X-bit labs

14" Widescreen: Most Optimal Solution? 10 Contemporary Notebooks Roundup (page 18)

Category: Mobile

by Vasily Melnik

[ 06/07/2006 | 10:56 PM ]

The back panel has nothing but a battery and a modem port.

Everything else is located on the notebook’s side panels: a DVD-burner, two USB ports and an ExpressCard slot on the right…

…and a connector for an external monitor, video output, LAN port, USB and FireWire ports, and a PCMCIA slot are on the left panel.

It’s good to have support for both the new ExpressCard format and for old PCMCIA cards.

The keyboard is nearly ideal:

Everything’s in its right place without any innovations like combining Insert and Delete in one button.

The arrow keys are made properly, too:

There’s a row of extra buttons designed as a rubber strip with labels.

Just press on the corresponding section of the strip to enable the corresponding function. That’s not the best implementation, I should say. It’s hard to tell if the button has really been pressed or not. The Power-On button is highlighted just like on other MSI notebooks, this time with a blue circle around it. The touchpad’s buttons are as unhandy as the additional functional keys:

They are part of the touchpad bezel and are made of some rubber-like material, too. I didn’t like using them, to tell you the truth. The touchpad itself is good and large enough, with a normal positioning accuracy.