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LAPTOP
From Taiwan with love...
A device such as this makes us want to give the nearest Taiwanese national a great big hug. And we hope that Taiwanese person is a rather nice-looking girl. At any rate, this laptop from MSI is just as adorable.
Style wise, less is more... so much more. The S270's minimalist design and simple lines are superb and belie its monstrously powerful internals. It's available in Pearl White and – like our test unit – Stealth Black. This lean and mean machine weighs in at 1.9kg and measures 303 x 225 x 26mm, making it quite a contender for the small notebook title. An interesting design feature is the battery. It raises the rear of the notebook half an inch, giving this speed demon some breathing room, at the same time making the full-sized keyboard more ergonomic. Overall the build quality is solid, the design is intelligent and beautiful in its simplicity.
This beauty shows off its brawn once you boot up. Its brilliant 12.1-inch wide screen is perfect for watching DVDs, and the on board ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M is more than a match for any current game. The screen may be a bit small when compared to similarly-priced laptops, but its pin-sharp resolution makes up for it.
Hold on, it doesn't say Intel Inside. The MSI is powered by AMD's mobile Turion processor, which proved to be no slouch. We even used the machine to edit video via FireWire. If you think the onboard memory is a bit thin at 256MB, you can bump it up all the way to 2GB should you so desire.
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Turion 64 3000+. ATI RS480M + ATI SB400 chipset. 256MB DDR RAM. 50GB HDD. 802.11 b/g. Bluetooth. Dual layer DVD Burner.
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Boy meets laptop, boy falls in love with laptop.
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Being a portable means this has to be well-connected. The S270 doesn't fall short there. Everything from Wireless G, Bluetooth, LAN and your old reliable modem is accommodated. So you can rest easy if you need to get your daily dose of the web while you are out on the road. Battery life is a claimed 3.5 hours, but with real time applications this is whittled down to around 2.75 hours. This is more than enough to watch a DVD or get some serious mobile warrior work done, but it may leave you wanting if you manage to find yourself in a place that doesn't have an AC outlet. Data storage is handled by an ample 50GB drive, and its DVD burner makes backing up files and downloads a breeze. So no problems there. However, if there is one thing we'd complain about, it has to be the S270's on-board speakers. They sound too tinny, and turn a listening experience into torture. We plugged in a set of headphones, and the natural order of things was once again restored.
MSI may not be the first name in mind when it comes to laptops, but with the S270, that may change pretty soon. Now, where did that Taiwanese beauty go?- Ibba Bernardo
 Post your opinion or own review!
T3 Magazine Philippines - December 2005 Issue
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