MSi X320 Thoughts

Does anyone have any thoughts on the MSi X320? Specifically heat, battery life with the 4 cell battery, fan noise, and comparison of the Z530+GMA500 vs. N280+GMA950 for things such as casual gaming (eg. Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, that kind of thing).

Just curious, because I've been looking for a netbook, and I'm torn between this and the Toshiba NB205, seeing as J&R has the former for $389.

Thanks in advance.

 

I'm also interested in what people think about

.build quality
.heat
.fan noise
.whether the Z520 can run Vista HP reasonably well.

Some user opinions would really help me make a decision.

 

greeting,

i just picked one of these up and am currently putting it through it's paces.

here's some insight to your questions:

build quality
- it's very good. on par with the rest of the netbook out there. but it's not MacbookAir build. feels sturdy and well built. the keyboard is not bad despite what some say, but i'm not picky.

heat
-compared to my other notebook, it runs relatively cool. had it on my lap all day and had no issues with heat

fan noise
-it's not loud, but you can here it whispers, probably because it's in the front of the laptop

z530 running vista
-with aero off, it runs great! very snappy and not lag issues. she does show lag when doing heavy multitasking, so this is not for a heavy power user. but for the everyday user, student, etc, it works great with vista.

battery
-my first day, i got 3.5 hours of nonstop internet surfing on balanced setting.

Z530+GMA500
-I'm not a gamer, but i do watch a lot of internet video. The Z530+GMA500 combo will allow for very smooth HD 720p and good 1080p (with the right setup). Online streaming works great, youtube, divx, etc. But bloated flash video from sites like hulu use a lot of the cpu. she can run the regular hulu, or medium/low setting for full screen.

i hope this helps! let me know if you have any other questions

 

Great thanks a lot, very helpful.

 

i have an update to this.

after installing installing Windows 7 Pro and the latest flash driver: adobe flash 10.1 (beta) i have decided this computer is a STEAL and definitely a keeper!

flash 10.1 helps take advantage of the GMA 500 and now she can play smooth streaming flash HD 720p and 1080p!!!

that was the only thing keeping me from keeping her. i wanted to use it as my on the go laptop and a media player for ripped dvd's and streaming online HD videos. now that she plays flash HD them smoothly it's a keeper.

definitely get her! it does 90% of what the macbook air does, but for a fraction of the price!

 

Was it difficult installing Win7?

I read elsewhere it was a real hassle on this model as MSI did not provide drivers for the X320 on their site.

 

it was easy as pie to install win7.

i bought and downloaded win7 pro from microsoft's $29.99 student price program using my little brother's .edu email account.

i installed it while in vista, onto the second partition on the HD.

you can always just install it via usb.

Win7 install tool about 45 mins, and them i just downloaded all the latest drivers from msi, intel, etc.

it's currently dual booting vista and win7 with no issues at all. i'm going to delete vista.

the cpu and gpu are more than up to the task of running win7.

let me know if you have any other questions.

i must say, it's cool to have a laptop that very few people have. i get lots of looks due to it's thinness and sleek looks. i'm a dork

 

Thanks JB. I appreciate your input. My concern about the build quality was in relation to the screen/hinges and whether or not they were too flimsy. A post I came across indicated the use of cheap plastics but I've since learnt that the entire case is aluminium. Do you think it's quite strong?

 

hi david,

indeed the structure is aluminum, with a hard plastic shell.
that's the only way they could make it as stiff and light as it is.
in regards to build quality and feel, the structure is quite strong.
i can safely hold it, screen open, with one hand on the very corner and shake it without hearing a creak.
that's my unscientific test on testing the frame structure.
the only thing that gives it a cheaper feel is that it's hollow below where your wrists rest when typing. so if you knock on it with your knuckle, you get a hollow sound. that's probably due to the fact that that is where the fan/vents are located.
the screen hinge itself seem very sturdy and very tight. it won't close or move position when lugging or moving it around with the screen open.

 

Thanks again, very helpful.

Re Win 7 there are no drivers for the X320 on MSI website so which ones did you download?

 

When I saw this for $389 from JR I jumped on it. I was looking for something light and handy for everyday use (email, web, etc.). I already have a gaming laptop so I was OK with no gfx card for this unit. I have a netbook which is nice, but the small screen was becoming an issue for me. I felt this 13.4 inch screen, still fairly compact design would hit the sweet spot for me for web surfing and such. And at $389 this was very compelling.

Just got mine yesterday and have not used it much yet, but I can say it's making a good first impression. The build quality seems fine for the price. Plastic surfaces yes, but nice appearance even so. Everything seems sturdy enough -- not "rugged" by any means, but fine for its intended use.

There is very noticeable keyboard flex, but it's not bad enough to kill the deal for me. The screen is typical, good enough for everyday use. The unit looks very nice and is well designed. It is truly slim! I like the port layouts and I like having the vents on the angular wall of the case, as this means they won't easily get blocked when you set it down. It seems to run cool so far. It gets warm, bit not hot anywhere.

It seems to run Vista Home Premium fine, not as snappy as my high end rigs, but definitely good enough for something in the near-netbook/ultra-portable category. I'll have to see how it holds up under heavy web surfing, though, before I can make a final judgment.

The windows experience rating for the aero desktop was 5.9 (an obvious error, should be 3 probably), but I don't see any problems there. The memory and harddrive were good (4.1 and 5.4, I think), the processor and 3d graphics only a 3 - which is OK as this was expected going in. So I won't be editing videos on this rig, understood.

All in all, it seems very well suited for my intended purpose which is basically a "better netbook" -- I wouldn't be so happy at the original price (not enough processor) but for $389 I think this is a very good deal.

I'll come back once I have more experience and update further.

 

See my answers above. OK on all accounts. I was concerned about the Z530, too, but it seems OK if your expectations are realistic. This is a netbook+ class notebook. For email, web surfing and the like it's fine. Vista is fairly responsive. Not as fast as higher end machines, but perfectly fine for general use.

This thing is truly slim and a sleek design all around. Meets or exceeds my expectations so far.

 

+1 -- I agree with all the above.

 

As promised, an update. After using it for awhile, I'm getting used to the keyboard (still the weak point, though) -- but I'm loving the screen, size and design which are just about perfect for me. A successful conclusion to my quest for "a better netbook." The extra resolution makes a huge difference and I find the display very easy on the eyes. So thumbs up from me on the X320. In fact, I like it so much that I ordered an X340 when I saw it on sale over Thanksgiving weekend (I posted a thread on that).

If you can live with the keyboard, this is a really nice little unit at current pricing. My only gripe is the rather tedious policies MSI has to activate the full warranty and get your WIN 7 upgrade.

 

I found a tool on wintoflash.com to put windows 7 on my flash drive. Will I be able to install windows 7 right from flash drive? Will I need to put additional driver on windows 7?

 

Yes, it is possible to install Win 7 from a flash drive. And yes, you will almost surely need additional drivers for any laptop when you install Win 7. There are many threads here and elsewhere devoted entirely to this topic (how to install Win 7 on <some laptop>.

Good luck!

P.S. Vista runs very well on the X320/X340 as installed, so I see no urgent need to upgrade myself.

 

i HAVE A POBLEM WITH X320, VIDEOS R RUNNING VERY SLOW IN FULL SCREEN MODE AND SLOW RUNNING FULL SCREEN MODE IN YOUTUBE? wHATS THE PROBLEM? Drivers r newest, good codecs? Wat Is it vista? I am thinking installing a XP maybe that would help?

 

It's not Vista, it's the crappy [driver] supplied for the intel 500 integrated graphics on the X320. It struggles with full screen video. (This affects all netbooks/notebooks using it, not just the 320. If you can download the video, try using a player with better performance, you might be able to get by, but the X320 is not the best choice if full screen video is important to you. The X340 is much better, though not perfect either.

Still, don't give up. A better player can help. Also Flash has been upgraded recently and that might help some streaming video. On YouTube, make sure you're playing std def not HD. The X320 just does not have the power for HD, in my opinion. Great for general web surfing, email, music, etc., though.

Good luck!

(Update: Corrected comment on GMA 500 GFX chip - it's the stock driver causing the performance issues. Thanks, JimBean!)

 

the stock vista seems fine for web. Will it improve performance if upgrade to windows 7?

 

Maybe for web yes, but for youtube videos in fullscreen it's crap. I have returned mine and got the money back. Well it's simple if u want to buy this kind of netbook, 13 inch, small, thin u must pay more then 500 euros, The price says everything, here sure it does. Like i said before i needed this x320 only for music, web, movies, office, after i found out that the fullscreen mode is out of the question (not codecs, not drivers, just crappy graphic card) i returned it. I don't think that the win7 will help, but if u don't have any other option it's the last resort, try it, but u must find drivers for hard drive on the internet first, and u don't have a cd rom drive, so it's little difficult, but it's worth to try!

 

I think the x320 works great for viewing videos full screen. I also have it set up with my 50 inch plasma and it works great for watching HD movies. The GMA500 is not a bad graphics chip and plays HD 1080p and 720p movies very nicely. It also works with Flash 10.1 Beta 1's hardware acceleration, so I can view streaming flash HD movies. And they also just released a new driver for it, which shows that Intel is still showing support for it.

 

In my opinion, no and probably not worth the effort. Others may disagree, but an objective evaluation shows that Vista performs as well or better than Win 7 overall. Win 7 offers a small gain in battery life, but in many tests Vista actually outperforms Win 7 (small difference, though).

The X320 is basically a "better netbook." Better screen, bigger hard drive, and the sleek and sexy form factor. Anyone buying the X320 has to have realistic expectations and understand what they are getting. The Intel GMA 500 graphics chip is fine for desktop but dismal on video. The Intel GMA 4500HD in the X340 is much better for video. [See below for a possible fix for the 500's video performance.]

I have both the X320 and the X340 and I am very happy with both. The keyboard takes some getting used to, but other than that, no issues and I love the portability the big screen and the decent size HDD. The X340 performs better, but it also costs more. I have seen the X320 for as low as $379 shipped and that is a steal, IMHO. (I was lucky enough to score a fabulous deal on the X340 on a Black Friday sale and could not resist.) I am very pleased with both overall. If video is important, the X340 is the better choice, but the X320 is a very nice unit for web surfing, email, playing music, and other general purpose uses.

These are both basically in the "super" netbook class (although you might argue that point on the X340, some consider it a "mobility" class) -- so if that's what you expect you'll be happy. If you need to do video editing, 3D gaming, and such, look elsewhere.

But you'll be hard pressed to find anything as thin and handy as these two.

 

Well, I did do some poking around, and the new driver may help. The Intel GMA 500 did not support HD with the stock driver Intel provided-- and the X320 definitely struggles with full screen video in the stock config, but maybe there's hope?

At first I was sure you were talking about the X340. The X340 has HDMI out and the Intel GMA 4500 HD which can do HD video. There's no doubt the 4500 HD is much better than the 500. But...if the 500 with the new driver can be tweaked enough to run HD video full screen, then the X320 does become a much more attractive machine as this has been the biggest complaint about it (which I have seen posted in several places, not just here).

So, thanks for the post and tip. Curious as to how you are driving your 50" HDTV from the VGA port, though. Maybe you could share some more details with us?

I have also read about the performance improvements with the new Flash 10.1 beta though I have not tried it myself. Anyway, more good news there, I guess.

For those interested, here's a blurb I found:

If I get time, I will download the new driver and try to confirm if it solves the X320's video problems or not.

 

Sorry for your troubles, my friend. However, it looks like there may be a solution to the video performance problems via a new driver update and a Flash update -- see JimBean's post above. I have found some confirmation online and will be trying to confirm it further myself when I have time. If true, as it seems to be, this will put the icing on the X320 cake!

 

I'm not sure I understand...this Intel GMA driver that improves flash, are you guys testing on Vista or 7? I read (I think from jimbean) that 7 + flash 10.1 = smooth full-screen video. I wonder if the same results could be had with Vista + flash 10.1 + new drivers.

I'm buying this notebook on Boxing Day with the knowledge that full-screen flash video is a bit iffy, but I'd like to get it working if I can.

 

tsx11, hey, no guarantees 'til I try it, but from what I've been able to find, it works for Vista and Win 7. There's a driver update for the GMA 500 itself which works for both and improves the performance of the 500. Then there's a Flash 10.1 Beta update that improves Flash performance for things like YouTube HQ (HD) video. Together they seem to solve the performance issues with the GMA 500 on various notebooks using the GMA 500 integrated gfx.

Note that each alone improves performance. The driver fixes various issues w/the 500 and the Flash update fixes Flash. JimBean may be able to tell you more, since he seems to be the one who figured all this out.

So, it looks like you'll be fine.

 

Thanks for the reply. When I get the computer, I'll try Vista + flash 10.1 + drivers and report back. If it works satisfactorily, I won't poke the bear.

 

If you guys want more performance out of your x320. i would suggest putting xp pro sp3. yeah its not as nice visually as the 7 , but runs with alot less processes , thus freeing up the cpu. it might even play videos better.

all the drivers are available on msi. from different tests seen online, windows 7 actually consumes more battery than Xp pro on atom. on the mini 311 it is actually 50 minutes less running with win 7.

you guys should try it.

 

If you want more performance you can also overclock the cpu. The atom overclocks very well. you can easily overclock it to 1.9ghz

alot of people with sony vaio P with the z530- z540 run overclock without problems and those little netbooks have a fanless design.

 

Thanks, ferrarista, for the posts! For me, Vista is still the sweet spot, but I'm sure others will give it a try. Tests I've seen put Vista in the middle and balanced, which is fine by me. I'm not really having any performance issues for the stuff I'm doing. If the video tweaks work, that's just icing on the cake. I'd be more likely to try to OC before switching OS's.

Happy New year!

 

Cool! Will look forward to your report!

 

I prefer XP pro much more than Vista. Vista is a ressource hog. On these little netbooks , Xp will run much better, but if your happy with how Vista runs on yours then no problem.

If you wanna try without taking off vista you could always dual boot to try. there is also alot of skins available online to make it look like vista

edit: aparently this software supports the atom for overclocking.

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalCPUID/index-e.html

 

I love XP, stuck with it for a long time, until recently, when I finally decided Vista had settled down. Now I just don't see that much difference in performance or resource usage between my XP netbooks (Acer and Asus) and the ones with Vista (MSI). I know others say differently, but I just go by what I experience. I may try a partition w/XP sometime, just for fun, to see, but since I have no issues, not pressing it for now. (Most people do seem to agree more with your assessment, of course.)

Thanks for the link to CrystalCPUid, I have read about it elsewhere, may give it a spin when I have more time.

Cheers!

 

Alright. I installed flash 10.1, which made a previously choppy and blurry youtube video become clear and smooth in small mode. However, full-screen is still choppy. When I downloaded the driver from Intel's web site, released August 09, the computer told me that I already had a more recent version. Does anyone know which is the improved one that improves flash video?

Already have: 7.14.10.1095
Downloaded from here: 7.14.10.1006

Update: Alright, I caved and bought 7. Copied the ISO to a flash drive using Microsoft's tool and it flies now.

 

Hey, tsx11! Sorry, I have not had time to try the driver upgrade yet.

So, you have installed Win 7 now? Happy with that, I take it?

 

Yeah, happy with Windows 7. Some videos are choppy, but most go smoothly. I haven't tried HD video since I don't watch HD videos. I did notice that for Windows 7, though, the Intel GMA500 driver is of a different version number, 8.14.10.something.

More importantly than the videos, though, is that overall it just seems more responsive, even with Aero enabled. I didn't keep Vista on long enough to give an accurate assessment of battery life, but on 7 I have 83% battery left, and with WiFi on, BT off, and "Balanced" as the power setting, it says I have 3h43 of use left.

Only thing is that I had to dual-boot with Vista (so I have Windows 7 on the F: ) because when I tried to boot from USB, it wouldn't recognize any of the HD partitions! Said I needed drivers and I only have 1 USB drive and no external CD drive. So I just installed from USB onto a new partition from within Vista. Sound worked, WiFi worked, the only driver I needed was for graphics. Also I'm pretty sure BT won't work but I don't use it anyway.

 

Cool, sounds good. I'm glad Win 7 works so well. May do the W7 upgrade at some point, myself, since it works so well. I was hoping JimBean would come back and share some more info with us since he says he got HD working well. Maybe he will in time. I'm sure they will continue to improve the drivers. I'm hoping MSI will release a good update eventually, for this.

With the same settings you mention above, I get about 3 hrs 27 mins +/- 5 mins. With 'power saving' mode on, I can get about another hour. Not as good as my Asus netbook, but not bad and plenty good enough for me. Well worth it for the larger screen size and resolution, which are about perfect for my uses (and tired eyes, LOL!).

Re: your install, most BT dongles come with better software anyway, should you ever need it. Btw, Newegg had some $30 external DVD drives, clamshell type (like your old portable CD player), very light and small, they were LG brand. Seem to work fine. MSI also makes one for about $50, I think. I got the white LG model. Plenty fine for occasional use.

Thanks again for all the good info and for sharing your feedback here to help everyone. I am happy to give you your first 'rep' - woo hoo!

Happy New Year!

 

greetings, ya'll!

an update on my msi x320 running Windows 7.

i've had the machine for close to two months and i'm very happy with its performance. it has primarily served as my go-to web surfing machine, and my HTPC.

720p and 1080p videos play flawlessly using Media Player Classic - HC pushed to my 50 inch plasma via VGA cable. When using MPC-HC, don't forget to deselect H.264 under internal filters. That will allow for the flawless HD playback.

i manage all my photos from my digi cam using picassa and sync/manage my ipod/music using media monkey.

surfing the web, i jump between using firefox and chrome. i like general browsing using firefox because of add-ons like ad blocker and flash blocker, which help a little machine like this load pages faster. for watching video online, i use chrome because it seems to play smoother, and also, when flash 10.1 beta 1 crashes, it just stops the plugin, unlike firefox, which shuts down firefox when flash crashes.

for those of you wondering what my set up is for playing flash video, it is listed below:
Windows 7

GMA500 Driver: Production Version 7.14.10.1006
from here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3001&DwnldID=17995&lang=eng
Note: Intel has a newer driver version out for Windows 7, but it does not seem to play nicely with Flash 10.1. So stick with the Vista version i noted (it works with Win7 since Win7 is essentially an improved version of Vista). Also note, Flash beta 1 will currently only work up to 720p flash videos.

Flash Player 10.1 Beta 1
Note: i had a convo with an Adobe programmer and it seems Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 is not properly hard hardware accelerating with the gma500 yet, but they seem to be working on it. so stick to beta 1 until newer versions past beta 2 are out. Also, if you are using flash and are still getting stuttery/erroneous video then you are probably using a different GMA500 driver and flash version combination. Use the combination I use and it should work well. For those of you using Flash 10 or 10.1 but are using a different GMA500 driver, when playing flash video, right click to get to flash's settings and deselect hardware acceleration. Hardware Acceleration seems to only work with the GMA500 driver 7.14.10.1006 and Flash 10.1 Beta 1 combination. in time, i'm sure flash and intel will work out the bugs.

i hope this helps. let me know if you have any questions.

 

in regards to flash 10.1 and GMA500.

i've heard that adobe has disabled GMA500 support from flash 10.1 beta 2 because it is waiting for a new GMA500 driver from intel which should be out in a month or so. then GMA500 support will be re-enabled in flash 10.1 beta 3.

 

Jimbean, thanks so much for coming back to post all the great info on how you tweaked your X320 - much appreciated and I gave you a rep for this excellent post, too!

 

another update.

download the latest driver for the GMA500 from the intel website.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18527&ProdId=3001&lang=eng

it's been fixed to run adobe flash hardware acceleration!
i've seen good improvement with flash 10.1 beta 1 and the new driver.
flash videos play smoother, hulu will play full screen with no stutter!
and flash 10.1 beta 3 should re-enable GMA500 support and be even better!
i'm very happy with this laptop now.

regards

 

Cool. man, thanks again!

 

Got my $9.99 Win 7 upgrade coupon in the mail, so I can now upgrade to Win 7, when I get the time, and see what all the hub-bub is about.

Although, personally, I'm still pretty happy with Vista, which is running fine for me. But Jimbean has made a good case for Win 7...so now I'm thinking 'bout it.

 

Bron, I suspect we've overhyped 7 for you. While I think it's an improvement, perceptions are everything; if you're happy with Vista you might not think 7 is such a big deal. Others might think the opposite. Anyhow...

how do I know which version of flash (beta 1 vs beta 2) I have? Firefox tells me I have Version: 10.1.51.66, Shockwave Flash 10.1 d51. Further to that, how can I get beta 1 if I in fact have beta 2? I can only find beta 2 downloads from adobe's website (like at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/.) I'm finding not all videos play smoothly, it's like a crapshoot. Just trying to replicate jimbean's setup to see if that helps. I already had the newest (1/4/09) GMA driver.

Edit: I found a link on another forum here ( http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_p1_plugin_111709.exe ) but it doesn't work anymore.

 

@tsx11,

Hey, yes, I'm a 'let sleeping dogs lie' kind of guy so it will probably be awhile before I get around to doing the Win 7 upgrade. Vista runs great for me, No issues. So why muck about with it?

Re: Flash Sounds like you're ont he right track. Jimbean is the expert, so just try to replicate his setup, I guess. I do not have the links handy unfortunately.

I have run across a lot of other threads about Flash being a problem for many different netbooks and laptops re smooth video playback. If you can download the videos and use an external player that seems to help. But it may just take waiting for Adobe to do their final release and get the kinks out. Sorry I can't be more help.

If I run across the links or anything useful, I'll come back and post it here.

(P.S. I'm using KMplayer now and pretty happy with it so far. It's free.)

 

In case anyone cares, Flash 10.1 beta 3 is out now. Videos pretty much all play smoothly now, but I'm not sure if beta 3 helped or if this was the case before - I didn't notice a difference. I have been watching the Olympics on ctvolympics.ca, using Silverlight, and I have had no problems with choppy video from my computer's side, just the slow university internet now and then. So I don't know how much of a difference, if any, beta 3 has made for Flash.

 

@tsx11, well, I care!

Thanks for the info! Although they don't always post, I know a lot of people will read this thread and benefit from the information.

Thanks!

 

Will the X320 work well for video chatting (windows live messenger)

 

I don't see why not. It works perfectly well for web surfing, emails, word processing, casual games (i.e. not graphics intensive), and so forth. The only issue I saw with it was some full screen video, and even that can be mostly resolved with updated software.

Messenger is a light load and so should work fine. In fact, with the great screen, sleek design, and high portability, this seems an excellent choice. Even a lower end netbook would probably be fine for messenger.

 

Thanks, that's good to know because I ordered one from e-bay today and I wasn't sure.