MSI brings ultra-skinny laptop to Blighty

X600 takes on Air

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

4th September 2009 11:25 GMT

MSI has formally launched its MacBook Air-alike X600 skinny laptop in the UK, releasing two models: one with an optical drive and one without.

Actually, neither has a built-in DVD burner, it's just that one model, the X600-055UK, comes bundled with an external unit. Priced at £799, it's £200 more than the X600-067UK.

MSI's X600: MacBook Air skinny but with better connectivity

In addition to the optical drive, the price differential gets you a bigger hard drive - 500GB to the cheaper model's 320GB unit - and a faster processor. The X600-055 has an ultra-low voltage Core 2 Duo SU9600 which runs at 1.6GHz, has 3MB of L2 cache and is dubbed a CULV (Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage) part by Intel. The X600-067 is said to have an ultra-low voltage "SU7200" part, but this doesn't appear on Intel's price list. It's a 1.3GHz Pentium SU7200, we think.

The X600-055 comes with 4GB of DDR 2 memory - the X600-067 has 3GB.

Unlike the 13in Air, the X600s come with a 15.6in display with a 1680 x 1050 resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio. They have an AMD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics chip with 512MB of DDR 2 video memory.

The laptops have three USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI and VGA.

MSI said they measure just 9mm at their thinnest point - but that rises to 25mm at the thickest. The X600s weigh 2.1kg.

The two models should be available any day now. ®