Hello all. I figured I would start an owners' lounge for this laptop. Those of you who are not owners, feel free to ask questions that you would like answered.
When you post, make sure you specify which laptop you are talking about. (Ghost-860m, GhostPro-870m, GhostPro-870m-3k)
Also posting my mini review cross posted from notebookreviews.
Mini Review
When you post, make sure you specify which laptop you are talking about. (Ghost-860m, GhostPro-870m, GhostPro-870m-3k)
Also posting my mini review cross posted from notebookreviews.
Mini Review
I have had my GS60 GhostPro-052 (870m model) for 2 days now, and I figured I would post a quick mini review. I will provide additional detail after I have used it for a longer period of time.
Fit and Finish: The packaging was well done, and gave a nice impression when first opening the laptop. It has that premium feel to it. The build quality is quite good aside from the flex in the screen to keep it light. The materials feel high quality and nice to the touch. The chassis itself is solid and has very little flex to it. The in your face gamer design is truly at a minimum with this laptop, and even the wife thought it was a "really nice looking laptop".
Keyboard: The keyboard is quite good, and easily my favorite thing on the laptop. I am incredibly picky when it comes to keyboards, and this is very close in quality to some of the older Thinkpad keyboards. It has very little flex, and seems quite solid. The back-lighting is relatively even, and the colors can be set to something not so atrocious. I do have some dimness around the F9-F10 keys, but this really doesn't bother me at all.
Touchpad: I am sure this will get me flamed, but it is worth mentioning it anyways. As someone who frequently uses Mac's, this is one of the most disappointing aspects for me. In comparison, it feels like you are moving your finger through mud instead of smooth glass on the Mac touchpads. The difference is night and day even after spending 30 minutes or so tweaking the settings in the touchpad control panel. On the plus side, most of the multi-touch mouse actions seem to work okay. With that said, this isn't a laptop I can see myself using without a bluetooth or usb mouse.
Speakers: The speakers are fairly standard fare, and provide decent sound up to the 80% mark. After that, they start to distort. They do not get very loud at all, and I would consider them only slightly louder than my Note 3's (a cell phone) speaker overall. For example, I don't think you could watch a movie in the car using the speakers and realistically have more than one person hear it well enough unless you are in a luxury vehicle. For a laptop, it is passable but not a selling point. I did expect a bit more from it considering the price point and I would just recommend that you never leave your headphones behind.
Screen: I am a screen snob so this was a biggy for me. For a TN panel, this is a fantastic offering and truly shows the leaps and bounds TN has made in recent years. It has very little if any motion blur, and the colors pop quite nicely. The viewing angles are great and very un-tn like. I will calibrate with my i1 Display Pro this weekend to give you guys more details on the screen. Needless to say, I don't think you will be too disappointed even if you are coming from an IPS panel.
Noise: This computer is noisy - no other way to say it. It will always be making some noise. Even at idle, the fan has a noticeable hum to it around 2800 rpm. Once you increase the workload, it quickly increases to a very noticeable pitch. This is loud enough to be disruptive in a meeting or classroom, but not loud enough to cause any issues with someone watching a show in the same room with you. My wife said that she noticed it, but didn't consider it bothersome as she had no problem hearing the TV. I won't be using this in any setting where the noise may be a problem so I don't think this is a deal breaker for me. With that said, this is the largest negative that this laptop has. Unfortunately, I don't have a Razer Blade to compare the noise profile to as I imagine that would be better.
Heat: I was honestly expecting heat to be an issue going into this. I have had some laptop mini nuclear furnaces before, and was expecting similar results. During gaming, I actually found it reasonably tolerable. The noise ramps up, but the laptop never felt uncomfortable to use. The chassis doesn't get nearly as warm as some of the previous generation Macbook Pro 15 inch models. Some examples:
I monitored GPU usage and clocks in MSI Afterburner and didn't notice any throttling, but I didn't game for more than 30 minutes at a time. I will have more information once I have had the chance to game on it more.
- Guild Wars 2: Fan ramped up to max - 72C on the GPU - 71C on the CPU
- BF4: Fan ramped up to max and the GPU got to 84C (not sure on CPU)
Battery: I only have two cycles through the battery, but I can tell you that the performance is not great. You can expect less than 45 minutes while gaming and 2.5-3 hours in regular usage. I would just expect to always have to carry the AC Adapter with you. I anticipated this unfortunately, and hopefully I will have some better news once I get into the 20-30 cycle range.
Conclusion: This laptop is a good step forward for MSI in the thin and light gaming sector. The build quality, materials, screen, keyboard, and cooling system are quite good and provide a compelling reason to purchase this laptop. The touchpad is poor compared to Macs, but acceptable quality when compared to other Windows offerings. The speakers - well they put out sound but don't expect to be blown away. The battery and noise are the big concerns for me. These two things have me considering the extra money towards the Blade. If the Blade was 15" I would absolutely pay the extra money without question. I think this laptop is actually a pretty good value, but those two things are fairly important to me. I plan to extensively use this for the next 30 days during my return window before I decide if I am keeping it or returning it.