MSI Megabook S425

With a cheeky nod to Apple's design team, MSI's Megabook S425 is a tidy looking notebook with a sharp 14.1in screen.

Like many MSI models, the keyboard lettering and minimal track pad look futuristic, while the blue LEDs that illuminate the power button, hard disk activity, Wifi connection and suchlike look positively space age.

The pearl white keyboard, palm rest and screen trim complements the black exterior, even though everything is moulded from plastic.

The Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86GHz) processor and 1GB DDR2 Ram aren't quite as modern but, at this price, we weren't expecting one of the new Core Duo processors.

It achieved a score of 2,368 in PCmark05 and a Sysmark result of 146, which is adequate for what this notebook will primarily be used for - mobile office work and the odd DVD movie.

The 128MB Nvidia Geforce Go 6200 only pushed enough polygons to achieve a 3DMark05 score of 938 and 25fps in Far Cry.

Due to its relatively small screen, the Megabook S425 only has a native screen resolution of 1,280 x 768, which is enough for a couple of documents or web pages to sit side-by-side. Having a small screen also keeps the weight down to 2.4kg

The 80GB hard disk is standard fare for notebooks these days, as is the DVD-writer. The latter comes with a bright green eject button and will burn both single- and dual-layer discs.

Connections-wise, this MSI notebooks has got most bases covered; three USB2 ports, a multi-format memory card reader, S-video and VGA out, along with a digital audio output. There's also Bluetooth and 802.11g wireless networking

If there is a negative point, it's the battery life. For its size we expected it to last longer than the achieved score of two hours, 32 minutes which, when compared to laptops using Intel Core Duo processors, really shows the architectural age of the older Centrino platform.

Apart from Windows XP Home Edition, no software is included but there is a two-year warranty.

The design might be more aesthetically pleasing than robust, but as long as you don't demand too much of it the Megabook S425 should serve you well.

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!