MSI fuses MacBook Air and netbook: X320 is born

Notebooks

Published: Saturday 10th January, 2009 | Author: Tarinder Sandhu
Products: Netbooks
Companies: MSI (All MSI content)
External reviews: Netbooks

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MSI Thin is in

Apple's MacBook Air caused consternation in the notebook style camps when launched. Looking impossibly thin by doing away with many of the traditional ports, it was style over substance....but what style!

Dell's already announced a super-thin, mid-range notebook called Adamo, but MSI is, it seems, going after folks who can't quite stump up the cash for an Air but want the aesthetics.

Featuring a 13.3in screen with a native 1,366x768 resolution, which looked rather nice, the 1.3kg machine sports an Intel Atom low-power Z520 CPU and energy-efficient Poulsbo chipset.

19.8mm at its thickest point and slimming down to just 6mm on the edges, it's certainly a looker, and it should even have decent battery life with the standard battery.

However, unlike the Air, little compromise has been made for pure space's sake. The X320 has three regular-sized USB2.0, VGA output, audio, Ethernet, and a card-reader.

Sure, it won't be as fast as the Air, but MSI reckons it will retail for around $800 when launched in a couple of months time.

I took a look at the new MSI Wind U120H just before flying out to Vegas for CES 2009. My impressions were of a neat design that, sensibly, incorporated 3G/WWAN into the svelte netbook chassis.

However, being here in Vegas has shown me just how many decent netbooks are going to be released in the next few weeks/months, including Dell's Mini 10, HP's Mini 2140, and even Intel's third-generation Classmate.

MSI's second netbook entry of the year will be the Intel Atom Z530-powered U115, shown below:

Being toted as an hybrid design, the U115 can use an SSD and traditional hard drive concurrently, depending upon workload, and we like the fact that it uses the low-power Poulsbo chipset, as well.

MSI claims a potential battery life of up to 12 hours, although I reckon that's hardly realistic. If it can do over six hours on a not-too-large (six-cell) battery then it will be ahead of the netbook pack.

Having a closer look, build quality didn't appear to be as good as the U120H's and the sample model felt as if it weighed more than 1kg.

The netbook bar is high and the U115's hybrid trick is, ostensibly, the only trick up its sleeve.

Click here for all CES 2009 content.

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