14 DAY TRIAL // Like all of its rivals, Micro-Star International has been quite active lately, especially with all the hype surrounding the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460. Still, even though this new card is the talk of the hour, the company found some time to work on something a little different. Specifically, MSI has been preparing the arrival of a new member for the X-Silm Series of mobile computers. Said newcomer goes by the name of X360 and has already shown its face online, though availability is still a short way off.
Until not long ago, MSI used Intel Core 2 Duo central processing units in all of the X-Slim models. Now, on the other hand, it decided to go for the Core i5-520UM chip. This part's base clock is of only 1.06GHz, but it can actually go all the way up to 1.86GHz, thanks to the processor maker's Turbo Boost dynamic overclocking technology. The chip also has the advantage of being built on the smaller, 32nm manufacturing process and, thus, is more power efficient.
The rest of the specifications of this machine are, more or less, identical to what the X340 had to show when it came out. There is a hard disk drive of either 250GB or 500GB storage, as well as a 13-inch HD glare panel (native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels). Verily, this panel is the only noticeable drawback of the ultraportable, since a matte screen would have better served while outdoors. Still, the laptop's maker did throw in a small bonus. Instead of limiting options to the 2GB of RAM of the X340, the company allows for up to 4GB to be implemented.
Fudzilla managed to compile a list of the mobile computer's online sightings and also learned that actual availability should ramp up by next week. Granted, the price of 899 Euro may seem a bit steep compared to those of the other X-Slim family members, but the specifications do appear to justify it. It is unclear whether this tag will decrease after shipments actually start.