The MSI X320 and X340 laptops may not be netbooks. But they’re thin and light, low powered, and hopefully they’ll be reasonably affordable so I’m still pretty excited about these machines. And while not everyone’s going to love the 13.4 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, I think the larger screen and keyboards will make these devices attractive to a lot of people who have been scratching their heads tying to figure out why netbooks are so popular.
MSI has been teasing us with info about these two new models for a few weeks. Today, the company released the official specs and some new photos. You can find the complete spec sheet after the break, but here are the highlights: Both netbooks will have the same 13.4 inch display and will measure 12.9″ x 8.8″ x 0.7″ while weighing just 2.8 pounds with a 4 cell battery. An 8 cell battery option will also be available. The X320 will come with 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 CPU and GMA500 graphics, while the X340 will have an Intel ULV SU3500 CPU and integrated Intel GMA4500 graphics, plus an HDMI port. The X340 also supports more RAM, a larger hard ddrive, and is clearly going to have a higher price tag.
via Engadget
If these are photographs and not rendered mock-ups, I will eat my (totally real) hat. Promise.
The fact they put a Z530 in the computer should let one know this built to wrangle people in on aesthetics. The N270 is all over $10 more and has so far posted much better performance numbers. I see no real reason to purchase this over the Asus 1008HA except the screen size.
And now I’ve said that I realize that is probably a pretty important distinguishing factor for most people….so maybe there will be a market.
But still, the Asus should be close to $200 cheaper and with better components….I would really find it hard to pay $200 more for worse performance, but a bigger screen.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the 10 to 15 inch range
of light weight, low cost machines.
We can’t know what the response will be until a few manufacturers release machines.
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