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Who is MSI? New Netbook Manufacturer Makes Waves
If you’re anything like me, brand name matters. This isn’t because I’m more interested in the name of the product rather than the quality, but because the two, normally, go hand in hand. This is why Sony is one of the top sellers of electronics, and Armani suits are in such high demand. Companies with good quality products establish a name for themselves and capture market share. But, what about new kids on the block, do you avoid them because they’re not well known, or do you try them out and see what happens? Well, this is just the case with the MSI Wind. Most people haven’t even heard of the name MSI until the MSI Wind came out and proved to everyone that it was a name to be reckoned with. Because of a product like the Wind, there’s a good chance that MSI will start increasing their market share. So, let’s get some background on MSI.
First Things First
First of all, MSI stands for Micro-Star International, Ltd. They are a rather large company based out of Taiwan, making all sorts of consumer electronic products from notebooks to graphics cards. Also, to several people’s surprise, the company is actually 20 years old, and has been present in the United States for 10 years. Their sales amount to an overwhelming $2.4 billion, making them a large company even without huge laptop market share. So, definitely not your mom and pop kind of store, we’re looking at a large corporation, with a well-established history.
The Pros
We haven’t quite done an in-depth review on the MSI Wind, but you can find several articles on this site that do list some of the pros and cons. Overall, the MSI Wind is not your top of the line Netbook, but it does have one major thing going for it: a very good price to feature ratio. As in, this netbook, as well as several other products from MSI are definitely some of the best buys for your money. Also one of the reasons that the MSI Wind joins the top ranks of netbooks. MSI also makes several of their own parts: motherboards, graphics cards, etc, so you can expect good functionality from their laptops. A lot of companies (even larger ones, not naming any names) use several cheap parts, including motherboards, graphics cards, etc, from various companies and put them all together. This saves the companies on cost, and makes the laptop cheaper, but can provide a lot of shortcomings in overall quality, because the parts don’t interact well together. Chalk up a win for MSI in the quality department.
The Cons
There are only really two cons I see with MSI right now. First is, obviously, they don’t have a lot of variety in their products. Quite frankly this is because they don’t have several products out. So, if the MSI Wind works for you, then great, if not, well you don’t have many other options. The other huge shortcoming I see in this company is customer support. There is no toll-free support, and no 24 hour service. Even more so, to post a question online, you can’t talk to a live representative but you have to fill out an online form. There is definitely a huge shortcoming in the customer service department, dissuading several potential customers.
Overall, MSI seems very solid as a company, and makes good products. But right now, their lack of technical support and customer support makes me want to avoid them until this problem is remedied. Even in the past year nothing has really changed in this department, but if MSI does choose to increase their market share, hopefully we will see an improvement.
Another Apple Pro: Customer Support
It used to be, back in the day, where everyone prided themselves on customer support. This is where products were made or broken in the real world. When Dell first got started, their top notch customer support is one of the reasons that they got off to a booming start; much faster than most of the other laptop companies. Well, now, the Dell customer support is in a sad state of affairs, but more on that another time. Let’s just take a look at Apple’s customer support and see why its so much better than the rest.
The Non-Outsourcing
Now, I’m not being racist in any way, especially because my parents are from India, but the fact of the matter is that out-sourced customer service almost always causes problems. There are serious communication issues, due to either language barriers or inability to understand accents. Even further are the problems with a non-integrated customer supported. Usually the upper level customer support and management is in the United States, whereas the outsourced lower level customer support is in a different country. This causes several communication and time lag issues between customer service escalation. Apple, on the other hand, keeps all of its customer service (to my knowledge and experience) in house. This helps eliminate all of these barriers.
The Genius Bar
I’m sure if you’ve ever walked into an Apple store you’ve seen it, or even read about it on the internet. Basically it is just a help desk at the Apple store, with decently trained technicians. Most of the time only software problems are actually solved by the people at the Genius Bar, but even so, it is nice to actually interact with a person rather than a voice on the phone. Although the Genius Bar can’t solve your laptop problems most of the time, it is nice that they take care of the process of shipping, receiving, and everything in between. This saves you some time and trouble if anything else.
The Quick Turnaround
This is probably my favorite aspect of the Apple customer support. With most non-Apple products, whether it be Dell or Toshiba, or almost any other laptop company, the turn around time is weeks. Usually the quote time is between 2 and 8 weeks (depending on how lucky you are). This isn’t the case with most Apple repairs. The timeframe is generally in the span of days, not weeks. Usually its approximately 3-5 days, barring any unforeseen circumstances. When most people use their laptops for school, work, or just daily functionality, it is definitely not something you can do without for more than days.
From the examples above, and countless customer satisfaction stories online, it is clear to see that Apple’s customer support is leaps and bounds above most others. Obviously, this customer support isn’t free, and the costs may not be passed on to you directly, but one way or the other you will pay for it. Whether this is one of the reasons why Apple products are significantly more expensive, or why out of warranty repairs are considerably more expensive, the cost eventually comes back to the customer. Many laptop companies end up outsourcing to lower the overall cost of their laptops. The additional customer support is something I’m willing to pay some extra money for, but its up to decide whether the tradeoff is worth it for yo.
5 Reasons Not to Get a Mac — The Cons
Well, previously we’ve written up an article on 5 Reasons to Get a Mac. So now, just to be fair to both sides, here are 5 reasons not to get a Mac. I’m hoping not to insult any current Mac users, but rather giving some confused, or debating, users a couple of pros and cons on the Mac.
Less Upgradeable After Purchase
For many of you desktop users, you know how easy it is to pop open the side (or back, or whatever) part of your computer, and freely interchange the parts. Well with a Windows laptop, you can still pretty easily just pop open the bottom with a small screw driver. With an Apple, its quite a bit harder.
No SLI
At this time, none of the Macbooks, to my knowledge, offer SLI connectivity. That means no putting graphics cards together, sometimes a serious, and costly, gaming limit. This can also be a serious video editing limit, if you prefer dual graphics cards. Eventually, hopefully, this may change, and Apple will receive a motherboard that has SLI enabled.
Lack of Ports
Most Macbooks are lacking in ports. If you’ve ever tried to connect a Macbook to a projector, you know the problems with connecting a Macbook to a VGA port. You can get a converter, but as a former student, the number of times you’re caught without a converter is quite frequent. Also, there are very few USB ports compared to PCs, which can be annoying when connecting external devices, such as a mouse and flash drive. There are, finally, no HDMI ports yet, either. This can tend to be tedious when trying to connect a newer external monitor.
Harder to Self-Repair
If your laptop is out of warranty and breaks for some reason, whether its do to user-error, as in you accidentally dropped it, or some wear and tear, like a GPU that eventually fails, Apple laptops tend to be harder to repair. This is for two reasons, first because of the one mentioned above, where they’re harder to take apart, and thus they’re harder to diagnose and repair by one’s self. The second is that more people are trained to repair PCs, just because there are so many more out there. Apple’s market share is growing as of now, but they’re still not at the point a large number of people have knowledge on repair. This can also lead to more expensive repairs.
They’re Expensive
This is probably the most obvious. Apple laptops are even more expensive than Alienware laptops with similar configurations. Yes, you do get good service, and a reliable laptop, but the price is considerably higher. For these higher prices, you can get much better upgrades from almost any of the other PC companies. So price versus performance, the PC definitely beats the Mac here.
5 Reasons to Get a Mac — The Pros
Well, here’s probably where the most heated debates in the laptop world. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people considering whether to buy a Mac or PC, or whether to switch from a Mac to PC (or vice versa). So, here are 5 reasons to either tip the scale in favor of the Mac, or to dissuade you Mac users from switching. And yes, for all of you diehard PC fans, we will also have articles on why not to buy a Mac, why to buy a PC, etc.
Less Viruses
This is probably the number one argument in favor for a Mac. If you’ve ever searched this topic at all, this is probably the one you’ll find. The reason for this is simple, and not so simple. It is basically because the Mac OS (operating system) is based upon a different system, Unix, which, at least for the time being, viruses are not being designed for. So Mac users, enjoy it while you can, but for now, there are very, very few viruses for the Mac. That will probably change eventually due to the increasing market share of Apple computers.
More Stable OS
In addition to being less prone to viruses, the Mac OS also tends to crash a lot less, and have much fewer programs than the Windows OS. Now, Windows does not crash quite as much as people out there would like you to believe. And Vista really isn’t too bad, but the fact of the matter is that the Mac OS has less bugs, and therefore less crashes.
Can Run Windows
With programs like Bootcamp, and the older Parallels, it is possible to run Windows should the need be. Now the bad thing is you have to pay for Windows software (or Bootcamp that comes with Windows). But, if you have some programs you absolutely need to run on Windows, you do have the option. Also, it can be a bit of hassle to switch, and slow to run programs in Parallels, but, again, having the choice outweighs this.
Apple’s Customer Support
Let’s face it, PC support has gone downhill since the days of Dell in its prime. Now it takes several weeks to get back a broken PC, even if it’s under warranty. Not only does Apple have a turn around time of days, not weeks, but also it has a Genius Bar fully available to people at the Apple stores. Though sometimes the line is very long, it’s much more convenient.
More Video Editing Programs Available
I’ve heard constantly the reasoning, get a Mac for photo and video editing, because its better. And quite simple, it is not “better.” But because the entire Adobe suite works for both PC and Mac, plus you’ve got one vital program, Final Cut Pro, with the Mac, it does have more variety. Between Final Cut Pro and its Adobe counterpart, Adobe Premiere, I like Final Cut a bit more. Combine the additional programs, such as iMovie and iPhoto, with all the PC programs you can run through Bootcamp and you have a much wider variety of programs in your arsenal.
Introducing: The Dell Adamo Notebook
Let’s face it, Dell laptops have never been the prettiest laptops, but the new Adamo may just change the Dell stereotype as we know it. Now, as laptop specs are starting to “top out,” it seems that more and more people are buying for looks rather than purely features. As you’ve seen in the past, the Inspiron laptops are hardly aesthetically pleasing, if you will, and Dell tried to remedy the problem a little bit with their laptop skins, and even their Studio line of notebooks. But, now, it seems that Dell took a page, well maybe several pages, out of Apple’s book and crafted quite the laptop.
Design
As far as the looks go, we see quite a bit of ergonomic design. Normally, the Dell laptops look like, quite frankly, like they were built out of Legos. This time around, the laptop is made from aluminum, which consists of large single pieces, rather than several pieces put together. In addition, you have a backlit keyboard, with curved keys, plus a 13.4” glass screen that spans the entire upper chassis. Even the vents in the back have been artistically designed. The color comes in either onyx or pearl, both which have a nice, sleek, polished finish for some additional glamour. For a full look at the laptop design visit http://www.adamobydell.com
Specs
Although the design of the laptop may be flawless, the specs aren’t really anything out of the ordinary. The laptop boasts Bluetooth, DDR3 memory, and a variety of Intel Core 2 Duo processors, but other than that, its pretty much all basics. The nice part is that the specified battery life is approximately 5 hours (probably 4 in actuality), which is to be expected from a laptop of this size. Even though the specs are nothing special, you may find some extra appeal in the accessories.
Accessories
Unlike most laptops I’ve seen in the past, the Dell has matching accessories. The only laptop company I’ve really seen to do this in the past is Sony, who do it to a large extent. I guess the Apple line of products have “matching” accessories, but it seems as though Dell went above on and beyond on this one, on par with Sony. With your onyx or pearl Adamo, you can get a matching external hard drive, 250 or 500 GB, a DVD/Blu-Ray drive, and finally, a USB drive. If sleek, matching, technology is something you crave, then here it is.
Conclusion
All in all, I think the Adamo is going to be a serious contender in the laptop world. Yes, the specs are nothing special, but let’s face it, the laptop is just plain cool. I’m not one to buy technology based on looks, but I’m beginning to consider it based on laptops like this.
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