MSI GX403 14.1-inch gaming notebook -- as much an oxymoron as military intelligence...
Utter the words "Gaming Laptop" in most gamer circles and the image that will come to mind is an expensive and powerful notebook that is so large you need a doctor's release to simply carry it around. The typical gaming notebook is a large beast with a 15.4-inch, 17-inch or larger LCD.
MSI has announced a new notebook that is capable of modest gaming duties
called the GX403 that offers its gaming prowess in a compact design not usually associated with gaming notebooks. The LCD the GX403 uses is a 14.1-inch unit, nearly an inch and a half smaller than the screen on
MSI's GX620 gaming notebook.
The machine features MSI's Turbo Drive Engine that dynamically overclocks the systems CPU for added performance when needed. Also included is the new ECO Engine, which is a power management function that helps extend the battery life with five different modes depending on what the user is doing while on battery power. Among the modes are ones for gaming, movies, presentations, office, and turbo mode.
Graphics are very important on a gaming notebook and the GX403 uses an NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M video card with 256MB of GDDR3 RAM. Sound is enhanced with Dolby Surround Sound. The brain of the gaming notebook is the latest Intel Centrino 2 Processor technology with Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs and the Intel PM45 chipset.
Other features include eSATA, HDMI, a 1.3MP webcam, and an optional DTV receiver. The 14.1-inch screen has a 1280 x 800 resolution, which isn't as nice as say 1920 x 1200, but for gamers wanting more portability the resolution should be good enough for most games.
Dimensions for the GX403 are 303mm long x 231 to 255mm wide x 24-30mm high and the machine weighs 2.2kg with the battery. Bluetooth is optional and the machine can be optioned with up to 4GB of RAM and up to 500GB of storage. Blu-ray is also an option. Pricing for the machine and availability are unknown at this point.