ALTHOUGH WE‘RE STILL about a week away from the official launch, MSI was showing off a pair of Brazos solutions earlier today at an event in Taipei, Taiwan and while maybe not mind blowing out of a design perspective, it’s at least a step in the right direction. On display was a 12-inch notebook as well as a 20-inch all-in-one desktop, both featuring an AMD E-350 CPU.
Starting with the all-in-one Wind Top AE2050 we have a 20-inch 16:9 screen, although MSI didn’t provide any resolution details, but we’d hazard a guess at 1600×900, or possibly 1920×1080. MSI will offer models with a multi-touch enabled screen, but this doesn’t appear to be a standard feature. Besides the 1.6GHz dual core E-350 CPU with built in Radeon HD 6310 graphics, MSI has added USB 3.0 support and the two ports are located on the left hand side of the system.
Other features include four USB 2.0 ports, a pair of audio jacks, built in Ethernet of some form, an HDMI port, a multi-format memory card reader and an optical drive. It also sports a pair of SRS certified speakers and a top mounted web cam. It might not be the most exciting system ever, but should prove to be an interesting alternative to an Atom/ION all-in-one system, especially as it should be able to reach a slightly more attractive price point if AMD’s earlier indications are anything to go by.
This brings us to the MSI Wind U270 which is MSI’s first Brazos notebook and it’s a 12-inch model that features a fairly basic, but not unattractive design. The display has a resolution of 1366×768 which is a step up from the Acer Aspire One 522. Again it sports the 1.6GHz dual core E-350 Zacate APU with Radeon HD 6310 graphics. MSI has fitted the U270 with a D-sub connector, an HDMI port, a single USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a pair of audio jacks, an Ethernet port and a multi-format memory card reader.
The model on display appeared to feature a 3-cell battery and we presume it does at least have built in Wi-Fi of some kind, although the system was passworded so we were unable to poke around and look at what additional features it might come with. There’s of course also a built in webcam, space for a standard 2.5-inch hard drive and support for up to 4GB of DDR3 memory. Overall a very interesting little machine that could sell quite well with the right price tag, although here’s hoping for a high-capacity battery option.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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