Apple Macbook Air Versus MSI Wind X-Slim X340
Posted on May 17, 2009
Apple was holding the title of making the slimmest notebook in the market all this while, with the Apple MacBook Air Notebook. MSI seems all set now, to share this title, with their new MSI Wind X-Slim X340 Notebook. Both 0.7” thick notebooks have been blessed with a good specification set. They are both ultralight, weighing just 1.3kg each. They come with a whole world of adjectives with the prefix ‘ultra’ – ultra-mobile, ultra-portable, ultra-slim, ultra-stylish and so on…
Apple MacBook Air employs the Intel dual core processor, while the MSI Wind X-Slim X340 employs the Intel single core processor. Hence it is obvious that Apple MacBook Air is a faster notebook than the MSI X-Slim X340. However, there is an important aspect that we need to consider here – power consumption. The MSI notebook would definitely get a higher rating in power saving.
Either of the laptops have a little over 13” displays. However, the MSI Wind Notebook offers a slightly higher resolution (1366 x 768 pixels) when compared to Apple’s notebook (1280 x 800 pixels).
The auxiliary memory of both notebooks vary too. While the MSI X340 has a 320GB hard disk drive, the Apple MacBook Air has a 128GB Solid State Drive. Though the storage capacity of the latter is lesser, the SSD offers a higher speed than HDD.
On the graphics front, the MSI X-Slim X340 has an Intel GMA4500 GPU. The Apple MacBook Air has an Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics card. The Nvidia graphics is expected to be a better choice for gaming.
OS-wise, the Apple MacBook Air ships with the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. On the other hand, the MSI Wind X-Slim X340 comes with the Microsoft Windows Vista OS. While Windows Vista is a better performer and a more feature-rich OS, the Mac OS offers more security.
Another important difference is the external interfacing offered by both ultra-slim mobile PCs. Apple MacBook Air has a USB port, a headphone jack and a display port on board. The MSI Wind X340 has 3 USB ports, an HDMI link and a headphone jack. Thus MSI X340 is a better notebook in terms of connections and ports.
The MSI Notebook is expected to have a better battery life than the Apple Notebook. However, when it comes to ergonomics, the Apple MacBook Air wins hands down.
The most interesting difference is the price of these attractive looking laptops. The cost of the Apple MacBook Air Notebook crosses a grand (about £1053) while the MSI Wind X-Slim X340 UMPC ships with a lower price tag (about £850).