This post was written by Maureen Jones

MSI today added just its second E-series notebook to its US lineup through the EX300. The 13.3-inch system focuses on external design first with a colored, glossy outer shell and a lightweight alloy-based chassis that comes at just 4.5 pounds even with a larger capacity eight-cell battery. The system is also comparatively thin and measures less than 1.2 inches at its thickest point. Just one trim level is available but is comparatively fast for the class. The system comes with a 25-watt 2GHz Core 2 Duo and is supplied with 4GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive.

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This post was written by Maureen Jones

On PCMag.com, Erik Rhey shares certain tips to extend the life of your laptop battery. Rhey says that apart from the usual tips that most of us know, there are few more tips that can help you get more minutes per charge.
- Turn off ports. Disabling unused ports and components, such as VGA, Ethernet, PCMCIA, USB, and yes, your wireless, too. You can do this through the Device Manager or by configuring a separate hardware profile (see next step).
- Create Power-Saving Hardware Profiles. Configure your laptop for the various scenarios in which you use it (on a plane, at the coffee shop, at the office, and so on). You can do this through the Hardware Profiles menu by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Preferences or by using a freeware utility such as SparkleXP (for Windows XP users).
- Configure your display to turn off when not in use. This is different from just using a screensaver, because in many cases a screensaver still requires the display’s backlight to be on. You can set the interval to turn the display off in Windows’ Power Options—found in the Control Panel.
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