The MSI X420's glossy, 16:9, 1366-by-768-pixel LCD is bright and crisp, with just a trace of washing out in the color. Viewing angles are okay--as good as you're going to get with a glossy LCD, anyway. Two people can comfortably watch video together, side-by-side, but more than two, and you're pushing it (the screen darkens a bit when viewed from too much of an angle). The glossy screen throws back some reflections (as is to be expected), but does keep down the glare.

Video playback on the MSI X420 is great--a 720p clip plays smoothly, without any artifacting or stuttering. The picture looks very crisp and clear, with bright colors. Audio playback is good, and the speakers are loud and surprisingly full. The "GPU Boost" helps video playback slightly, but it's most useful in the gaming department.

Despite the MSI X420's discrete graphics card and Core 2 Duo processor, you should not mistake this model for a gaming laptop. But if you still want to play the occasional game, it will do better than most ultraportables, as long as you're willing to give up a little in the game's graphics quality settings. It does a pretty good job with basic MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) such as Guild Wars, as long as you're not expecting incredible shadows and effects; I imagine a higher-intensity graphics game would suffer.

The MSI X420 comes with some basic trialware (Norton Antivirus and Microsoft Office Home & Student), as well as a suite of MSI software (including MSI EasyViewer and MSI EasyFace). The included software is not terribly useful--EasyViewer is a 3D photo viewing program, while EasyFace is a face-recognition program for locking and unlocking your computer--but is kind of fun to use.

The MSI X420 packs a lot in a small, lightweight package. Even though it's not quite the multimedia powerhouse we were hoping for, it's a great deal for anyone looking for a basic, stylish notebook with the occasional 3D graphics support.