Review Of The MSI X600 Laptop

MSI X600- Slim, Lightweight Not Worth The Price Though

Sum n substance:

Thumbs up: lightest and thinnest notebook, so-so battery life, decent graphics performance.

Thumbs down: bad video quality, bad speakers, uncomfortable keyboard design.

Inside the trunk:
CPU: 1.4-GHz Intel Penryn Core 2 Solo SU3500 ULV
OS: Microsoft Vista Home Premium
RAM/Expandable: 4GB/4GB
Hard Drive Size/Speed: 500GB/5,400 rpm
Optical Drive: 8X External
Display/Resolution: 15.6 inches/1366 x 76

THE WHIZ-KID SPEAKS: This 15.6 inch laptop is the latest entry in the array of the super slim notebooks. Being highly portable this could have quite well been the option for many but the absence of an optical drive would make many of them sway away from it. Also at the same price tag or much lesser one could easily opt for a heavier one with better overall performance. But overall this one packs in a lot of stuff for all those looking out for a basic laptop with plenty of visual appeal and don’t exactly mind the absence of an optical drive.

Razzle-dazzle: This one could easily win the ‘me slimmest notebook’ competition with it’s less than an inch thickness. Well I guess this incredible thin frame is possible only because the company people decided to do away with the internal optical drive. However its got an external DVD burner. Also I could add that this one is probably the most lightweight notebook at 4.8 pounds but here again the external DVD burner weighs about 0.8 pounds. So its almost the same as carrying a 5.6 pounds notebook which is the average weight for any notebook. Its available in two colours glossy white and silver and if you wish to avoid the fingerprint marks then I would recommend the silver one. The aluminium make has been replaced with a glossy plastic weight which again is one of the causes of the less weight.

The slim design not withstanding, this one has been packed with a lot of ports which include the regular audio ports, VGA, Ethernet, 2-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB ports along with an eSATA/USB port for connecting to high speed backup devices along with an HDMI port for some Hi-def video playing.

The keyboard of this one is quite a large one thanks to the wide chassis design. The keys aren’t spaced out properly with a lot of space in between some which leads to a lot of mistakes when typing. Also while using I had to stretch my fingers a bit too much to make sure that I hit the right key on the right time. This reduced the typing speed to quite an extent bringing it down to 74 words per minute from the usual 80 words per minute. The touchpad is quite large and accurately textured which makes it comfortable to use. However like I always say, I wish they had double buttons than the single rocker bar.

The 15.6 inch display has a resolution of 1366×768 pixels which means that a vertical resolution of 768 pixels users will not have to do much of scrolling while viewing web pages or scrolling through documents. The screen is pretty much glossy and provides much of brightness when viewed directly but when looked at from the top the colours easily wash off. This one could also double up as a mirror at times because you could see your reflection in it at times.

Inside dope:
It comes equipped with a 1.3 megapixel webcam which offers a decent image quality even when the light is not that bright. The images are not grainy and also there is hardly any display of noise except for at the edges.

Coming to the video quality I guess this is probably the last one I would want to go to when I want to watch a video. The video streaming quality is poor and filled with lots of noise. The speakers are also not worth the talk, I barely understand why the ones which are in built in this  one are even called as speakers because I literally had to take my ears near the notebook to actually understand what is being played.

This one comes along with Intel’s Ultra-Low Voltage processor which for all I know has been invented only to save on the space and some power. So I did not like really except much as far as the speed is concerned but even then this one left me hugely disappointed. Putting it through the PCMark Vantage test this one got a terribly low score of 1,850 when the category average is atleast 3,138. Also it took almost 1 minute and 10 seconds to boot Windows Vista which is quite less. However, it could perform routine tasks like web browsing, document processing etc. with a decent speed.

Coming to the battery this one lasted for around 4 hours and 11 minutes even after continous browsing using Wi-Fi. Though this one is quite average but still the company promises to come up with a 9-cell battery in the near future as an added accessory. Also though this one has a ultra-low voltage processor it is hardly any efficient than any of the other notebooks. I could barely see any power being saved considering the fact that it took almost 3 hours and 13 mins to get totally recharged.

I must say that this is quite ‘hot’ a notebook, quite literally actually. This one gets heated up pretty soon especially the touchpad though it wont set your fingers or your lap ablaze or anything of that sort, this one definitely is not a pleasant experience atleast as far as the heat is concerned.

Nitty-Gritty: Well you could go for this one if your looking forward to splurge on something which is sleek, neat and lightweight and doesn’t have much to offer in terms of efficiency. Go ahead pick it up if all that matters to you is the portability.

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