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What's coming next? Well, even though the Wind hasn't even made its U.S. debut yet, MSI is already talking about its new and improved Wind for 2009. And if you're not in a hurry for a mini-laptop, keep your eyes peeled for more information on the Asus Eee PC 1000, which could show up in August. A couple of options (such as the choice of Windows XP or Linux) are upgradable, but we're looking forward to a bargain machine that comes with a 40GB solid-state drive, a 10-inch (or 10.2-inch) screen, up to 2GB of memory, an Intel Atom CPU, and 802.11n Wi-Fi (a WiMax version should also appear). Better still, this 2.9-pound portable comes with a six-cell battery and promises a 7-hour battery life.
On the horizon, five companies (Arm, nVidia, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Via) are independently prepping new CPUs to compete against Intel's Atom for future MIDs. Depending on their success and on other marketplace variables, the small notebook category could develop into something similar to what the cell phone market is today, with an astonishing array of competing models emerging every year.
Photograph: Robert CardinFor a hint of the variety we may soon see, consider the high-style HP 2133--a mini-laptop that is extremely well suited for students and light business users. The well-spaced keyboard and bright, 8.9-inch screen indicate that the system's designer actually envisaged an adult using it without incurring terminal finger cramping or eye strain. And the 2133's rugged metal casing helps you avoid feeling like a kid whipping out some plastic toy. Nevertheless, this machine does have two problems: First, it uses Via's C7-M processor to run Vista (big mistake, but at least you can overcome it by buying an XP or Linux version of the device). Second, the price--between $500 and $750, depending on configuration--pushes this mini-laptop into the price range occupied by full-featured notebooks

quick survey of the summer stock of mini-laptops turns up several rivals for your affection, either on the market or in preview form.
Photograph: Robert Cardin To this point in the history of mini-laptops, the Asus Eee PC 4G has been the category's poster child. In fact, MID madness really took off when the $399 Eee PC 4G debuted late last year. Asus made it happen by jamming an 800-MHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, and a 7-inch screen into a pint-size laptop PC about the size of a paperback book; the unit weighs about 2 pounds, and its dimensions are 8.8 inches wide by 6.5 inches deep.
Its price and compactness are certainly appealing, but achieving them entailed making some significant compromises. Two, in particular, stand out: The Eee PC 4G has a keyboard too tiny to accommodate adult hands, and its hard drive is very small (4GB).
Photograph: Robert CardinSubsequently, Asus released a version of the Eee PC 4G that runs on Windows XP; and most recently, it unveiled the slightly larger (and slightly pricier) Asus Eee PC 900 --a $549 unit that manages to increase the screen size from 7 inches to 8.9 inches while remaining almost as small overall as its predecessor.
The Eee PC 900 comes with a convenient multitouch touchpad, too. Finger combinations on the pad let you zoom out, magnify, or scroll through documents. If that sounds similar to the way a certain manilla-folder-size Apple notebook works, you know your way around an MacBook Air.
But Asus is far from alone in the potentially lucrative toyshop of Mobile Internet Devices.
Photograph: Robert Cardin Micro-Star International hopes that its MSI Wind will blow away the competition when it hits store shelves on June 16. Will it? The Wind improves on the Eee by building around Intel's new 1.6-GHz Atom CPU, including up to 2GB of RAM, stretching out with a 10-inch screen (at 1024-by-600-pixel resolution), and topping things off with an 80GB hard disk.
The Wind appears to be solidly constructed out of hard plastic--unlike some early mini-laptops, which feel about as sturdy as a Styrofoam mini-cooler. At 10 inches by 7 incches by 0.8 inch, the wind resembles some pricier portables--enough so that the list price of $399 (or $499 for the Windows XP version) seems like a bargain. Wait a week and we'll be able to tell you whether it's worth the money.
Photograph: Robert CardinMeanwhile, the Acer Aspire One crams a lot into a very slim, very appealing package. It's smaller than the Wind (at 9.8 by 6.7 by 1.14 inches) and yet it finds room to house the same Intel Atom processor and a reasonably large 8.9-inch display (with a resolution of 1024 by 600 pixels).
The preview model that we looked at felt well polished. The Aspire One's plastic superstructure seemed a bit less rugged than the MSI Wind's, but this mini-laptop has a great keyboard.
The model we looked at is priced at $400; it comes with Linux preinstalled and packs an 8GB NAND flash drive. Pop in an SD memory card and you've got an instant memory upgrade. A $600 version of the Aspire One has Windows XP and an 80GB hard disk.
And let's not forget the Intel Classmate PC and the One Laptop Per Child program--two budget-friendly options contending for the low-cost education market.

A digital media player is rare, like a rare coin, and in laptops’ industry these rare items are mini-laptops. Good things come in small packages and it’s a great idea to squeeze the best out of a laptop and put it into a smaller package, with a smaller price. There was a period when the smallest and lightest laptops had a bigger price than normal laptops has, and the best example is Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300 or Apple’s MacBook Air, which both weigh 3 pouns and are sold between $2,500 and $3,000. This is changing now.
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The new generation of tiny laptops, which have various names, like mini-laptops, subnotebooks, ultrasmall laptops, netbooks, and maybe tomorrow there will appear more names for them, weigh less than 3 pounds and they cost less than $500. By 2012 the forecast about sold mini laptops is somewhere around 9 million, and today the circumstances are like this: 500,000 mini notebooks sold in 2008. The market should grow up to $3 billion.

The latest minis available are the HP 2133 Mini Note Pc, the Acer Aspire, the Asus Eee PC 1000 and the Sylvanica G Notebook. They all have webcams, WiFi and they can work with most of the files, but they are with one step behind of today’s systems. None has CD or DVD, and a the screens are quite small. They keyboards might be challenging for adults, and the systems prove that the storage capacity is quite small since they have small hard drives or small amounts of flash memory. The real lack, notified by everyone is that they miss familiar operating systems, like Windows or MAc OS X. While Windows is an option on many models, others just choose Linux because of its low price and common hardware requirements.

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