Flash wonder: Netbook makers seem to be particularly keen to shatter the axiom that size always equals power. Their shrunken portables put a premium on being small and light, both in terms of bulk and price, for only a slight tradeoff on performance. Certainly they would also like people to stop describing their mini machines as toys.

Last week, Micro-Star International (MSI) put a new spin on the confusion when it announced its new Wind U115 netbook. Although no shipping date has been announced, the U115 is set to be the first netbook to simultaneously utilize a dual-format storage system — a solid-state disk (SSD) and a hard-disk drive. The idea is to store the operating system and most heavily-used files on the SSD, with the hard drive used for storing the remaining applications and data files. While the company's boast that this is the world's first such hybrid system may be stretching the truth a bit, the idea is intriguingly innovative. MSI claims this configuration boosts operating performance, as an SSD has the advantage of being faster than a regular hard drive. SSDs are also less volatile and use less power.

To further increase battery life, the U115 can be operated in "ECO on Mode," which disconnects the hard drive entirely and leaves it to operate solely from the SSD. In this mode, the netbook can keep going for up to around 12 hours.