4. Pictures Of The Turion 64/Mobile Sempron Test System

We are not reviewing the MSI M635 per se, it does serve as the basis for our tests of the Turion 64 and Mobile Sempron CPUs we cover here. The notebook has a 15.4" TFT display, making it a widescreen notebook. MSI offers this system with the Turion 64 MT-30, the Turion 64 MT-34, or in a more affordable but still capable (though less powerful) notebook, with a Mobile Sempron 2800+.

As an M635-A3048DL with a Turion 64 MT-34 this unit costs about $1,725 (1400€, it's not yet available in the US), the M636-S2824DL with a Mobile Sempron 2800+ costs about $1,475 (1200€).

The MSI M635 Notebook for AMD Turion 64 and AMD Sempron is equipped with a 16:10 display

The display lid is not robust enough, much like the W511a's. This can be seen in the unsightly lines on the screen that appear while adjusting the display angle by hand, while these distortions go away again when the pressure is removed.

A combination card from IMPROCOMM delivers both WLAN and Bluetooth.

The combination of the Mobility Radeon X700 with 128 MB of dedicated video RAM plus a Turion 64 MT-34 CPU should make this device a snappy performer under just about any circumstances. The keyboard keys have a nice stroke, but are subjectively somewhat hard to depress and rattle just a little. The layout speaks to prevailing standards, and the quality of the keyboard is in keeping with devices in this price range.

Another positive point is that Bluetooth and WLAN functions can be enabled and disabled using dedicated control keys. However, why these keys have different sizes and shapes, and the WLAN key is placed next to and looks like the fast start key for frequently-used applications, is a mystery to us. The same goes for the status LEDs to the right and up from the trackball. The five LEDs are only seldom in the user's field of view. The function symbols associated with the LEDs are also poorly placed, on the side of the case where they're out of sight. In a typical sitting position in front of the notebook, a user can only tell which LED or which symbol (and hence, which system activity) is lit up, not both at once as they should be able to do.

Sitting in front of the notebook, the symbols for the status LEDs are out of sight.