I'm hesitant when buying anything over USD $100.00 due my limited monthly budget (I'm on a pension). Although I'm already sold on the MSI Wind netbook, I haven't stopped checking user-based netbook reviews. I want to be absolutely sure that I'm getting one of the best netbooks for my money.

Comparison Shopping

Before driving over to the store where I'm planning to buy the MSI Wind netbook, I'm going to make sure the price doesn't go up on me. When I calculated the cost (PHP to USD), it came out to just over $375.00.

I've already visited some of the shopping comparison sites and noted that the prices are dramatically different if one item in the configuration is different. Based on the configuration, the price I'm going to pay is in the median range of all the sources.

The only problem I have is watching the exchange rate. When I did the calculation, it was at PHP 48.40 per USD. If that rate goes down, I would be paying more where if that rate goes up, I would be paying less. Now, anything less than PHP 47.40 means that I'll be waiting for the exchange rate to go back up again.

Netbook Reviews

There are probably 101 netbook review sites, or sites that include netbooks, but most of the ones I found did not include the "xp" model. I've probably read a thousand reviews, including one from Testfreaks.

The MSI Wind U100 reviews (giving it a rating of 9.2/10) led to reviews on other sites, including a bunch of reviews at the new Circuit City site (under new ownership, of course). It was rated high on every site I visited.

Every review was positive in all regards except for small complaints. People were comparing the power to regular notebooks and you can't do that. You can only compare netbooks with netbooks. Another complaint was the touchpad, written by a user who hadn't used a laptop computer of any kind before. Well, heck, I hate those touchpads too. I'll be carrying along a wireless optical mouse for occasions where I need to do more than a few minutes of work on mine.

No Mistakes

I was going to buy the Samsung N120 before seeing that MSI Wind U100xp netbook in the store. Even though I'd never seen the Samsung netbook in person, I really wanted it because of the full-sized keyboard. Once I saw that the MSI netbook had a full-sized keyboard and how solid it was, I changed my tune. The Samsung buy might have turned out to be a mistake, but this buy will not be.

I'm already getting the software I plan to put on the netbook together and I'll be writing about that soon.

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