MSI MEGABOOK S270

The era of Intel's absolute monopoly for mobile platform processors seems to be coming to an end. The situation started changing with the emergence of mobile versions of AMD Athlon 64 on the market. The thing is, these processors are suited for notebook PCs no worse than mobile Intel Pentium 4 and are able pressing Intel at that. Talking about the power-consumption, at that AMD with its minimum 25W (in some chips) has neared 21W in Pentium M (those with the 400 MHz bus), but not the LV and ULV series.

MEGABOOK S270

On the other hand, AMD Turion 64 as well can be installed into this small-sized notebook whose heart is the mobile version of AMD Sempron. Remember that the model is a sister to MSI S260 notebooks made on the Intel Centrino platform.

Specifications:

Design and exterior:

Except some decorative components, the housing both inside and outside is self-colored. It is made of black matt plastic, although the manufacturer offers a different make of the notebook - with white housing. The latter is most likely to appeal to ladies - the S270 version is light enough and very compact. A computer like that will be a perfect machine that the user will carry anywhere all the time - be it a far travel or just a journey around the town.

We can't say the design of the laptop is eye-catching or pretentious - all is too strict at that. But anyway the notebook looks a bit simplish, unlike the ideal of the classical strict black style seen in IBM notebooks.

On the lid of the notebook in the center, there is a company logo, with the lid itself fastened to the cylindrical part of the housing with two hinges. On the ends of the pivot pin there are silvery tip washers.

The lid is closed with a traditional movable latch located in the center of the front panel. When in the closed state, the lid is linked reliably in two places with movable hinges. There is almost no gap between the lid and the housing.

Besides, on the front panel there are audio connectors for a 3.5 mm minijack to plug in a microphone, as well as headphones or external audio system. Beside then, there is an IEEE1394 interface.

Because of the removable battery, the rear face has no connectors or interfaces, except the jack for plugging in a Kensington security lock located near one of the display hinges.

The right-hand board near the front edge is equipped with two consecutive USB2.0 ports behind which there is a couple of communication interfaces to plug the notebook to the LAN or telephone line. Near the rear edge, behind the vent holes, there is the D-Sub interface to plug the computer to an external monitor, as well as a connector to plug in a power supply adapter.

Except the only USB 2.0 port, the left-hand side is fully left for reading devices and expansions - an optical drive, a card reader, and a PCMCIA 2.1 adapter.

The bottom side looks somehow unusual. The thing is that here you can't see traditional compartment lids to access various devices. Such an approach to the independent upgrade is not clear enough, and can't be to the advantage.

The battery deserves a special mention. It is fastened in a traditional way - with a latch key and a blocking movable key.

Nevertheless, its capacity is 2200 mA*hr, which is not much at all but not critically little. But the notebook comes bundled with one more battery of 4400 mA*hr capacity, which failed to arrive to our tests.

On the whole, the package bundle is not bad at all, although the closely spaced USB ports as well as the too close proximity of the third YSB port to the optical drive and the card reader can't be regarded as an advantage.

Interior

Like on the exterior, black color prevails under the notebook lid. Even the keyboard is made in the same tone with color of the device housing. The keyboard offers good convenience of work - every key is of good tactile feedback and is well positioned on the upper part of the housing. Owing to that, there is enough space under the wrist.

The touchpad is quite classical, slightly shifted to the left. But the buttons are not ordinary. They are of a peculiar shape which hard to describe in words - better look at the photo.

Unfortunately, the buttons are too narrow, so some time needs to pass before you feel the comfort of handling them. At the start, the fingers touch the panel with seven operation indicators and not the buttons. Interestingly, three of them are really small - they are seen only with the lid open (Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock), and four are made to look out into the front panel, so are seen only with the lid closed (these are power indicators, battery indicators, and those indicating activity of the HDD and Wi-Fi).

Above the keyboard, symmetrically to the center there are five round control buttons, and the central one (Power) is not only of larger size but is illuminated with bright blue backlight. The display of the notebook has a wide enough framing, with plastic grids of integrated speakers positioned in the bottom part.

On the whole, the design of the novelty, positioning of the main controls, as well as the manufacturing quality of all the components deserve a high enough assessment.

Notebook at work

Noise and cooling

The mobile Sempron proved a bit too hot processor. During the work, the notebook emits so much heat that can be used as a premises heater. In fact, all is not that bad - the ventilation system of the notebook does an excellent job of cooling even when the computer is loaded to the full. Of course, the machine not only expels heated air while working but also produces quite a lot of noise. It's not at all recommended to block the vent holes in the bottom part of the computer so as not to prevent outer air coming in. This fact somehow spoils the impression described in the beginning of the article saying that MEGABOOK S270 is a traveler's notebook.

LCD

The quality of the LCD matrix is a pleasure to any user, be it somebody who likes watching films or an office worker. Having run a number of graphic tests, including those with NokiaMonitorTest, we found out that the matrix of S270 offers no gaps and drops in the grayscale, has a high enough color rendition, as well as good viewing angles. With dynamic movies, we ascertained that the matrix offers a high enough speed that allows watching films comfortably without object bifurcation on the screen and even playing dynamic games, but in this case the graphic system may prove a bottleneck, but we'll talk about that below. It should be also noted that the display offers a wide range for brightness adjustment, which is very important for a comfortable work in various illumination levels.

Audio

Like the vast majority of small-sized compact notebooks, S270 does not offer powerful audio system able reproducing an adequate audio pattern both with high and low components. In a word, speakers in S270 appear to be regular mobile "tweeters".

General impressions of the work

This notebook is comfortable enough to work not only due to its lightness and compactness, but also because of the high enough manufacturing of all the components. The computer is simply nice to hold in your hands. The feeling of convenience is spoilt merely by the excessive heat emission, so you've got to be prepared to that nuisance when buying a MEGABOOK S270.

Performance tests

The novelty by MSI is not a replacement to the home-based PC and is not a gamer's laptop. This is an office computer, a traveler's computer, one for all those who have to solve not difficult office tasks on the run and plays once in a while.

The overall system performance was measured with SiSoftware Sandra 2004 SP2. To estimate the capabilities of the new processor, the table presents comparative results for the ASUS V6000V notebook of characteristics surpassing those of S270: Intel Pentium M 2.13 GHz, 1 GB DDR 2, ATI.

As you can see, Sempron offers no worse at all capabilities at the overall performance than Pentium M. On the whole, the novelty by MSI does not confine the user to only office tasks. The interior is evidently aimed at much more - e.g. handling mathematical computations.

The same conclusions can be made proceeding from the results produced for MEGABOOK S270 after running PCMark 2005:

• CPU 2497;
• Memory 2014;
• Graphics 688;
• HDD 2545.

Tests of the video system were run with 3DMark 2003.

As is seen from the results, S270 is not a gaming notebook at all. The video system is weak, allows playing no more than strategies and other games not so demanding for resources. Of course, 3DAction does not fall within this category. Nevertheless, the integrated graphic system is quite enough for solving such tasks like watching video.

Offline operation time

This indicator is very important for a portable notebook. It determines whether the user will be able working and playing on the run for a long time or not.

Unfortunately, S270 in our test had a not quite power-consuming battery, so durable operation was out of the question. Nevertheless, it should be noted that this model will be equipped with the second battery of increased capacity - 4400 mA*hr.

The duration of work was tested only through watching DVD using Mobile Mark 2005 and amounted to 1 hour 20 minutes. In other words, you'll fail to watch a film on the journey, but you'll be able to work a little. Needless to say - office tasks is a more partial load mode for the battery. The only advantage is in that the 2200 mA*hr battery in S270 is small-sized enough.

Final words

MSI MEGABOOK S270 is quite an interesting product both in terms of design and performance, a sample notebook based on the AMD processor. Anyway, we can't say the computer is free of shortcomings: there is no way doing the upgrade without dismantling the housing completely; the video system is integrated onboard. Among the pros is the strict design, small size, small weight; the LCD matrix offers good real characteristics; the performance is sufficient for solving most everyday tasks, as well as playing games and watching video; a battery of increased capacity comes as a bundled item. Of note is also the price which starts with 1040$ for the version based on Sempron 2800+.