MSI will launch AMD Fusion powered notebooks in March

TAIWANESE PC MAKER Micro Star International (MSI) has announced the launch of its CR650 and Wind U270 notebooks, which will be available as soon as next week and are likely to be priced at around £400.

MSI will feature both laptops at the CeBIT trade fair next week and will have AMD Fusion processors and Radeon graphics cards.

Both notebooks are similar in specifications with AMD dual core E-350 processors, also known as Zacate. The Radeon graphics card both are using is the HD6310, which supports DirectX11. Both notebooks will ship with Windows 7 Home Premium and include USB 3.0 ports and HD 720p webcams.

The CR650 is the larger of the two with a 15.6-inch screen with 1366x768 resolution. It comes with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 500GB hard drive. MSI claims it's perfect for those on-the-go but this is debatable with its 15.6-inch screen and weight of 2.3kg.

Turbo Battery+ is apparently a unique feature on the CR650 that maximises battery life to 5-plus hours. This is essentially an on-screen shortcut that allows users to turn functions like Bluetooth, wireless and the webcam on and off easily to save power.

The Wind U270 is a much smaller model with a 12-inch 1366x768 resolution screen and only weighs 1.3kg. In terms of specifications the only other difference between the two appears to be that the Wind U270 has a smaller hard drive capacity of 320GB.

The reported battery life of the Wind U270 is a much more attractive 8-plus hours compared to the CR650's 5-plus hours. µ