MSI is ready to rip off the MacBook Air with X320 netbook

Monday, January 12, 2009, 5:50
Laptops
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The MSI launched X320 at CES 2009. The MSI X320 looks like the Apple Macbook Air. Though the MSI X320 looks like the twin of Macbook Air, it is quite cheaper at price range of $800-$1,000. The laptop is not a cheap version of Air by any means but the exceptionally thin netbook offers a lot at this cheap price.

The X320 not only shares its looks with Air but it is also made of aluminum casing like the Macbook Air. All the design are also similar, the netbook is very slim and measured less than an inch in thickness, and weighs 2.9 pounds whereas the Macbook Air weighs little more than 3 pounds. The X320 offers the 16:9 aspect ratio with its 13-inch widescreen along with native resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. The Air offers 16:10 aspect ratio with 1,280×800 pixels resolution. The LED screen looks very bright and offers comfortable viewing even under the sunlight.

The netbook features a full sized keyboard. Unlike the Air, the keys on MSI X320 are non-adjoining which makes it a bit difficult to type. The touch pad on X320 is totally different from the one on the Air. Compared to the Air, the touchpad on X320 is smaller and it doesn’t offer the gesture capabilities of Air which include pinching and enlarging with the help of two fingers and the two and three finger swiping. But the MSI will add the gestures to its future models that will run on Windows 7.

When it comes to the features, the X320 is far ahead of Air. Most of the netbooks feature only one USB whereas X320 comes with three USB ports. The netbook also sports VGA-out port, an Ethernet ports, a Webcam and so are the SD card slot. The netbook is equipped with 160-GB hard drive which spins at 5,400rpm and can be expanded up to 250 GB. The netbook also offers Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for connectivity.

The X320 runs on 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor and 2GB of RAM. The X320 uses Intel Silverthorne platform which features Intel GMA 500 chipset. The netbook comes with Windows XP Home pre-installed. The X320 houses a removable 4-cell battery unlike the Air’s and it runs for 10 hours. An optional 8-cell battery can run for more than 16 hours though it doesn’t fit as well as its smaller sibling.

So, the X320 is a really good option when you are paying half as much as you have to pay for the Macbook Air, which is priced close to $1,600. With X320, the MSI is very close to ripping off the Apple Macbook Air and MSI deserves applause for that. The X320 will hit the U.S. market by the end of January 2009.