playback anyway – and it requires loads of battery power to maintain that brightness. Before we go on to our raw numbers, please note that the results you get will vary, as the 6 cell battery we got is an evaluation piece, and the tests and the exact setup we have will not be the same as everyone else’s.

                                             As you can see, the 6-cell is essentially the same battery package with more cells - but don't try to cobble together one, as it involves complex reprogramming of proper battery-level and battery charge indicators.

Power option was set to “Max Battery”, while power meter warnings were all set to “No action”. The editor then proceeded to work on the Wind browsing through websites while typing up a review – a common occurrence here – with occasional idle moments when using the main computer ofr other tasks. First off; the 3 cell battery clocks in at pretty close to the official estimate of 2:30 – we got 2:10 during normal usage with WiFi on and browsing the internet with around 5 tabs, just below medium brightness, a Word document running in the background, and a USB stick stuck in one of the USB slots. The 6-cell on the other hand clocked in at an impressive 5:11 with the same general scenario described above – with the exception of having a total of 10 tabs up instead of just 5, one of them on Youtube (the editor got bored). Although far from the 24 hour maximum achieved by the HP Elitebook 6930p, 5 hours plus change is nothing to sneer at – especially for a super-portable netbook just above the 1kg weight (with the 6-cell).

                                             With a nearly perfect keyboard for its size, the battery only seals the deal as far as I'm concerned.

Now for the heavy-use scenario. We put the 3-cell through the aforementioned video loop and specific conditions, and discovered that we didn’t need to have ticked the box on the video player options saying “Loop indefinitely” – as the Wind on the 3-cell didn’t last more than the movie’s 1:39 hr:min length. The 3-cell conked out at 1:13 – a puny amount of viewing time fit only for 2 episodes of The IT Crowd. The 6-cell on the other hand didn’t perform to scale, it actually went ahead and continued running for 2:57 hr:min! This is 31 minutes more than the expected 2:26 – the expected “doubled” number compared to the 3-cell. Nearly 3 hours for a 6-cell battery for roughly an increase of 0.3 lbs (2.3 vs. 2.6 lbs) from the 3-cell version should be more than enough incentive for most users.

A note to the readers: due to the “evaluation” status of the 6-cell, or perhaps because a firmware update is required, the 6-cell always shows “99%” and “charging” constantly – even after a few hours of staying plugged into a socket – but it is assuredly already fully charged during the tests. A future patch or the actual production 6-cells should solve this problem.

What does this mean for you? Well for starters, more episodes of IT Crowd – around 6 episodes in one sitting all in all. Which is no good, if you overdose easily on the geeky parts. It also means less hunting around for a power socket and more actual work accomplished, and less worrying about your power bar. Best of all, the addition of the 6-cell, while it adds a little weight to the Wind, adds a lot to its portability aspect and eliminates one of the more commented-upon shortcomings of the MSI Wind – giving us as near-perfect a netbook as can possibly be bought on the market today – taking into account a netbook’s usual usage scenarios and factors like looks, portability, expandability, screen, and power, as well as good build quality. This little upgrade completes the Wind.