Although MSI is hardly one of the major players in the notebook market, it seems like the company is striving to become one and with its new PX200 series MSI could be set to steal some market share from its competitors.

The 12.1-inch PX200 features a magnesium alloy casing which makes it lightweight, yet durable and at 1.8kg with a 4-cell battery, it's lighter than some competing models. However, MSI has gone to some lengths to make this tiny machine a power house, as they've managed to squeeze in an ATI Radeon HD 3450 graphics card with 256MB of dedicated GDDR3 memory.

The processor choice will be various unspecified Core 2 Duo models and MSI has gone for the Intel PM45 chipset and with some Intel WiFi options with support for 802.11b/g/n the PX200 also qualifies for a Centrino 2 badge. Other features include support for up to 4GB of DDR2 800MHz memory, HDMI output, eSATA, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, a 2Megapixel Webcam, a multi-format card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, up to 320GB hard drive and a built in DVD writer.

Not bad for a 12.1-inch notebook, although there's no word on battery life, but an optional 8-cell battery is available. We don't know the pricing at the moment, and it will most likely depend on what configurations become available in the various markets. MSI didn't specify any availability dates, so we'll just have to sit tight and keep an eye out for when it appears.

You can find the press release here.