Visual Comparo: Packard Bell .dot vs MSI Wind

The only other netbook I had in house to compare the .dot to was the 10” MSI Wind which was launched in the fall of 2008. The first version came with a 3-cell battery, so it won’t stand much of a chance in battery life against the 6-cell .dot.

Size wise the extra inch on the MSI Wind does give you a noticeably larger screen to look at, especially up close the difference becomes clear, the .dot has larger frame around the LCD.



With both netbooks closed the difference in size is less noticeable:



From the side it becomes clear though that the .dot has a much smaller footprint and will fit in places the MSI Wind can not.



The MSI Wind features a standard none-reflective LCD:



The Packard Bell .dot reflects noticeably more:



The 3-cell battery of the MSI Wind is good for ~2.5 hours of fun using its most aggressive power saving option, while this is respectable, it rules out any long term usage if you’re away from a power source. I ordered a 9-cell battery from Ebay to remedy this 7200mAh might be slightly overkill, as you’ll see in the photos below:




Long story short, this battery is very heavy, screws up the point of gravity of the MSI Wind completely, makes it much less portable and easy to use. The forward tilt is “usable” but less comfortable than with the 3-cell battery; the only good thing it does is prolonging battery life tremendously; up to ~6 hours is achievable, browsing, watching movies, listing to music.

The Packard Bell .dot with its 6-cell battery and tested with this same usage pattern keeps running for approximately ~4 hours; very respectable. Maximum power saving enabled and only idling or very few activity 5 hours can be squeezed out of the battery but that’s about the limit.