Unboxed – MSI X-Slim X340

Having been run over by the same steamroller that struck Apple’s MacBook Air, MSI’s first X-Slim laptop has peeled itself from the tarmac and landed on our desk.

Its 6mm thin chassis – which thickens to 19.8mm – might give it the appearance of a netbook, but it’s anything but. Rather than an Atom processor, it packs a low voltage, 1.4Ghz Intel SU3500 number, which should let you squeeze four hours out of the battery.

The 1366×768, 13.4in screen is reasonably bright and crisp, and the rest of the spec (2GB RAM, 320GB hard-drive) is promising. But sadly the keyboard is so spongy it’d make a good base for a flan – it’s never a great sign when the entire keyboard moves with each button press.

Still, the X340’s connectivity at least bests the MacBook Air, with the luxury of two USB ports, an SDHC card reader, and both HDMI and D-Sub video outputs.

We’ll give you our verdict in a full review soon, but in the meantime scroll down for more pics.

Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home