Jenneth Orantia29 February 2008, 5:48 PM
An inexpensive notebook with a Core 2 Duo processor, this MSI PR600 is well worth a look.
The functional black-and-silver plastic casing isn’t likely to win any style awards, but at this end of the market it’s actually one of the better-looking notebooks available.
We were particularly interested to see how it measured up against the pricier Fujitsu and Sony laptops. Predictably, the PR600’s 1.5GHz clock speed had it lagging behind in PCMark05 with a score of 3,828, but its 3DMark06 score was only fractionally lower than the Fujitsu’s at 380.
Aside from a few minor stylistic differences, the PR600’s chassis is identical to the LG FS-3. Worth noting is the keyboard area, which crams a full numeric keypad in by reducing the footprint of the main area — a move that number crunchers are sure to appreciate (but which touch-typers will mainly find cramped and annoying).
Chassis notwithstanding, the LG and MSI are two completely different machines. While the LG runs Windows XP Pro and has a Pentium Dual-Core chip, the MSI runs Windows Home Premium with a 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo chip plus throws in a 1.3-megapixel webcam and a longer two-year warranty — all at a reasonable $200 premium.