As early as the second quarter of this year, MSI has been working hard campaigning for the X-Slim X340 notebook. To recall, its debut at CeBit in Germany was followed by product launches in major cities in Southeast Asia such as Bangkok, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur. Manila got the chance to catch the X-Slim fever as well, through a series of road shows that were staged with the backing of MSI’s local distributor, NetEssentials.

 

 

 

After the hype, it’s now our opportunity to take a closer at the X-Slim X340. Inevitably, the X340 is one of the ultrathin notebooks that you can find in the market to date. Measuring 1.98cm at its thickest point, the thinness of the X340 is pretty close to that of the Apple Macbook Air which measures 1.94cm. The X340 is also ultralight, weighing 1.3kg, a bit lighter than the 1.36kg Air.

 

 

 

How thin the X320 really is? Just about as thick as a stack of three copies of HWM Philippines magazine.

 

 

 

 Similar to the ultrathin notebooks that we have seen so far, the lid of the X340 has a tapered edge that enhances its impression of slimness. The stereo speakers are found underneath, with the left doubling as an air vent for the processor fan. When we touched the chassis, we immediately felt its economical construction. By and large, its body is made up of plastic material, a major reason it is lightweight.

 

 

 

 The X340 has a glossy 13.4-inch widescreen LCD. It has a resolution of 1366 x 768 and is surrounded by a black, lustrous frame. While the lid is piano-black, it is a good design consideration that MSI made the keyboard, trackpad, and palm rest matte-black as these areas are normally prone to be marred with fingerprint smudges. However, the keyboard obviously flexed when we were typing on it.

 

 

 

 

 Inside, the X340 is powered by an Intel Core 2 Solo ULV U3500 processor running at 1.4GHz, along with 2GB memory capacity and Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics. Other models come with the slower 1.2GHz U3300 processor. With that said, this notebook is adequately powerful to run productivity applications yet slightly humbled when it comes to intensive tasks such as playing full HD movies. With a low-powered processor and a 4-cell Lithium-ion battery, it provided us with 3 hours and 30 minutes of juice, in which the laptop was engaged in office chores and connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi.

 

 

 

On the left side, the X340 is equipped with a VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI output, and 2-in-1 memory card reader.

 

 

 

On the right side, there are the usual microphone jack, headphone jack, and USB 2.0 ports. Auspiciously, the unit also integrates WiMax as a supplementary wireless connectivity option. Hence, it is all set just in case that you are planning to subscribe to the WiMax plan of Globe.

 

 

 

 The box that came with the unit...

 

 

 

 ... and the bundled accessories.

 

 

 

Given its slim form factor, light weight, and fairly competitive local SRP of PhP 49,999, it is quite hard to say “no” to the MSI X-Slim X340, unless if you are allergic to plastic. In any case, a lot of options out there are available in aluminum or magnesium bodywork but be advised that they do come with a high asking price. In these hard times and now that WiMax is starting to gain momentum in the country, the X340 is a timely offering indeed.