Msi U230?

been waiting it seems like forever for the u230, asus' congo will be out by the end of the month but no hdmi, toshiba's congo is selling now in both 11.6 and 13.3 but no wireless n or gigabit lan. hp has it on there 13.3 but i didnt wanna go bigger then 12.1, so I am stuck waiting with no idea when the release date is. I guess I'll have to break down and buy the toshiba t115d if it doesnt release soon anyone have any news on release date yet?

 

There's always the x100e by Lenovo.

The U230 passed through the FCC in early December, so I would assume we are going to be seeing them soon. I've been waiting far too long, myself.

 

MSI U230 is off the official US website again.

 

Sigh. Guess I'll be going with one of the others then.

The Toshiba does have Wireless N according to the site, HDMI and an eSata port. It's quite a bit sexier looking than the x100e, too. It also doesn't have what turned me off on the x100e - the touchpad buttons at the very edge of the screen, they are recessed a little like on the U230. I'm probably going with the T115D.

 

The U230 is looking like it might be vaporware and the Tosh has a craptacular small touchpad w/single button and keyboard so I'll wait for the Turion Neo option on the X100e.

 

I'll deal with craptacular small instead of craptacular "clicks the buttons if I wrest it wrong".

In any case, I should know tomorrow. I ordered what I thought was a dual core neo, because plastered all over the Toshiba site it says "dual core neo" for the model I bought, but I'm beginning to fear I'll get the single core. I ordered it with next day shipping from Amazon. If it's single core, it's going back and I'll exchange it for the dual core.

In any case, I'll be able to speak more on build quality, etc. tomorrow.

 

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1928&maincat_no=135

still on US Website.. praying its not vaporware for the US as it has been released in the phillipines and you can preoder in the UK.

 

no hdmi on the x100e, and from the lenovo site its only offering the single core neo

 

That was the killer for me also. The main reason I wanted the u230 was the inbuilt pci-e expansion to add 3g. I think I'll have to give that up and pick up an Acer 1410. As much as I despise Acer it seems like a decent pick.

 

On again off again on again. Wasn't there yesterday.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=450834

My review of the T115D which has identical specs to the U230.

It plays Mass Effect, if you care about that sort of thing (which I do )

 

U230 released in Phillipines & India.. now available to preorder here in the US.
http://www.shopblt.com/cgi-bin/shop...1000100U0118_BCK4273P.shtml&order_id=!ORDERID!

 

U230 is also on sale now at Provantage.com in the U.S.

http://www.provantage.com/msi-u230-040us~7MST90YA.htm

 

must be getting close to release... amazon has a placeholder page now
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-U230-040U...3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1265109473&sr=8-3

 

b22ri22an,

Did you ever consider slapping on x64 Win7 on your U210?

 

I thought about it, but I am selling it when the u230 is available so I figured why get into it.... When I do get my U230 I will be loading Win 7 Ultimate x64 on it and will do a write up on where I got the drivers since they wont be available from the MSI site. I am also going to experiment with 4GB sodimms to try and get memory up to 8GB

 

Most excellent! I'm now leaning on this model as a probable purchase too.

 

Must be released some where since there is a single core version now listed on ebay. Some sites are listing battery replacements as well. Here and here.

 

It uses the same standard battery as other Wind models.

 

the HK stands for Hong Kong and has been for sale for almost 3 months there. That model isnt supposed to be sold in th US market.

 

3 months!! Good grief, what's the hold up?!

 

Idk. maybe just to p*$$ me off. lol. but seriously i have been waiting since the last week of october with my tongue hanging out. I have since stopped using my u210 for anything other than basic tasks to keep from lowering its value cause i have to sell it to recoup some cash. its on amazons site for pre order so thats a pretty good indication that the wait is almost over.

 

Since the U230 will have the discontinued L335, does anyone know if it has Virtualization built in like the L325?

 

Yes L335 supports virtualization

 

According to a blog, he had to install Bluetooth himself. A quick look at the spec page @ MSI, it does state that Bluetooth is optional.

Let's see what it really comes with in the US.

 

bluetooth and 3g will be optional, it will ship with 320gb hd 2gb ram

 

Thoughts on this recent review? (yeah, I know it's for the U210)

 

"Overall, we were disappointed because we've seen other netbooks do better with practically the same technology. "

apparently they werent looking at the specs when they reviewed it.in the video thery kept saying ion graphics, imo they have had better reviews then they have performed on the u210, quite frankly the u210 smokes most of what is out today in the netbook market as the mv-40 trounces even the dual core atom. my boot time with win 7 ultimate 32bit and an upgraded hard drive (7200rpm) is about 35 seconds. i dont know why they trashed it in there review but it was a half a$$ review right from jump so i would look for another source for a proper review on the u210

 

I was looking at this in Argos today U230. But it says that its the x1250 graphics and not the 3200. I got them to give me a look at it but nowhere does it say on the netbook or documentation what graphics it was using. Do you think they just made a mistake and it is the 3200?

 

Either that or they made the mistake of it being a U230 and they're actually trying to sell you a U210.

If the machine is a U230 it's got the Hd3200 if it's a U210 it's got the x1250....and vice versa.

 

Thanks, it was definitly a 230. Checked that when they took it out. Just wasnt sure if there was a version of the 230 with the x1250.

 

Looks like NewEgg has the single core in stock?

 

It looks likes there are single and dual-core versions, 033 and 040 respectively.

Amazon has a pre-order page for the 040. $480 and free ships seems like an alright deal.

 

Got an email from Argos "I can confirm that this product has ATI Radeon X1250 graphics." Now I'm completely confused.

 

You shouldn't buy from them then Tr1poD.

 

That's also the x1250 chipset. Something screwy is going on.

 

Nowhere else is selling it here. I rang MSI and they said that the UK version is definitely the 3200 and the X2 cpu, so who to believe

I downloaded the display driver from the UK site and I could only find mention of the 3200 (RS780) in the driver .inf. Not sure what to look for with the x1250.

Other option is to get the Ferrari One, but I kind of want the HDMI port that the u230 has. Don't really like the look of the Ferrari either.

 

Still seems weird that the driver download would be for the 3200, but I got an email from MSI technical support who I figured might have a better idea (than sales) what they are actually talking about...

"Thanks for your interests in MSI products. The information you got from our official website is general to European countries, while the specification is still subject to the retailer’s deal. For UK market, U230 comes with AMD NEO MV40 (single core) and ATI X1250 graphics. So the information you checked from Argos website is correct, for your information."

EDIT: email wasn't from tech they just forwarded my question to sales.

So its actually the U210 rebadged as a U230.

 

Looks that way...and it seems to be the same in the U.S. market.

Do they sell the Neo l325/HD3200 version of the Toshiba T115 in the U.K.? That has an HDMI port for you.

 

there is some miscommunication somewhere then because the u230 uses the AMD RS780MN chipset which includes only the hd3200 not the hd1270 it also has 2 sodimm slots the msi rebadge product was the L2100 which the only difference was changing the default operating system to windows 7. the u230 uses the same case screen camera and battery as the u210/l2100 but features a different motherboard.
it would not make any sense for msi to rebadge the same product yet again
the amazon listing has flubbed the description of the chipset only it still says hd3200 graphics

 

Did Amazon flub the description of the chipset or the IGP?

Back in December two Neo powered MSI models hit the FCC that caused some confusion because one of the model numbers, 1241, was already in use for the U210 (which was out way before Dec. 2009) and the manual for these models showed that they were using the Yukon platform (Neo+RS690/x1250 chipset).

This info coming out as the units start going on sale now seems like it's matching that FCC info. That worries me.


There is also the disclaimer MSI has on the U230's specification page:

 

Thanks for the suggestion but not that I can find.

In the manual for CPU it says:

"The actual processor preinstalled in the notebook depends on the model you purchased. Please contact the local dealer for
detailed information."

But it says for Core Chips:

North Bridge AMD® RS780MN
South Bridge AMD® SB710

With no similar disclaimer.

 

So comparing the Amazon page and Newegg page for the U230-033, they both list different chipsets, so one of them must be listing the wrong info. My guess is that both models (040 and 033) have the HD3200/RS780 + SB710, the only difference being the 033 has the single core Neo processor and a 250GB hard-drive, and the 040 has the dual core Neo processor and a 320GB hard-drive. I assume Amazon is incorrectly listing the RS690 + SB600 chipset since it also lists "ATI Radeon HD3200 Graphics". I'm kind of tempted to buy one but I'm waiting for the white model, and I'm also hoping there will be a model with 4GB ram pre-installed. Does anyone know yet how many ram slots the U230 has, and if the 2GB means one 2GB stick or two 1GB sticks? I might consider upgrading the ram to 4GB myself, if all I have to do is add an extra 2GB stick.

Edit: I see now that the U230 does indeed have 2 slots, but I'm still unsure if there is one 2GB stick or two 1GB sticks.

 

Just got it, very cool little machine. And nice to know that that Argos and MSI have no idea what they are talking about because it does have the 3200!

 

Just noticed that MSI now has a product page up for both the U230-033US and the U230-040US. The only differences I can spot are that the U230-033US has the single core processor 250GB hard-drive and no bluetooth. The U230-040US has the dual core processor 320GB hard-drive and includes bluetooth. Also, note both models have the AMD RS-780MN+SB710 chipset, and ATI HD3200 GPU, and that both models are black, the white version will have a different model number than 033 or 040. You can see for yourself here...

U230-033US:
http://www.msimobile.com/level3_productpage.aspx?cid=3&id=197

U230-040US:
http://www.msimobile.com/level3_productpage.aspx?cid=3&id=196

 

Buy.com seems to have limited supply in stock right now...

 

@Tr1poD, I'm interested by the argos version, can confirm that it's a dual core version the one you get?

 

Its the MV40 (single core) and the ATI 3200. I'm very impressed with it so far, everything seems to run very smoothly. Similar to the U210 it should be easy enough to overclock to 2ghz as well.

I copied my steam folder across and just gave Dragon Age a quick test to see what it can do and it seemed to be running fine at native res and min settings, though I didn't try out any battles.

 

Thanks Tr1poD for the info. That's too bad, I'm really looking for the dual core version but I can't find it anywhere :/

 

Tr1poD, can you confirm it the argos version has bluetooth?