My new 6-cell battery

I know this has been way too long in coming ever since I collected my 6-cell battery last month. Now I'm posting this to make up for my promise.

Overall, the battery life is definitely a great improvement over the 3-cell battery. Most of the times, I could log in about 4 hours of usage compared to my previous usage of 1.5 hours. I also got the technician at Corbell to overclock my wind but the guy only gave me an increase of 4%. It's pathetic but at least I'm having an overclock function rather than an underclock function, as was the case before.

The overclock function is made possible through MSI's latest bios update for the wind. Now my wind is better than ever and I'm so glad that I made the decision to buy it. Worth every cent, I must say.

Below are some of the pictures that I took of my 6-cell battery with my wind. I also took picture of the overclocking mode. Note that the power light turns to orange instead of its usual blue colour. Interesting and pretty, right?













What do you think of my wind? Worthy enough to dethrone the eee pc? Now my wind is perfect. Battery life is good. Has overclocking function. Is small and portable. What's there not to like about my wind?

=D

A Short Update on my 6 cells battery

I have just collected my 6 cells 5200 mAH battery from Corbell yesterday and left it to charge for around 10 hours.

Today is my first discharge and I started using my Wind at around 2.13pm and the battery has lasted till now, and the time reads 9.16pm.

That's like 7 hours of usage for me, with the brightness level set to minimum and with only WIFI turned on. Nothing else. All I did was just web surfing, which is my main purpose of getting the Wind.

Now my battery indicator tells me that I'm left with around 12% of power or about 33 minutes of usage time. Wee!

So far, I have been very pleased with my new battery set & coupled together with my existing 3 cells battery, I can safely chucked my power adaptor at home without any worries of running out of battery power.

Now, MSI should have done this a long time ago and not make users wait infinitely for the 6 cells battery to arrive. That was such a torture. With my 3 cells battery producing only 90 minutes worth of battery life, I am literally bound to my room AND to the power adaptor. Not an amusing thing, I can tell ya that.

So, all in all, this 6 cells battery is a worthy bargain @ $99 for early adoptors. Now I'm truly mobile! w00t!

MSI Wind Now Selling in Carrefour

According to Corbell on HardwareZone, the MSI Wind is now being sold at Carrefour's Tech Fair at Plaza Singapura (PS) from 6 Oct to 12 Oct.

It's also stated that the Wind advertised for selling is while stocks last. Will consumers rush down to PS to buy the little netbook? Stocks of the netbook has been very inconsistent in Singapore and it's very hard to get hold of one unless you manage to get on a preorder list.

Or maybe the hype for the Wind might have died down by now and consumers are probably choosing ASUS's eeepc over the Wind. Who knows? I am not too sure but I ain't heading down to PS just to check the stocks availability.

I am already the proud owner of the MSI Wind for quite some time and I am mostly satisfied with it. Its battery life problem still plagues me though. Nonetheless, I am not letting the battery life bug me down since I'm using AC power for most of the time.

The other thing that still bothers me is the lack of a DVD drive. Initially I thought it would not be a problem as I don't use the DVD drive very often. However some of the gadgets that I bought came with CD installation software and I can't use my Wind to utilize them.

Oh well. I'll just have to make do with using both my Wind and my Acer desktop when the need arises. It's just a matter of adaptability.

No problem, man.

New Versions of MSI Wind Soon

Wow. Laptop Mag just posted an article on the MSI Wind's future models coming to major retailer and looks like the newer versions are going to be beefed up with lots of yummy specifications.

But for me, the most important is the arrival of the 6-cell battery and MSI is saying that by the end of October, they should be clearing up the battery problem. I most certainly hope that the 6-cells battery will be 5200Mah by the time it's ready for collection.

If not, then perhaps this might be worth checking out. The only thing is, it's all quoted in USD and so the price of getting a 9-cells battery will be very high. Plus the 9-cells battery is estimated to give around 7 hours of battery life, which might not sound like much when compared to ASUS's EEEPC 6-cells battery which can give around 6 to 7 hours of battery life.

Hmmm... all these talk about batteries is confusing me these days. Anyway I just want the battery which can offer me the longest battery life. Everything else can wait.

=)

Ha! A Retard Reads My Blog?

I am very amused to log in to my blog and found a guy who calls himself retard posting on my cbox. So far, I have very little responses gathered in my cbox, so it's quite fun to see this retard posting about nonsense.

Well, billovee is a CHEAPSKATE guy. Freebies are given freely and willingly by the IT fair vendors. No one actually goes around comparing freebies instead of pricing. No matter what the freebies are, the most important thing is that your buying focus is on the main IT product, in my case a MSI Wind.

My Wind doesn't come with any freebies but I don't go round demanding people to give me freebies either. That's just plain shameless. If the product doesn't come with freebies then it's fine by me. My main focus is the Wind, not the freebies.

But if the vendors are offering the freebies themselves without the consumer asking for them, then that's ok too. It take 2 hands to clap. If the vendors don't want to give any freebies, then no matter how much the consumer demands, they would get nothing. If the vendors are willing to give based on their own initiative, then the consumers will get a good deal.

In fact, the price of the freebies is probably calculated into the selling price or is probably not worth much. In life, you don't hanker after things that you can't afford. There is no such thing as free lunch in this world. Everything comes with a price. You want cheapskate products with lots of freebies? Go to China. Everything is cheapo there. And probably poisonous too.

Hmmm... I think this retard guy is either billovee himself or just plain retard. Didn't I wrote about my experience at the recent Comex 2008? I don't even need to ask the vendors for freebies at the kiosk. All I did was to ask about the main products and they offered the freebies willingly. I don't have to be thick-skinned and demand for freebies before I make my purchases.

Still, everybody has their own opinions and no one will be fully convinced by the other party. This retard/billovee has his own view but so do I.

Plus this is my blog so I can and shall write whatever I feel is right. And billovee can't do anything about it. Other than being a online pest. Wahahaha!!!

Preorder for Wind 6-cells battery

Just now I had submitted a preorder for my MSI Wind netbook to Corbell. They are now giving a special price of $99 for the battery and each first batch buyer can only buy 1 unit at the special price. So add on to my earlier purchase price of $864, which includes an upgrade of RAM to 2GB, the total cost for my Wind comes to $963.

Compared to the people who bought the Wind during the recent Comex, I'm paying much more than what they are paying. The specifications for the Wind at the Comex remains almost the same except that it now comes with a 160GB SATA hard disk, a 6-cell battery with a free 3-cell battery. If the option of upgrading the 1GB RAM to 2GB RAM applies to them, these new batch of owners are looking at a grand price of only $934, which is $29 less than what I'm paying.

It might not seem like much but with that extra money, I could have gotten myself an optical mouse AND a laptop skin.

Well, I guess that's the price to pay for being the first adopters of the popular netbook. At least I get to use it for a few months before others. Should I console myself based on that? Hmmm....

But you have got to admit it's pretty tiring to wait infinitely for the 6-cell battery to arrive. MSI really tests its customers patience to the limit.

Damn...

It's the Comex 2008!

In the blink of an eye, 3 months have passed and it's now time for another big IT fair. This time round, it's called the Comex 2008, where all sorts of appliances can be found under 1 fair. Plus it's one of the biggest fair ever, occupying the whole exhibition levels of Suntec City.

With such a crazy huge area to cover, certain measures must be taken so that I don't ended up getting lost amongst the numerous vendor stalls. One main thing that I'm going to catch at the fair is the MSI Wind's 6-cell battery.

I made my way down to Suntec City today, right after the official ending of the JCI audit. I felt that it was a waste of my time to attend this last day of audit as I don't see myself being useful to the audit. Yet my boss insisted I have to come back on this Saturday to fulfill whatever needs she sees.

In the end, all I did was nothing. I just remained at my desk, doing nothing but surfing the Internet since I was so bored. I don't intend to do any serious work at all since it's a weekend.

Right. Back to the Comex 2008.

By the time I managed to reach Corbell's booth, it was nearing 2.30pm. But I ended up getting disappointed as I was told there's no stock for the 6-cell battery and there's no pre-order list for it as well.

In the end, I ended up getting gadgets that were totally bought on the spur of the moment. See the pictures below.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T300 and accessories

A free dry box for my Sony camera

Nokia N95 8GB

Yep. I bought a camera AND a mobile phone. Right on the same day too. Crazy eh? I don't really know the reason why I bought the Sony camera. Perhaps I was just too frustrated with my Casio Exilim EX-&0, which couldn't give me excellent night shots.

So far, I have not tried out the Sony camera yet but I hope I won't ended up being disappointed again. By the way, it comes with 5x optical zoom as well. So perhaps in future I could capture better shots of those stars when I go to their concerts. Hmmm...

Anyway, I got lots of accessories to go with my Sony camera. It comes with 2 memory sticks with adaptors, 2 batteries, 1 cleaning kit, 1 mini-tripod, 1 leather casing, 1 dry box and a course for learning how to use Sony cameras effectively. All these for $499.

As for the nokia phone, it happened to be a good bargain as it was selling for $488 with a 2 year re-contract of my plan. Add to it the trade-in I got for my Sony Ericsson K800i, the phone only costs a cool $368, which is several hundreds cheaper than before.

Truly a good bargain, though many people at the Comex bought the iPhone instead. Guess iPhone's sexiness still works here. Almost everybody who got to Singtel counters had indicated they were purchasing the iPhone. I seem to be the only odd one out with a Nokia phone and an old model at that. But I have been hankering after this N95 8Gb for ages. Its price was the only factor that stopped me from buying. Paying $698 for a phone that's not the IT phone of the moment simply doesn't sway me.

Now it's a different story. Wee... I'm still trying to figure out how to use the phone as the functions are totally different from Sony Ericsson's version. Damn...

Overall, I am quite pleased with my purchase. So, till the next IT fair shall we meet again.

Tada....

Shameless People on Internet

It's been quite some time ever since that fateful posting from a certain netizen called billovee, whose post about getting a free 6-cell battery from Corbell received numerous flames from the hardwarezone community.

Now, he's back with yet another ridiculous post which can even be construed as slander, if things were to get extremely bad. I have put his post below:




This guy is so adamant about getting his 6-cell battery that he has no qualms about destroying both Corbell's and Digital Life's integrity just to get his wish granted.

Bribery is a serious crime in Singapore and if this matter were to get reported to CASE, it could result in a terrible press coverage for both Corbell and Digital Life, even if they are eventually found to be innocent of any charges.

This billovee is super shameless and he has certainly made many netizens feel utterly disgusted at his behaviour. There is no such thing as free lunch in this world, don't he understand this very basic human concept?

All I can say is that this guy has no shame and moral in his life teachings.

Used battery or not, it's up to Corbell's discretion on whether they want to issue any free batteries to anybody who bought the MSI Wind. I say, if the guy is so adamant about getting his 6-cell battery, then he should sell off his Wind and get a Asus EEE Pc, which currently offers a 6-cell battery in the 1000H series.

In any case, I hope this guy stops showing up at the forum to create a din because it's not going to do anybody any good at all.

Shameless indeed.

Ugly Singaporeans on Internet Forums

I have experienced a first-hand incident whereby a netizen shamelessly asked for freebies in a popular local forum. This is what the fella requested from a local computer vendor in the forum:




This billovee shamelessly asked the vendor to give him a free 6-cell wind battery just because he started the preorder listing for the MSI Wind. Come on. Get a life. There is no free lunch in this world. Everything you ask for comes with a price. A simple start up on a preorder list doesn'twarrant as a valid reason to get a freebie. It's not as though you are the only person that can come up with such a list.

This guy's face is super thick loh. He doesn't understand the actual meaning of Corbell's reply. This is a disgrace on the Internet world. Look at what he wrote in reply to Corbell's initial rejection:



People already give an answer to the question posed but why can't this guy's head absorb it? It's a shame, really. Ugly scenes could have been avoided but too bad this guy DEMANDS for his free battery. And so many responses from other netizens came fast and furious:


















So many responses in a short period of time. At least there are smarter people out there to teach billovee the meaning of shame. I also wrote a post in response to his smirk remarks.



This is because he had written remarks that were so shameless and witless that I felt that I had to make known my points too. Look, if it were that easy to get freebies, everybody in the world wouldn't be busy working anymore. Instead people would just go out to the street and demand for free food, free drinks, free clothes... just because they boasted that they had started off the preorder list first. Or so they claimed.

In life, nothing is ever that easy. Unless the guy gets a lot of support in his "quest" for that freebie, otherwise he can forget about getting anything at all.

So, billovee.... SHUT UP, STOP DREAMING.

Yay! I finally gets my new Wind!

It has been a very long wait for this baby to come along. I had placed order for it in early June and was told that the estimated date of arrival is in July. Finally, after a month of waiting, my baby has come.

Ladies and gentlemen, here comes the MSI Wind.

I received the much awaited phone call from M/s Corbell yesterday afternoon to notify me of my wind's collection. How I wish I could go down to the office immediately to take the wind but it was not yet time for dismissal and their office hours are the same as mine. *sighs* I could only wait till today in order to go down and collect my wind.

And so, after 1 whole day of charging the batteries, I finally get to tinker with my new baby. Here are some pictures that I took of my new Wind: -

My Wind in comparison to my Sony Ericsson K800i

I bought the Wind for $864 with an upgrade of my existing 1GB RAM to 2GB RAM. Besides using the latest Intel Atom chipset, my Wind also has a 80GB hard disk, wifi, bluetooth, 1.3MP webcam, 3 USB ports, 1 ethernet port, 1 kensington lock port, 1 vga port, 1 mic port, 1 headphones port and a 10.1 inch screen. For the operating system, it comes packaged with Window XP home basic, which I prefer to use. =)

Setting up a wifi connection by myself sounds very daunting to me and I went about doing it pretty much reliance on a CD. This CD is supplied together in the package of the Linksys wireless router that I specially bought for use with my Wind. Now I can happily say that everything went well, from the connection to the security of my network. Now both my desktop and laptop get to surf Internet without any worries. Wee! =)

The only bad thing about the Wind is that it has a short battery life with the supplied 3-cell battery. If I were to wait for the 6-cell version, it would be another long wait again for its expected release period is September. Plus MSI has this bad habit of pushing back the release date so I decided to take the 3-cell version. I can't bear the long wait again. But the battery power life really sucks big time.

Other than that, everything is good. The keyboard is manageable. The screen is also relatively good. I don't own a EEE PC so I can't really compare the two netbooks together.

Nonetheless, I am loving my Wind a lot and since it's supposed to be power-saving, I am going to be using it more often than my Acer desktop. This should help to save a bit of electricity.

With the upgraded 2GB RAM, I am seeing a fast response to my applications as well. Unlike my 512MB RAM Acer desktop which works so slowly. Everything is so zippy on the Wind and I am more than delighted at its performance. Though the webcam is not quite good and the mic doesn't capture my voice at all. So when I tried out video-conferencing with Mayi, she can't hear what I'm saying and the image freezes occasionally.

All in all, I would say it has been really worth it. I don't regret buying this netbook and I hope it will be a faithful companion to me the way my Acer desktop is.