MSI Wind U115-025UK- 10in Netbook

@TheVoice: There can't be much profit to be had in the lower end of the netbook market, it only makes sense for a huge manufacturer and distributor like Dell to get involved in that sector in a big way. Technology is always moving forward and the manufacturers are trying to innovate in order for their product to stand out.

I'm in the market for a netbook right now and I would be willing to spend up to £500 on one if it was worth it. My priority is the ability to decode 1080p HD in order for it to double up as a media center, as well as being under 1.3kg and over 6hrs of battery life for mobility and a very good keyboard, screen and touchpad as it will see plenty of use

@Andrew Violet: While I'm sure you're correct to a certain degree, one really can't equate the cost of a flash drive to the extra cost of this netbook. For a start there's the change in chipset that you've completely forgotten about and Intel may be charging more for this. Then there's the fact the whole machine would have to be retooled (this isn't just a Wind with bits tacked on, despite how it looks) which adds to development and construction cost, then there's simple economies of scale. MSI is probably producing far fewer of these than its other netbooks (or any other manufacturers netbooks for that matter) because it knows this is a niche market so production costs are kept relatively high.

The fundamental mistake MSI has made here is not charging too much (for the reasons stated above) but rather not taking the opportunity to rejig the design so this looks like a premium machine - if this looked like the Asus 1008HA (sea shell) but still had all its features, I think there would be far fewer complaints.

@TheVoice: your comment begs the question of what is the purpose of a netbook? The purpose you ascribe to it likely doesn't match my purpose. A low-cost, budget netbook might suit your purpose. It doesn't suit mine. We shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that netbooks exist to serve one purpose only.

To elaborate, you, like many other people, might have looked at the first netbooks and thought, "great, finally I can buy a real computer for less than £200". And that became its purpose to you.

When I saw the first netbooks, I thought, "great, finally I can buy an ultra-portable computer for less than £1,000".

You can see how our different interpretations ascribe different purposes to netbooks, and so we look for different things in the development of netbooks. You would like to see the netbook market develop towards lower-costs. I would like to see it develop towards premium features, while remaining comfortably beneath the magic £1,000 entry point of the traditional ultra-portable market.

@ed If you read my post you would understand that the flash itself would cost MSI about £50 maximum and i'm pretty sure that this is by no means a complete retool since they can easily use the spare mini pci-e slot used in the mobile broadband versions. Hell I could probably make this netbook for £350 using an 8gb ssd and a mobile msi U100 or any mobile broadband netbook for that matter! There would be no chipset problems whatsoever however the bios would need to be tweaked for the low power mode