Review of AMD Turion 64 Laptop Hits the Web

MSI S270 Laptop Under Investigation

by Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 07/19/2005 | 09:17 PM ]

HardwareZone has posted an article about AMD Turion 64 mobile processors. The first part of the article describes and compares AMD Turion 64 to Intel Centrino mobile platform, while the second part of the article contains a review of MSI S270 mobile PC powered by AMD Turion 64 MT-32 (1.80GHz with 512KB L2 cache) processor.

<%BANNER[article_nw]%>

“One has to remember that the AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology was also made to capture the thin and light notebook segment and when paired with the right implementation from a vendor, a Turion 64 based notebook is just as portable if not better than some Intel Centrino notebooks we’ve come across. Case in point is MSI’s S270 notebook. While its standard battery pack wasn’t much of a stunner due to the higher power consumption of the platform and the fact that the standard battery wasn’t really catered for the AMD’s mobile platform, the extended battery pack that comes with the notebook really shined. The MSI S270 may not have the best in class performance due to the processor’s small Level 2 cache disadvantage, which places it slower than the Pentium M “Dothan”, but it does have a good portability ratio and fares far better than similarly priced Celeron M notebooks. In a way, a Turion 64 notebook is almost like a go-between that’s faster than a Celeron M powered notebook but not quite the “David” to challenge the Centrino “Goliath” dynasty in a 32-bit environment,” writes the web-site.

The MSI notebook, which the web-site has tested, also boasts with 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM, 12.1” WXGA Glare Type LCD with native resolution of 1280x800 pixels and ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 (RS480) core-logic with built-in graphics core. The total weight of this mobile PC is around 2 kilograms.

“Save for the disappointing lack of Infrared and Bluetooth wireless connectivity options, the MSI S270 was a respectable notebook with a brilliantly vivid, high contrast and wide viewing angle screen, making it an excellent platform for enjoying rich multimedia content. Users will also appreciate its lightweight yet sturdy chassis that exudes good build quality and projects an impression that it would stand up well to the rigors of daily handling. The only annoying gripe we had was not so much the performance of the Turion 64 processor, but more of the noisy hard disk drive. We wished MSI had done a better job in this area to deliver a better user experience either by choosing a quieter hard drive or beef up the soundproofing on the chassis. For those of you intending to upgrade the default hard drive of the S270, this issue might be moot since quieter and larger hard drive alternatives are easy available,” concludes HardwareZone.

• HardwareZone: MSI S270 AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology.