While you might have to wait a few more days to get your hands on an MSI Wind notebook, Doug Aamoth over at CrunchGear has been testing one out for a while. And he’s got the benchmarks and videos to prove it.
Aamoth put the little computer through the paces, testing out Skype Video, DVD and HD video playback, Google Earth (using OpenGL and DirectX), and StarCraft. The video game plaid perfectly smoothly, which isn’t surprising considering the game’s age. Google Earth worked well enough using OpenGL, but it was pretty pokey with DirectX. For the most part, the Wind passed the video tests with flying colors.
The one down side is that Aamoth tried to install Ubuntu and ran into some problems. He’s not the first reviewer to try installing a stock version of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and run into a brick wall. Hopefully it’ll be much easier to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is designed for little laptops with Intel Atom processors. I’m sure it’ll be a matter of days, if not minutes before some Linux gurus figure out how to get Ubuntu or other distros up and running once these computers actually start hitting the streets.
You can find more videos over at CrunchGear.