New MSI Winds Blowing In, Including One With Hybrid Storage

MSI is coming out with several new Wind models — the U120, which we told you about the other day, plus the U110 and the U115.  The U115 is bound to cause a lot of buzz because of its hybrid storage system: an SSD drive for the OS and an HDD for everything else.  This may give the U115 an advantage in load times and read speeds for the OS, though we can’t be sure until we see one.  We’re wondering what the other advantages might be.

According to our friend Brad Linder of Lilliputing, you’ll be able to get the U115 and the U110 with an Intel Atom Z530 processor, which may improve battery life, and the U115 with the following drive sizes:

• 8GB SSD/80GB HDD
• 16GB SSD/120GB HDD
• 32GB SSD/160GB HDD

The choice of a Z530 as opposed to an N270 Atom processor is a curious one. Apparently, the Z530 processor uses a tiny bit less power, but recognizes only a maximum of 1GB of RAM so upgraders can forget about increasing their memory.

Only time (and our battery of tests) will tell if the hybrid brings significant advantages or if the Z530 processor-based units match the performance of their N270-based brethren. No word yet on pricing, availability, or whether these models are coming to the U.S.

[via Lilliputing, Netbook 3G, and Blogeee.net]