PC maker MSI helped to jump-start the netbook revolution in 2008 with some of the most exciting budget 10 inch notebooks available at the time. But the company has been pretty quiet for much of 2010, launching a few minor revisions of its netbook and laptop lineup. Things could get a bit more exciting again in 2011, now that MSI is preparing to launch an 11.6 12.1 inch laptop running AMD’s new Zacate chipset.
The Zacate chip combines a low power CPU with high performance integrated graphics capable of handling HD video, 3D gaming, and other tasks that you would normally need a discrete graphics card to handle. The folks at Netbook News got a chance to check out the U270 at an event in Taipei, but the laptop will also make an appearance in Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show next week.
The MSI U270 has a 1366 x 768 pixel display, up to 500GB hard drive, and up to 4GB of RAM. The Zacate processor is a 1.6GHz chip which uses 18W of power or less. The laptop has 1 USB 3.0 port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI output, and an SD card reader.
You can check out a video from Netbook News after the break.
I am hoping that this will meet or beat the ION2 graphics. I am also wondering the point of the C-50 couldn’t you just underclock the processor of the Zacate and get similar wattage?