MSI plans to launch a portable notebook with an Intel Atom processor, an 11.6 inch display, and a fanless design later this year. It’s called the MSI S120, and the folks at Notebook Italia spotted the laptop at the Computex show in Taiwan earlier this month.

msi s120

On paper, the MSI S120 looks like the company’s answer other low-cost laptops including the Asus EeeBook X205 and the HP Stream 11. But MSI’s laptop has at least one feature you won’t find in those $200 laptops: the company plans to offer a limited number of laptops with 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS displays.

If you don’t get a model with a full HD display though, here’s what you do get:

  • 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel TN display
  • Intel Atom Z3735F Bay Trail processor
  • 2GB of RAM
  • 32GB or 64GB of NAND flash storage
  • 2MP front-facing camera
  • 802.11b/g/n WiFi
  • Bluetooth 4.0
  • 2 USB 2.0 ports
  • microSDHC card slot
  • mini HDMI port and headset jack
  • 5200 mAh battery

The laptop measures 11.4″ x 7.8″ x 0.6″ and weighs about 2.2 pounds. It’s expected to ship with Windows 10, which means the MSI S120 laptop will probably launch sometime after July 29th (which is when Windows 10 will be released).

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10 replies on “MSI S120 is a small, fanless notebook”

  1. I am sorry but that’s utterly unimpressive. Why aren’t they using the Intel Atom Z3775 CPU which supports up to 4GB of RAM?

    1. I totally agree. It’s a shame because RAM is so cheap right now. Would it kill them to have a model that’s $50 more with a proper amount of memory?

      1. I think they are afraid that by offering a fanless laptop with 4GB of RAM, you will not buy one of their other overpriced and overhyped models anymore. So they tend to keep customers at bay, deliberately holding back the specs, just so you feel you need a better (read: more expensive) laptop.

        It’s not only MSI by the way. Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Samsung, HP, they are all the same.

        1. Asus actually does make a transformer book with an atom processor and 4 GB of RAM. Unfortunately that extra 2 GB of RAM will cost you $150.

          1. > Unfortunately that extra 2 GB of RAM will cost you $150
            Yeah, and at that price, you might as well buy a refurbished MacBook Air and call it a day. Why on earth should 2GB extra RAM costs you more than a handful of dollars? Considering the scale at which these laptops are manufactured.

          2. At that price I’d grab a zenbook ux305. A referb macbook air is only slightly preferable to a solid kick to the balls. I’m still waiting to see if something like the new Surface 3 (atom x7 w/ 4 GB RAM) will actually be competitive compared to intel’s M series stuff.

          3. Agreed, UX305 might be a better choice. I don’t think Surface 3 will be priced competitively, as Microsoft is walking on Apple’s footsteps (eg: catering “It’s ridiculously overpriced, so it must be good” mindset…)

          4. I’m going to reserve judgement until I can actually play with one (plus I think I’ll pick one up when the price drops down to $300).

      2. Is only 4 GiB a proper amount of main memory? Why not at least 8 GiB? Does the hardware used in a fanless x86 notebook computer design support more than 4 GiB? The software definitely does. Unless you need more than 4 GiB for a single process, you can use an x86-32 operating system with a Physical Address Extension (PAE)-enabled kernel instead of an x86-64 operating system. Use PatchPae2 for a client edition of Windows NT for x86-32:

        https://wj32.org/wp/2013/10/25/pae-patch-updated-for-windows-8-1/

        Server editions of Windows NT for x86-32 do not require a patch. However, Windows Server 2008 (not R2) is the last public release of a server edition of Windows NT for x86-32; Windows Server 2008 R2 and later are publicly released for x86-64 but not for x86-32.

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