MSI CR650 review

It was a long time coming , but when it finally arrived, AMD’s highly anticipated Fusion APU ripped through the laptop market like a bull on steroids. Just this month, the chipmaker announced that the platform made up nearly half its notebook shipments, and no doubt contributed heavily to its $1.61 billion in Q1 revenues. In the past four months, we’ve seen its superior integrated graphics working on a slew of smaller machines, but it seems Fusion wanted more. Back in January, Toshiba announced that it would bring the E-240 APU to a 15.6-inch budget notebook , and just a few weeks later MSI followed suit with its own announcement, saying it planned to put a Zacate E-350 APU, incorporating Radeon HD 6310 graphics, in its CR650 . We’ve spent some time with Lenovo’s ThinkPad X120e and HP’s Pavilion dm1z , both sporting 11.6-inch screens and E-350 APUs, but we’ve yet to experience the force of Fusion on a larger device. Naturally, when the opportunity presented itself, we jumped on the chance to find out how a big rig like the CR650 would stack up against its dainty predecessors. Will Fusion’s wonder chip offer the same performance in a $500, 15.6-inch laptop? Or will it fail to bring its beastly force to a big budget machine? Hop on past the break to find out. Gallery: MSI CR650 Review Continue reading MSI CR650 review MSI CR650 review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 May 2011 16:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Posted by on May 6, 2011. Filed under News, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.