If you're tired of seeing notebooks with Intel chips, then feast your eyes on MSI's new Phenom-powered FX610. The 15.6-inch laptop sports AMD's Vision Ultimate platform, complete with a triple-core Phenom II processor and a 1GB Radeon HD 5470. Two SODIMM slots can be occupied by up to 8GB of RAM, and the system ships with 250GB, 320GB or 500GB of storage, depending on the sub-model.

It also carries a DVD drive, an HD webcam, a 5-in-1 card reader, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, three USB 2.0 ports with one eSATA combo, and HDMI/VGA-out. The FX610 weighs 2.4kg (5.3lbs) with a six-cell battery and it runs Windows 7 Home Premium. Although it's not automatic like Optimus, you can manually switch between discrete and integrated graphics with a hotkey.


The company hasn't revealed pricing or launch details for the FX610 yet, but the FX600, its Intel-based cousin, costs about $800 with the Core i5-450M, Nvidia GeForce GT 325M graphics, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD.