MSI 12-Inch Netbooks Include Dual-Core

MSI Computer has announced a pair of 12.1-inch portables for users seeking a netbook with the power of a notebook (optical drive excepted, of course). Both versions of the Wind12 U230 ship with 2GB of DDR2 memory, a six-cell battery pack, Windows 7 Home Premium, and an ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics controller as well as 802.11b/g/n WiFi and both VGA and HDMI ports.

The U230-033 ($430) features AMD's single-core Athlon Neo MV-40 and a 250GB hard disk, while the U230-040 ($480) has a dual-core Athlon X2 L335 processor and a 320GB SATA drive. Each 3.3-pound system has a 1,366 by 768-pixel 16:9 aspect ratio LCD and a 4-in-1 flash-card reader. MSI's Ergonomic De-Stress keyboard boasts keys that are 51 percent larger than those on a standard board, to improve finger contact range and reduce stress on fingers and wrists.