Monster Technology

For what you get in this system at this price point is as good as it gets:

1) Core i7 – 4 cores w/ Hyperthreading = 8 thread processing – 6MB of cache nice. 1.6Ghz base speed is kind of low but it breezes through most tasks you will throw at it. It will throttle up to 2.8Ghz when demand gets high.

2) 4GB of DDR3 1333Mhz RAM is not as generous as 8GB, but still won’t hold you back from running tons of apps on this laptop. NOTE: 1333Mhz DDR3 is usually a pay for upgrade on custom laptops, standard ones use 1066mhz.

3) 500GB SATA 7200RPM 16MB Cache Seagate Hard Drive – Provides decent speed and workable capacity for a portable computer. SSDs are nice and fast, but still too much $ for too little space.

4) 17″ LCD Anti-Glare Screen – Has very nice contrast, color, and viewing angle. The anti-glare woks well under normal lighting conditions, but makes it difficult for those who want to use it as a rear view mirror =). The 16:10 screen ratio is my preferred screen ratio because of the extra pixels vertically which is much better for real work (less scrolling). The 16:9 ratio is nice for movies and a few games but that is about it, not very practical. NOTE: The screen has the old standard CFL backlight with inverter as opposed to the LED backlights that many current laptops are using, so this doesn’t really help the battery life much and you can feel it heat up at the bottom of the screen. The brightness is sufficient for most lighting situations, maybe not as bright as LED backlit screens, but some think that they are too bright. I am glad that this screen does not have the universal 1366×768 resolution that seems to be prevalent on current laptops on the market. The native 1680 x 1050 Resolution is actually a nice balance for this system since the Radeon HD 5870 in this system is equivalent to a desktop HD 5770 (more on this below), as 1920×1080 would require more GPU power.

5) This brings us to the Radeon HD 5870 1GB DDR5 video card – Remember this is a mobile card and has very strict power/cooling limitations, so don’t expect to get 60FPS on Crysis with every setting jacked up to the max. All things considered this baby runs most of today’s games at high detail levels, all of the special effects on, and at the native resolution of the LCD 1650 x 1050. Star Craft 2 plays fine with all settings at Ultra. There are most likely gamers out there that are touting the awesomeness of the new Nvidia 480M cards which has nice (somewhat skewed) performance, but you will probably find that you are no longer talking about a laptop but instead a tabletop computer. Power requriements make running unplugged a joke, Space/cooling requirements makes the chasis bulky and awkward for daily travel, and $Price$ requirements will require a second mortagage on your house. So if your into that kind of stuff for an extra 8-10FPS in your games then feel free to go out and buy one of those.

6) Chasis – I was pretty amazed at how relatively slim and portable this computer really is. They probably could have slimmed it down even more if they opt’d for an LED LCD screen but that is just being picky. I have never seen a high performance/gaming computer in such a reasonably portable package and weighing in just under 7.5lbs! My old Dell 9100 power supply and battery alone weighed just as much. The laptop does get pretty warm/hot when running games, but I have not had any issues crashing. The fan noise is noticable when it kicks into high gear. I guess those people who live in a perfectly silent moss padded cave with no humans/animals around for hundreds of miles would say its loud, but to me in a normal rural home and city office environment it is reasonably quiet. I personally do not care for the amount of in your face red color that this thing has, I wish it were more subdued with just a few edges red, but not around the keyboard. I am glad there are no giant color changing light bars, or alien faced, barbed wire covered bling, plastered all over the casing on this one though. It looks pretty sleek when the lid is closed with the plain black brushed aluminum top. It generally feels pretty sturdy, although the first one they sent me had a couple cracks in the lcd bezel near the hinge, right out of the box. So I’m guessing the lcd hinge mounting points will be one of the weak areas on the chasis. Also the brushed aluminum backing of the lcd is a bit squisshy in the middle so I wouldn’t recommend stacking anything on top of it while closed. The other thing I like about the chasis is the lack of high gloss areas, which is great for not showing off tons of fingerprints, scratches, and smudge marks. The only glossy areas are the touch panel above the keyboard and the screen, so you might still need that microfiber cloth handy.

7) Keyboard – It is by no means a full sized keybaord, nor is it a truly gamer keyboard just because the “WASD” is highlighted (No it is not backlit) I think its more of a gimmick than an actual usefull addition. The keys are bit too compact and out of position, notably the left ctrl key is swaped with the Fn key placement, this is not good for many gamers. Also the enter key is quite small and easy to miss. Basically it looks like the entire right side of the keyboard was chopped off to allow for the numpad. A full numpad is something I could have done without, if it would mean that all of the standard keys could have been more normal sized, placed, and spaced. The cursor arrow keys have also been packed into the clutter between the keyboard and numbpad which makes things even more difficult. BTW: The touchpad is really basic, and does not even have software to customize it. MSI says it just uses the Windows generic TP driver (Lame). I don’t really use it normally anyway, unless there is no space for a mouse.

Battery – The first thing people will notice about the battery is that it is noticable, because the thing sticks out of the back of the laptop chasis when installed. For those who like things symetrical this can be annoying, but I think there was a good reason for this design. I think it is a reasonble trade off in not having to unnecessarily make a larger/heavier chasis only to accomodate the size of the battery. I would much rather have to see a bit of the battery stick out than have to lug around a giant brick of a computer that is perfectly rectangular. It is a 7800mah 9 cell battery which probably won’t let you watch the whole Titanic movie unplugged but you can still go portable long enough to get some tasks done or maybe a quick game in. This system would probably be more usable away from an outlet if it had a 12 cell battery, but that would also make it extra bulky and heavy.

9) Other Misc Components – Wired network 10/100/Gigabit support. Wireless in this system is actually an Intel ABGN 5100 series card supporting 2.4 and 5Ghz spectrums. The Sound is pretty good for a laptop it has 4 speakers (not quadrophonic 4.1, only L/R stereo mode 2.1) and one “subwoofer” (more acurately a midrange/midbass speaker), no you will not feel the rumble but it will sound more full than your standard laptop sound. The sound in/out ports on the right side allow for a multitude of connection possiblilities. A standard 8x DVD/CD Burner/Reader (no BluRay) does it job. A modem is installed for idk dialup in a pinch or maybe some faxing. Bluetooth EDR 2.1, Memory card slot, VGA /HDMI video outputs, 3 USB 2.0 and one combo ESATA/USB port (No USB 3.0).

10) Conclusion – All in all this laptop is about as good as it gets in this price range and with the August [...] from MSI even better. Undoubtably this computer will be outpaced in a couple years by new ones with super amazing technology but what computer won’t, and at least didn’t have to drop $3,000+ to get cool technology right now. This laptop will allow you to do serious work and serious gaming in one convieniently portable package. When you show up to a gaming session with just a backpack, a mouse, and your GX740; your friends with giant desktops or lame laptops will hate you…just kick back, smile, and think GX740 FTW!
Rating: 5 / 5