MSI stuffs HDMI, Santa Rosa into 12-inch notebook

MSI today produced one of the smallest notebooks to date with home theater support as a goal: the MEGABOOK MS-1221 is more closely in tune with ultraportables with a 12-inch screen but includes the performance necessary for larger tasks: the use of Intel's Santa Rosa-based GM965 chipset lets it include HDMI output for displaying images on an HDTV, GMA X3100 graphics able to handle most HD and Windows Vista, and the fastest Core 2 Duo processors. A 1GB Turbo Memory cache also unique to the platform should help loading times.

Available first in Japan, the notebook varies in price depending on model but starts from $1,227 with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, and a 40GB hard drive. Premium systems top out at $1,637 with a 2.4GHz processor and a 120GB drive. [via Akihabara]