MSI X Series – X340
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The Ultimate Ultra slim Notebook Has Arrived
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This is not your ordinary Notebook.
The X340 was designed to be rugged yet elegant and light as a feather.
It’s most unique feature is its size, its only 0.24″ at its thinnest point, and just 0.79″ at its thickest. It weighs in at 2.7 lbs with the battery installed, thus making it currently the worlds lightest and thinnest 13″ notebook!
The First 13” Notebook Equipped with 16:9 Widescreen Display
The X340 comes standard with a 13” HD-Ready LCD display to provide the best playback when watching the latest movies, playing games, or just reading documents. The 16:9 theater ratio provides an additional 14% visual area. Best of all when watching a widescreen DVD you will not see any blank space on the top or the bottom of the screen!
Nothing Left Out !
The X340 has a complete set of ports that includes a 2-in-1 card reader (supports SD/SDHC/MMC) and various mainstream memory sticks, making it simple to transfer all or your data to your notebook. Plug in your digital video camera, photo camera, MP3 player or an external hard drives through the available USB 2.0 ports. An external DVD Burner is also available* so you can play DVD movies or burn important documents
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Manufacturer Spec Sheet
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CPU
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| Type | Intel® Penryn Core 2 Solo SU3500 CULV |
| Speed | 1.4GHz |
| Front Side Bus | 800MHz |
| Cache | 3MB |
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OPERATING SYSTEM
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| OS | Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium |
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LCD
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| Size | 13.4" TFT-LCD Display |
| Backlight | WXGA /Glare Type |
| Resolution | 1366×768 |
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CHIPSET
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| Chipset | Intel® GS45 + ICH9M-SFF |
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GRAPHICS
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| GPU | Intel® GMA 4500MDH |
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AUDIO
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| Speaker | 2 Speakers (1W*2) |
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SYSTEM MEMORY
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| Spec | 2GB |
| Max Supported | 2GB |
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HARD DRIVE
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| HDD Capacity | 320GB |
| HDD Interface | SATA |
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COMMUNICATION
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| LAN | 10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet |
| WLAN | Built-in 802.11b/g/n WLAN Card |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth V2.0EDR |
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SUPPLEMENTAL DRIVE
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| Card Reader | 2 in 1 Card Reader ( SD/MMC |
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WEBCAM
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| Resolution | 1.3 MP |
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I/O PORTS
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| USB 2.0 | 2 |
| Video Port | VGA ( 15 Pin, D-Sub ) & HDMI |
| Audio Port | Mic-In & Headphone |
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POWER
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| AC Power | 19V DC, 65W, Input: 100~240V AC, 50/60Hz universal |
| Battery | 4-Cells / 8-Cell (option) |
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PHYSICAL SPEC
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| Dimension | 13 " x 8.82 " x 0.24"~0.78" |
| Weight | 2.86 lbs (with 4 cell battery) |
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MANUGACTURER WARRANTY
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| Warranty | 3 Years Limited Warranty |
Hey, nice post, really well written. You should write more about this.
Nice Post, good information. I’m glad there is a great alternative to those expensive macbook airs. I love how it is just as slim, a lot less and more usb ports than its competitor. Is this computer as easy to install mac os as their U series?
A thoughtful insight and ideas I will use on my blog. You’ve obviously spent some time on this. Well done!
OVERVIEW
Let me start by saying I wanted the blue one because I felt like white would be too cheap looking. White isn’t my first choice for a laptop color, but i think this is passable. I decided to take the white one rather than wait around for whenever the blue one is released.
I love this machine. The day-to-day tasks are peppy and it behaves like a normal Windows XP machine. I have purchased a RAM upgrade and am waiting for my 2GB stick to arrive, but I have been using it with the 1GB installed and haven’t had any issues. The main uses for this machine I see are internet, office, and other such basic tasks. However, I also maintain a couple websites and was able to install Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 and noticed no difference in performance on this machine from my powerful desktop.
The fit and finish are excellent. Keyboard keys are sturdy and snappy. The USB ports are tight, in a good way, and provide a sense of quality when you plug things in. The screen is bright, bright enough that I often dim it a notch or two due to eye fatigue (which is normally not a problem for me).
CONS
Trying to find faults in this machine is like trying to find faults in a BMW 7 series, sure there are nit-picky things you can point out, but come on, it’s a 7 series! Having said that…
Screen size. This being my first netbook the size of the screen takes a little getting used to. My problem with the screen is that it is slightly too short in height. To combat this I simply made my taskbar autohide, what I normally do not do, but without this, the main window pane seemed pinched what with the menu bars, tool bars, and task bar taking up roughly 1 inch of screen real estate.
Touch pad. The touch pad is pretty short (up and down) so some adjustments needed to be made to the pointer speed and momentum to get it up and down without retreading over and over. Ultimately I find it much easier to just use a wireless mouse (I’d recommend the Logitech VX Nano). What I wish is that Samsung had used the extra space above and below the touchpad to simply increase its size. If it were 1/4″ taller the touchpad would be just fine.
Weight. It is light, but because it’s small it seems dense. This means for me that its weight/size ratio means that it feels heavy. By no means would I say it is heavy, but i think it is heavier than it may appear at first glance. It is still very light for a laptop, even lighter than the Macbook Air (albeit a smaller form factor).
PROS
Speed. Speedy laptop. It gets the job done.
Battery. I tested it out today. I teach high school and used this laptop to take attendance and record grades in each of my classes. I started it up around 7:50am and had it turned on most of the day. Periodically I would put it in sleep mode, or allow the power save mode to turn off the lcd. I also turned off the backlight when I got up to walk away from time-to-time. However, the NC10 made it from 8am all the way to 3pm without shutting down due to lack of power. And I had the backlight on 6 or 7 out of 8 the entire time and I had to connect to the internet on a regular basis so wifi was on the entire time. I am confident that if I took this on a plane with me I could play 2 or 3 movies before my battery dies. This was a huge selling point for me. Most other netbooks have similar features but many lack the 6-cell battery.
Hard drive. The response time is peppy. No noticible lag when accessing the hard drive or save large files. Having 160GB hard drive is important to me. I also plan on adding 32GB via a SD card for additional storage. With all the windows updates, office 2003, macromedia suite 8, and various other applications, along with 30 gb of music, I have about 100GB left over for data.
CUSTOMIZING IT
As with all laptops, this one comes preinstalled with a bunch of stuff you may or may not want. I like more control than some of these applications offer. Also, the computer starts out by partitioning the hard drive to split it in half. You can control how much you want to assign to each partition, and it says you can even set it to eliminate the partitioning, but I was unable to figure this out. When I went through the process I couldn’t get mine to leave it as one big drive. So it ended up splitting it in half. After I did this I decided I didn’t like it that way and wanted to fix it.
Here’s what I did:
1. With the help of an external DVD drive, I put the recovery disk in (while logged in to windows) and gave it the option to reinstall windows
2. It started the process and then rebooted and then I had the option to boot from a disk. I did that and the computer stopped at the typical Windows XP installation interface.
3. From there I was able to delete the D partition and the small, hidden recovery partition (about 6 gb) to allow the C partition to take over all 160gb of the hard drive
4. I deleted the C partition and then reformatted it as one drive
5. Then it installed windows to the new C drive
6. Followed setup process and voila! New clean Windows XP machine
7. Once i was back in windows I put in the software disk that has all the samsung programs and installed those which I wanted. It’s important to install the video and audio drivers so the function keys work with the speaker volume and backlight controls.
8. Finished by installing whatever applications I wanted and updating windows and office
enjoy.
When I first considered buying a Netbook I didn’t imagine it would be as useful as it has turned out to be. I primarily got it for travel, it’s small size makes it easy to pack, and it being cheaper than a full size notebook makes dragging it along a bit less intimidating, especially on camping trips.
I use it for Geocaching, I run mapping software using a USB GPS, and have drivers installed to be able to interface with most handheld GPS units. GSAK runs great.
Battery life is great, I have not done any tests but 6 hours seems about right.
It’s exterior shiny finish picks up fingerprints like a magnet, and it is easy to scratch. The interior finish around the keyboard has a similar look to brushed metal. I got the Black model and think it looks great.
I did add more RAM, not out of necessity but because RAM was cheap and I was ordering it for my other computers anyway. Installation was a snap, just open the RAM door, pull the old card out and snap the new one in. There is only one slot and the maximum RAM it will take from what I recearched is the 2GB I installed. With 2GB RAM Windows XP at idle only uses about 10%, and opening multiple programs does not seem to slow it down until you go to an extreme. I have not noticed any issues with the RAM, it runs just like it did before the upgrade only it will handle more open programs without slowing.
Start up and shut down is less than a minute, and has not noticeably increased since I got it over 6 months ago. It hibernates fast and restores fast, I was amazed since my work machine which runs XP takes a good 10 minutes to warm up with me optimizing it as much as possible.
Overall I’m very pleased with this netbook, it has proven to be one of the most handy computers I have owned. It can’t replace a full size notebook or desktop, but it is especially handy for web surfing on the couch, and taking along outside the home.
great post , really good view on the subject and very well written, this certainly has put a spin on my day, many thanks from the USA and sustain up the good work
I must say I wasn’t too fond of this model when it first came out. I think it’s because the notebook came out around the time of the mac air. however, I’m beginning to like it more and more. thanks for the review. i’m doing some research about this model because i’m considering one. i believe they all come standard with windows 7. i also heard a rumor that the keyboard is going to be made into chicle keyboards? with the price on windows 7 + the new keyboard = totally worth it.
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Thumper’s Blog…
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