Motorola’s gamepad Moto Mod will be releasing on August 25 in US

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The gamepad controller for the Moto Z phone will be going on sale in the US on August 25 with a price tag of $79.99 (RM343.56). The gamepad will come with two thumbsticks, a d-pad, four buttons, start and select button, shoulder buttons and a home button on the side. IT is also capable of giving you an extra 8 hours worth of charge thanks to the 1035mAh battery inside.

The gamepad looks similar to what we have seen in other Android gamepads and on the back there is what looks to be the Legion logo. Lenovo owns Motorola so it would make sense the parent company would get their team to work on a gaming attachment for the phone as they have already released the Legion laptops which were pretty decent mid to entry level gaming laptops.

For that price tag, it would seem like you would be better off buying a third party gamepad to dock your phone into, but that would mean that you would need to go to the Bluetooth pairing process. With this mod, all you need to do is just snap the Moto Z phones into the phone slot on the gamepad and you can start gaming instantly and you will get the assurance that it will be completely compatible with your phone.

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Motorola’s latest phone will come in a twilight-like colour

411

Motorola has a new phone which was found by PhoneArena and it comes with the fancy twilight colour that was seen on the Huawei P20 phones. On the back, it takes some design elements from the iPhone especially when it comes to its camera positions.

The company is calling this colour Aurora and the phone could be the rebrand of the Motorola One Power, a China-only phone which they plan to release worldwide as the P30. It comes with a Snapdragon 636 processor, 6GB of RAM and a 6.2-inch display. On the back, the dual camera setup comes in a 16MP+5MP configuration and the front houses a 12MP sensor. Powering all the hardware is a 3,000mAh battery, but they did not mention if it will come with QuickCharge capabilities.

It’s nice to see that the company is taking on a different design profile as their previous phones have really good performance but lacked the design to make it appealing to consumers. The Motorola P30 will be available starting 15 September 2018 and will cost $303 and $360 for the 64GB and 128GB respectively.

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Motorola's Moto M is now available in Malaysia

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Those of you who have been eyeing the new Moto M are in luck as Motorola has officially announced that the Moto M has arrived in Malaysia today.

Sporting a full-metal unibody, the Moto M comes with a 5.5″ Full HD display and is powered by a 2.2GHz octa-core processor and up to 4GB of RAM. On top of that, the Moto M will come with 32GB of internal storage, an ultra-fast fingerprint sensor and a 3,050mAh battery that comes with a 10W rapid charger.

As for the camera, the Moto M comes with a 16MP rear camera that is partnered up with a dynamic Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) dual LED flash that automatically adjusts for natural-looking skin tones and vibrant colours. On the other hand, the 8MP front camera has a beautification mode and numerous filters for the selfie lovers.

For those interested, the Moto M is now available for RM1,199 and will come in gold and grey colours.

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Motorola’s new Moto Mod is an Alexa Speaker

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Amazon Alexa is slowly but surely becoming an excellent replacement for Google Home and Motorola thinks so too as they have introduced a new Moto Mod that will bring the assistant to all supported Motorola phones. The mod will work exactly as the normal assistant and comes with a dedicated speaker that will output Alexa’s voice.

In addition to the dedicated speaker, there are also four mics to pick up your voice even in a noisy environment, an excellent feature compared to using the phone’s microphones. If you are worried about battery life, the mod will have a 15-hour built-in battery that will keep your phone alive while you have a conversation with Alexa, it also has a dock-like design that is intended to be used on your nightstand.

The only drawback to this mod is the price, as it comes with a costly price tag of $150 when it ships in November to countries that support Alexa. Currently, if you browse Amazon, you can easily pick up an Echo Dot for about $50 and that itself is already very portable or an Amazon Echo for $100.

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Motorola’s newest flagships are the Edge and Edge Plus, set to launch on April 22

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You read the title right, Motorola isn’t going down yet. The company has confirmed a date and time for its latest, biggest flagship phones and it’ll be called the Edge and Edge Plus.

According to Motorola’s official Twitter account, the flagships will be revealed on April 22 during its launch event, featuring a Snapdragon 865 processor, up to 12GB RAM and a 5,000mAh battery. The Edge Plus is expected to sport a 108MP triple camera setup, while the Edge will replace the 108MP sensor with a 64MP sensor.

Image credit: Evan Blass

These phones will also get a curved display alongside a punch-hole cutout. It should also be equipped with a headphone jack, a USB-C Port and an in-display fingerprint sensor. However, leaked images also revealed that the camera bump will be quite protruding.

The Edge series should the devices that Motorola wanted to announce back at MWC 2020 but since the event was cancelled, Motorola had to host this event to launch the phones.

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Mozilla axes Firefox OS development for smartphones

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Developers have received an email from Mozilla, announcing that the company will be discontinuing development of its Firefox OS for smartphones. The email was also forwarded to Mozilla’s own community forum, Discourse for the knowledge of readers.

Mozilla made the move after realizing that Firefox OS is not able to compete with mature operating system’s out there with the likes of Android and iOS. The company foresaw the fact that its app ecosystem can’t keep up with the rapid growth out there. The Firefox Marketplace will no longer accept submissions for Android, Desktop and Tablet as of March 29, 2016. However, Mozilla is looking to other pastures with chances of better growth and development.

The company will be focusing on Connected Devices, which is said to be testing out a new product innovation, aimed to make an impact in IoT. Also, Mozilla’s foxfooding program will be focusing on these new product innovation rather than improving the smartphone experience, according to them. The full email is available on
Discourse
 here. Is Mozilla making the right move? Comment below!

Source:
Mozilla (Discourse)

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Mozilla ends Firefox OS

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Mozilla’s venture into the operating system did not play out as well as the company expected. As such, the company has announced that Firefox OS, Mozilla’s own OS specifically built for “connected devices”, will be brought to a halt today.

According to a report by CNet, Mozilla has laid off around 50 people that were working on Firefox OS. The OS itself was originally conceived as a smartphone platform with the company hoping that it would be adopted by low cost smartphones in emerging markets thanks to the OS’s free and open source nature. When that didn’t work out as planned, Mozilla then tried to reposition the operating system as the OS of choice for devices that rely on the Internet of Things. While Panasonic did ship televisions that run on Firefox OS, there is no denying that Firefox OS did not manage to make a huge impact in the market as Mozilla would have wanted.

With Firefox OS now done and dusted, Mozilla states that the company will be looking into other Internet of Things ventures. One such venture may come in the form of Project Vaani, Mozilla’s own take on the Amazon Alexa-like voice interface technology.

Source:
CNet

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Mozilla is in the early stages of creating a voice-controlled browser

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Voice commands are all the rage now and Mozilla wants to be apart of it. It would appear, the company is working on a browser that you would control with your voice. Codename Project Scout, it will allow users to control it with their voice and it will be able to read to users an article.

Just like all codenamed projects, Scout is still in its early stages and when Engadget reached out to them for more information, they said that they will discuss their efforts publically when it is further developed. The new web browser will be much easier to implement compared to creating a smart speaker and it would help users that are not tech savvy, and easy to grasp for an average person.

Mozilla is a company that is very transparent with their work, FireFox has its source code out on the Internet for anyone to download and view. For those of you that are afraid to venture into the world of voice command/control, this will probably be the best stepping stone to bolster your trust in voice control.

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Mozilla launches A-Frame, an open-source framework for developing VR websites

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Not to long ago,
we’ve reported that Samsung has
 rolled out a browser that makes use of the Samsung VR headset. Now Mozilla will be assisting other developers to make their websites VR-compatible, by launching A-Frame.

A-Frame
, developed by Mozilla’s VR research team MozVR, is an open-source framework that allows developers to use familiar HTML markup in their designs, rather than the complex WebGL API. Despite that, A-Frame will operate within WebGL, making it work across desktop, iPhones, Cardboard devices and the Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 headsets. This framework is also expected to support Android and various other VR devices like the HTC Vive.

For those interested in using A-Frame,
a beginner’s guide can be found here
. Mozilla has further created various channels such as a

subreddit
 and a
Tumblr page
 for users to share their creations with the world.

Source :
Engadget

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Mozilla will be updating its brand identity via community input

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Mozilla is looking to give itself a new look, and true to its open-source roots, it wants to do so alongside the community. This is why the company has launched an Open Design process in which the company seeks to “modernize its brand identity.”

There will be four phases in this Open Design process, beginning with the “Creative Strategy” phase that would allow the community to suggests directions which Mozilla can use to “present itself anew to the world.” What this entails includes commenting on themes the company posts to say what you like or don’t, or submitting examples od designs that are done well.

Once the first phase is done, Mozilla will proceed to the concepting phase where the company will take a handful of concepts through design based on what the Mozilla team learned from gathering and vetting different ideas. This would provide Mozilla with a handful of first-round concepts which would then be refined and tested with Mozilla’s web properties, communities and external ad campaigns in their respective phases.

An important thing to note is that the Mozilla isn’t exactly crowdsourcing the redesign. Mozilla’s redesign will be a strictly internal process as the Mozilla team believes that they will get better results from the call and response of design and review. That said, once the design has been finalized, all ideas generated by the design community will be considered open source and should be made available through Creative Commons.

Source:
Engadget
,
Mozilla Blog

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Mozilla will begin phasing out Flash in August

314

Mozilla’s Firefox is joining the list of web browsers that are giving Flash the cold shoulder as Mozilla announces that it will be gradually phasing out Flash in its browser.

Starting in August, Firefox will begin blocking certain Flash content that is not essential to the user experience, while continuing to support legacy Flash content. Mozilla expects this action to result in enhanced security, improved battery life, faster page load, and better browser responsiveness for users who browse the internet on Firefox.

Mozilla’s plan to phase out Flash doesn’t end there however, as the company highlights that they aim to make Flash a click-to-activate feature, akin to what
Apple is doing with its Safari browser
. Apart from Flash, Mozilla has also announced that they intend to drop support for all Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) plugins by March 2017. The company has also warned that support for Silverlight and Java will end in early 2018, giving users more time to transition from those plugins.

Source:
Mozilla

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MSI Alpha 15 (B5EEK) AMD Advantage Edition Review (VIDEO)

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MSI makes pretty decent budget gaming laptops and I have been trying out the MSI Alpha 15 for the past couple of weeks, it is an AMD Advantage Edition laptop and my unit comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor and AMD Radeon RX6600M graphics, which is a fairly decent specs sheet for smooth 1080p gaming on most modern AAA game titles and it costs under RM5000, so here’s why I think you should consider getting it.

Buy the MSI Alpha 15 AMD Advantage Edition
here
.

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MSI announces its first portable monitor for business users

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MSI has unveiled the PRO MP161, a 15.6-inch FHD portable monitor with an anti-glare IPS panel and ultra-slim design. Weighing in at a mere 0.75 kg (1.65 lbs) with a slim profile of just 1.08 cm (0.4 inches), the PRO MP161 boasts a sleek and minimalist look. Despite its small size, it features two built-in speakers and comes with a protective sleeve for easy portability.

The PRO MP161 is perfect for professionals who need to work on-the-go, as it can be used to extend a laptop screen or duplicate a smartphone screen. With MSI’s EyesErgo technology, which includes Anti-Flicker, Less Blue Light Technology, and user-friendly I/O ports, users can enjoy a comfortable and ergonomic working environment.

The PRO MP161 is equipped with one mini-HDMI and two USB Type-C hybrid-signal connections, which transmit video and power signals simultaneously. The reversible design of USB Type-C also allows for a quick and easy connection to laptops or other compatible devices.

Users can adjust the PRO MP161’s viewing angles and working positions with its fold-out kickstand, which features a 0°~180° design for both portrait and landscape modes.

Additionally, the exclusive Display Kit app allows users to partition the screen and set up different color modes, making the PRO MP161 a versatile tool for various applications.

The MSI Pro MP161 Portable monitor retails for RM659 in Malaysia, it comes with a 3-year onsite warranty which you can purchase it
here
.

Meanwhile, do check out our review of the UPERFECT X 14 Pro Lapdock below, which is a great portable display alternative that converts your smartphone into a laptop.

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portable monitors


MSI announces the AMD 990FXA Gaming Motherboard

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AMD’s 990FX chipset has been around the market for some time and MSI has decided to make AMD enthusiasts a motherboard with the chipset on its AMD 990FXA GAMING motherboard. Despite being an old AMD chipset, MSI has managed to include two USB 3.1 Type-A ports on the rear, and it is the first AMD chipset motherboard to support NVMe.

The MSI AMD 990FXA GAMING motherboard will come with the usual collection of enthusiast-level features from MSI’s GAMING series such as Crossfire and SLI support, lots of I/O and expansion options, Audio Boost 2 and Killer LAN. However, one of the missing pieces on the new 990FXA GAMING motherboard is a M.2 slot of any kind, which is a shame since this is a pretty standard feature in gaming motherboards.

In conjunction to AMD’s recently leaked R9 380 which offers great performance at the best value, enthusiasts have been looking forward to what AMD could release with its flagship to take on NVIDIA, the 990FXA GAMING motherboard has certainly left us wanting more from the value+peformance minded chip maker, this isn’t a deal breaker to be honest, but MSI’s effort on making this chipset in its portfolio is certainly commendable.


MSI announces the GE Apache series gaming notebooks

374

MSI’s notebooks are well known for gaming purposes and a couple of months back we featured the company’s ridiculously huge GT80 Notebook with a mechanical keyboard, the company has now announced its new GE Apache mid-range gaming notebook series in the market, which comes with GeForce GTX 960M/965M graphics and a super lightweight form factor.

The GE Series comes in two models – the GE72 and GE62, these new notebooks from MSI features the same set of features found on MSI laptops, such as a SteelSeries Engine 3 keyboard (not mechanical keyboard folks!), DynaAudio sound engine with 2.1 channel and optional 3 SSD RAID 0 configuration for speedy performance.

The GE72 is a super lightweight 17.3-inch laptop at 2.7kg, it has a Full HD (1920×1080) display and hardware power is managed by a Core i7 4720HQ processor, it has support for up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, 384GB Super RAID 2 + 1TB 7200RPM storage combos, a choice of a BluRay or DVD Writer optical drive, Killer Gigabit LAN and a 6-cell 51Wh battery that could deliver up to 5-6 hours of efficient usage. On the other hand, the GE62 has a 15.6-inch display that comes with a UHD resolution (3840×2160) display and comes with a GeForce GTX 970M option.

The new GE Apache series is a direct answer to Alienware’s recent offering, prices of the GE62 and GE72 will start from RM4,699 and RM4,599 respectively.


MSI announces the GT76 Titan and GE65 Raider gaming laptops that can cost up to RM20,999

359

MSI partnered with Discovery Channel for its MSI PS63 Modern laptop and launched ESPORTS: The Rise of the New King — a program that focuses on the eSports ecosystem and discusses the development of the gaming community. To further show MSI’s support in the eSports industry, the company also introduced new gaming laptops like the GT76 Titan and the GE65 Raider.

GT76 Titan

The 17.3-inch GT76 Titan has a display that supports either FHD resolution with 240Hz refresh rate or UHD 4K resolution, in addition to an exotic-car inspired design with an aluminium chassis and a carbon fibre style ventilation grille. Furthermore, the laptop sports a full colour per-key RGB keyboard by SteelSeries and Dynaudio with Nahimic 3 Audio Enhance to satisfy gamers’ desires.

Under the hood, the GT76 Titan can be equipped with up to 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K processor that supports overclocking 5.0GHz paired with NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080 graphics. It also supports up to 64GB RAM and 1TB NVMe PCIe SSD coupled with 1TB SATA HDD, turning it into a powerhouse with more than enough storage for all the high-quality and space-consuming games that gamers will want to purchase and download.

Apart from that, the gaming laptop has plenty of ports — one Thunderbolt 3 port, one USB Type-C port, four USB Type-A ports, one HDMI port, one Mini Display 1.4 port, one RJ45 and one MicroSD card reader.

Weighing at around 4.5kg, this laptop comes in two variants and are priced as below:

GT76 DT 9SG
 — 17.3-inch UHD 4K resolution, 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K, RTX2080, 64GB RAM : RM20,999

GT76 DT 9SF
 — 17.3-inch FHD 240Hz refresh rate, 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9700K, RTX2070, 32GB RAM: RM14,999.

GE65 Raider

For those who prefer something lighter, MSI also has the GE65 Raider with a 15.6-inch FHD IPS screen paired with a two-toned mesh design for its body. Like the GT76 Titan, this laptop also sports a SteelSeries gaming keyboard integrated with per-key RGB and Dynaudio with Nahimic 3 Audio Enhance.

The GE65 Raider is powered by a 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor and has 16GB RAM with 1TB NVMe PCIe SSD storage. Graphics-wise, the laptop can be equipped with either the RTX2070 graphics or the RTX2060 graphics.

The 15.6-inch laptop also has one USB Type-C port, three USB Type-A ports, one HDMI port, one Mini Display 1.2 port, one LAN port, one MicroSD card reader and a headphone jack.

The GE65 Raider also has two models — the
GE65 9SF
 that sports the RTX2070 graphics is priced at and the
GE65 9SE
 equipped with the RTX2060 graphics costs RM8,099.

GE65 Raider
GT76 Titan
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MSI is having a Christmas promotion for selected gaming laptops

850

Christmas is the month of giving and MSI wants to give back to their fans by having a Christmas Promotion starting from 4th to 31st December 2017 with various laptop bundles to celebrate the occasion. Purchasing selected MSI laptops will entitle you to a special Christmas Bundle Pack for free.

There are a number of laptops that will be part of the promotions that range from Core i5 laptops that come with a GTX 1050 to i7 processors with up to GTX 1060 graphics cards that is even VR ready. Perfect timing for gamers that are interested, as the Steam Winter Sale is just around the corner, so you will be prepared for all the latest games to play this holiday season. The bundles will contain goodies like MSI stickers, gaming mouse pad, gaming mouse, cup edge holder and MSI gaming headset. Other bundles will come with a SteelSeries Siberia V2 gaming headset or an MSI Hecate gaming backpack. The laptops that are part of the promotion are displayed below.

If you are interested in getting your self a new gaming laptop and to take advantage of the bundles, you can pick one up at MSI authorized resellers or get them online from
Lazada
,
11street
 or
MSI’s Official Online Store
.

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Test out MSI laptops and gaming desktops at MSI’s full-product concept store at Plaza Low Yat

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If you’re heading to Plaza Low Yat, look out for MSI’s newest concept store located on the ground floor.

You may be familiar with the existing retail outlet located out front of the shopping mall, the difference between the two stores is that the new concept store also carries MSI graphics cards, motherboards, peripherals, and more.

Also to look out for are the MSI Creator Corner as well as the Gaming Corner – the former is equipped with powerful equipment suited to content creation which are available for visitors to test out. The latter is gaming station where visitors can boot games and play on.

From 1.30pm today (27 September), there will be a 50% discount on the MSI Urban Raider (now RM174.50) and MSI Mystic Knight (now RM199.50) backpacks as well as the MSI Interceptor DS300 gaming mouse (now RM150) and the GK-701 mechanical gaming keyboard (now RM254). These items are available while stocks last.

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MSI Cubi First Look: The Company’s Cutest Personal Computer

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MSI’s presence in our homeland may just be all about gaming motherboards and laptops, the Taiwanese firm does have some interesting products here in COMPUTEX and we checked out the Cubi series mini PC, and as it name suggests, this is a very cute machine but packs some serious hardware under the hood. The Cubi series Mini PC is powered by Intel’s 5th Generation Core processors, it has 4GB of RAM, 128GB m-SATA SSD and supports one 2.5-inch hard drive, display output resolution of up to 4K, and supports Intel’s vPro technology that enables easy management and advanced security features in enterprise environments.

Despite being small, the Cubi has four USB 3.0 ports (two rear and two front), one Gigabit LAN port, one mini DisplayPort, and has built-in 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, which is very much a complete package that would serve well for congested workspace and you can even
mount
 it on the back of your monitor.

The Cubi should be making its way to Malaysia in the coming months and will challenge competitors such as ASUS’s Vivo PC, Intel’s NUC and other small sized computers, we look forward to its arrival soon.


MSI CX62 2QD Laptop Review: Great and Could Be Better

555

Buying a laptop is pretty much like buying a smartphone these days, and it has become a dilemma for some who wants to own a high end laptop yet do not want to break the bank, such kind of laptops tend to be very rare and they remain very hidden on marketing brochures. MSI doesn’t seem to think that its C-series entry-level laptop should be overshadowed by its Gaming and Prestige series models, and it got me really interested to find out how MSI could actually built an affordable yet powerful machine for the masses. In our unboxing video of the MSI CX62, I simply disregard the CX62 as an entry-level machine.

The Definition of “C”

When a tech product comes with a “C” word on its naming convention or product category, many can simply assume it as “cheap” and easily applies to the CX62, there is however another definition from MSI – Classic, and that can be attributed to the laptop’s overall design language. The MSI CX62 reminds me of the company’s GE62 laptop which I’ve previously reviewed and I was rather impressed with it, it has the very familiar brushed aluminium chassis that extends to the working area, which definitely looks better than its similarly priced  MSI has removed the colorful backlight keyboard, used a lower 1366×768 resolution non-touch matte display powered by a modest but decent NVIDIA GeForce GT940M GPU on the CX62. Otherwise, the laptop has a number of decent hardware under the hood – an Intel Core i7 5700HQ quad-core processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM (upgradeable to 16GB), a 1TB Western Digital Blue mechanical hard drive, Killer Gigabit LAN, and a 6-cell battery, the processor of the CX62 in particular is the reason why I won’t consider it an entry-level laptop.

As a 15-inch laptop, one can expect a reasonable amount of I/O ports and the CX62 fortunately doesn’t disappoint, we have two USB 3.0 ports, one single USB 2.0 port, gold-plated audio jacks, one MiniDisplay 1.2 and one HDMI 1.4 port, there’s even a optical drive if you ever need to use it.

Aesthetically, the MSI CX62 is a rather cumbersome device to transport around, even though the laptop weighs merely 2.4KG, the machine’s huge and thick body makes putting into a compact laptop bag a challenge, in addition to that the charging AC adaptor is as huge as a gaming laptop’s one, I’ve tried transporting the CX62 around as my portable workstation and decided that it should just stay on my desk.

Performance and User Experience

Due to the laptop’s given amount of RAM and a mechanical hard drive, I won’t call it a fast machine but durind usage, it was responsive enough in applications that I ran on it. As the nature of my job involves mainly writing and video editing, the CX62 has worked decently for my daily activities, while I do get really mad at times when the hard disk kept running at 100% load at times for no reason, otherwise everything is really good.

At some point of usage, I really wished that MSI could have given the CX62 at least a Full HD resolution display or a better color calibrated display, simply because a screen resolution compromise and a washed out color panel just isn’t great for working long hours on the screen. Fortunately, what makes the laptop really enjoyable would be its working area, the full-size keyboard makes typing really a breeze with its solid keys and the touch pad is precise enough to not get you navigating wrongly, though I still wished that the keyboard could have been backlit with a White LED. In addition, the CX62 is a rather silent machine as its fan noise is barely audible when you are just doing non CPU intensive tasks.

MSI has been rather kind to include a GeForce GT940M for users who wants to do some minimal graphics tasks, its not a powerhouse but you can already use it for GPU optimized applications such as Adobe’s Creative Suite and do a little casual gaming on it, but still it would be even better if MSI could fit a GTX950 in the CX62 as it really offers a significant performance boost, even if it takes to pay an extra RM200-300, its somehow worthwhile and the company should seriously consider it.

If you think all of that rather low profile hardware should give the CX62 great battery life, it is unfortunate that I have to report a rather disappointing 3 hours of continuous usage on a Balanced power profile with 60% of brightness, there are already other similarly speced laptops that delivers at least an extra hour of usage and MSI really need to work towards improving its laptop’s battery life.

Benchmarks

3DMark – Fire Strike

CrystalDiskMark

Unigine Valley Benchmark

Verdict


MSI Delta 15 Review: the gaming laptop I would buy for work

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There are so many reasons to own a gaming laptop if you truly value performance in your workflow, but not every one of them can offer portability and efficiency as a mainstream productivity laptop, which is why gaming laptops such as the MSI Delta 15 is hard to come by.

I have been daily driving this gaming laptop for the past two weeks as my work and gaming laptop, it weighs a mere 1.9kg and measures 19mm thin, powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and AMD Radeon RX6700M graphics chip, complemented by a responsive 15.6-inch Full HD display that refreshes at 240Hz, it is almost a complete package that will satisfy many.

MSI Delta 15 Video Review

MSI Delta 15-A5EX Hardware Specifications (as reviewed)

Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX

Memory: 16GB (8GBx2) DDR4-3200MHz

Graphics: AMD Radeon RX6700M 10GB GDDR6

Storage: 1TB NVMe SSD

Display: 15.6-inch Full HD IPS-Level, 240Hz

Battery: 82Whr

Design and Ports

The MSI Delta 15’s design looks familiar and seems to have taken design cues from the company’s popular lightweight GS65 Stealth laptop, though instead of the all black color theme, it gets a grey color chassis with no flashy RGB elements but a simple falcon branding on the top right, which is a really nice discrete design that won’t gather too much attention in the office.

In most cases, you don’t want to carry a huge gaming themed backpack around and all thanks to its sleek profile, I was able to fit the laptop into my Samsonite backpack that is made to fit an old 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Once you open up the lid, you get a nice keyboard area with huge keycaps, though you don’t get a lot of palm rest area and the trackpad is rather small even though it tracks fine, the keyboard features all-zone RGB lighting which is rather unfortunate, as most gaming laptops of its class come with per-key RGB lighting, but if you are thinking to have this as your work laptop, you probably would prefer if it is less flashy hence it shouldn’t be a deal breaker here.

In terms of ports, the Delta 15 is equipped with two USB-C and two full-sized USB ports located on each side, the right USB-C port supports display output and its rather thoughtful of MSI to have a HDMI 2.0 port located next to it, there is unfortunately no Thunderbolt or USB PD charging support on either USB-C ports which can disappoint some, and the lack of a Gigabit LAN port means you have to plug in an external USB ethernet dongle if you prefer a wired connection for going online, though as a consolation you get WiFi 6E onboard.

Personally, I am fine with the given ports selection as I use wireless peripherals most of the time, but it’s just a bummer that I’ll have to carry around the power brick with me all the time if I need to charge it.

User Experience and Performance

While working on the Delta 15, I am super impressed by how responsive the display is when it comes to both gaming and work, it covers 100% of sRGB color space with a standard 250 nits brightness, which is sufficient for using indoors, the display hinge can go all the way down to 90-degrees which is great for working in different angles and you can show the opposite party your screen by rotating it with the F12 key, it’s a very convenient feature that’s uncommon on gaming laptops.

Gaming performance is obviously where the laptop shines, because this is an AMD Advantage Edition laptop, the laptop’s AMD CPU and GPU can work hand-in-hand to deliver performance according to your activities with the AMD SmartShift Max technology, I can easily achieve more than 60 fps in most current AAA game titles with maxed out graphics setting and ray-tracing turned off.

The Delta 15 handled most ray-traced titles well with playable frame rates, though you definitely can’t go maximum ray-traced quality on games like Cyberpunk 2077, most of the game titles I tested achieved more than 60 fps, this is definitely one of the best performing all AMD gaming laptop I have tested.

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor may be a powerful chip, but it runs at pretty high temperatures even when you aren’t doing much, but all thanks to MSI’s Cooler Boost 5 cooling system that kept it down at average 86.1°C during full load and around 58°C when you are plugged in, GPU temperatures averaged at 73°C during gaming, which are overall decent thermals considering the cooling system needs to dissipate heat out of the laptop’s thin chassis to maintain good performance, which is the reason why there isn’t thermal throttling in my usage.

Of course, you may be concerned about the fan noise if you want to use it as a productivity device, the fan does spin up really loudly when you are gaming but once you are on battery, the Delta 15 is a really silent machine and the fan barely spins up even when I have multiple programs and browser tabs opened, CPU temperature will average around 40°C which isn’t too bad.

In terms of battery life, I can get up to 8 hours of continuous use when I lower the display’s refresh rate to 60Hz, but if you prefer to use that smooth 240Hz refresh rate while you work, expect that endurance to go down to 4.5 hours, which I think is still really good considering its powerful internals, and this is the kind of battery life we all need in gaming laptops that can also be used for our work, but having to switch the refresh rate manually can be a chore on Windows and I wished MSI had included an automatic refresh rate switch feature in the MSI Center app.

Verdict

Ultimately, the MSI Delta 15 is an excellent slim gaming laptop that offers the portability and performance that you can’t usually get on premium productivity laptops, it even beats some creator laptops in terms of features, which is why I can highly recommend this to anyone if you have RM7,399 to spend on a laptop. Like all gaming laptops, it isn’t affordable, but this is going to be a worthy investment over premium productivity laptops if you truly value performance.

The MSI Delta 15 can be purchased at MSI Malaysia’s Lazada Store
here
.

Visit a list of MSI Malaysia dealers
here
.

MSI Delta 15

If you are looking for a gaming laptop that offers both performance and portability, the MSI Delta 15 ticks all the boxes.

KLGadgetGuy

MSI Delta 15

8

The Goods

Excellent gaming performance

Sleek and portable

Responsive 240Hz display

Decent battery life

The Bads

No per-key RGB keyboard

Lacks USB PD charging and Thunderbolt

 8.0

Average Score

best gaming laptop
delta 15
delta 15 malaysia price
delta 15 malaysia review
delta 15 review
msi


MSI has exceptional 1111 deals for its gaming laptops

341

MSI is already a household brand in the gaming industry. Not only does the company make excellent gaming laptops, but they are also the more affordable ones in the market. MSI plans to take things up a notch, by giving out huge discounts for its gaming laptops on Lazada.

While the 11/11 date might not be special to some, it is Chinese Singles Day. Take it as the Black Friday in China. The occasion isn’t as grand here as it is in China, but MSI’s 1111 deals on Lazada definitely makes it worth celebrating.

MSI’s exceptional promotion on Lazada involves discounts of up to a whopping RM 510. All you have to do is to enter the discount voucher codes as shown on the website. The entry level GL and GP model gaming laptops can be discounted for up to RM 300, while the GE62VR with GTX 1060 GPU gets a better RM 450 discount treatment. But most of all, the MSI PE70 receives the maximum RM 510 discount, making it way more affordable at only RM 4,499. That sounds like a good buy with the GTX 1050 graphics card.

Do bear in mind that the 1111 deal by MSI is only available this Saturday on the 11th of November 2017. To check out the discounted gaming laptops, check out MSI’s Lazada store at the source link below. For more info, do keep an eye out for updates on MSI Malaysia’s Facebook page!

1111
deal
discount
ge62vr
gtx 1050
gtx 1060
lazada
msi
pe70
sale


New MSI gaming laptops equipped with RTX 30 series chips are now open for pre-order

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Pre-orders for the latest MSI gaming laptops have now begun; the GE66 Raider, GE76 Raider and GS66 Stealth are all available locally with the new GeForce RTX 30 series graphic cards.

MSI GS66 Stealth

The GS66 Stealth will be available for pre-order in two variants — the higher end model costs RM17,999 while the other model costs RM7,000 less. The reason why the
GS66 Stealth 10UH-032
 is pricier is because it uses an Intel Core i9-10980HK chip paired with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q graphics. It also has twice the amount of DDR4 RAM than the lower-end model and a 15.6-inch UHD display.

On the other hand, the
GS66 Stealth 10UG-036
 is powered by an Intel Core i7-10870H chip paired with GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q and 16GB of RAM. Similar to the other variant, this laptop also has 2TB of NVM PCIe SSD storage and a 15.6-inch display, but instead of pushing UHD resolution, it only pushes FHD resolution. Both laptops come with a per key RGB SteelSeries keyboard, supports Wi-Fi 6e, and has the same amount of ports.

MSI GE76 Raider

If you’re looking for a larger screen, MSI also unveiled the MSI Raider GE76 that has a 17.3-inch FHD display with support for up to 240Hz refresh rate. It is powered the Intel Core i7-10870H chip coupled with the GeForce RTX 3070, and comes with 8GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. The GE76 Raider also has a FHD webcam paired with ports including a Mini-DsplayPort, three USB-A ports, two USB-C ports and more. This laptop isn’t as expensive as the other two but it weighs at 2.9kg while the ones above weigh 2.1kg each. The
MSI GE76 Raider 10UG-297
 costs RM9,999.

MSI GE66 Raider

Another powerful gaming laptop from MSI is this GE66 Raider that sports a 15.6-inch FHD 300Hz screen paired with the top-notch GeForce RTX3080 graphics card. This laptop is powered by an Intel Core i7-10870H processor and comes with 2TB of NVMe PCIe SSD storage and 16GB of RAM. Its weight sits in between the GE76 Raider and the GS66 Stealth at 2.38kg. The
MSI Raider GE66 10UH-062
 is priced at RM14,999.

MSI gaming laptops pre-order platforms

You can pre-order them now from MSI’s
official store
 or its online store on
Lazada
 and
Shopee
.

gaming laptops
GE66 Raider
GE76 Raider
gs66 stealth
msi
MSI Raider
MSI Stealth


MSI GE62-2QF Apache Pro review: Gamers with tight pockets will drool over this

1K

Its not OK to have a thick and heavy gaming laptop these days, unless you think you can still handle that heavy rig in your bags because you want all that powerful performance onboard. However, things don’t need to get that complicated with today’s modern laptops such as the MSI GE62 Apache Pro that we have been using in our labs, don’t let its thick aesthetics fool you because this is a 15-inch gaming laptop that weighs a mere 2.4kg and has some powerful hardware internals under the hood that you do not need to burn your wallet.

MSI GE62-2QF Pro Specifications (AIDA64)

Design and Hardware

The GE62 Apache Pro is marketed as a mid-range gaming laptop offering in the company’s portfolio. Despite of that, its design doesn’t show you its mid-range position, the laptop sports a brushed metal finishing on its lightweight magnesium alloy chassis and that curved line design on the chassis does remind us of car hoods, this is a premium looking machine that both professionals and gamers will tend to fall in love with.

When you have a huge form factor it also mean you could squeeze more ports out of the chassis, MSI isn’t stingy on that and has included a generous amount of input ports, including – three USB 3.0 ports, one HDMI 1.4, one mini DisplayPort 1.2, one Killer Gigabit Ethernet, one USB 2.0 port, and two gold plated audio/microphone port, there’s even an optical drive on the right should you ever need it.

MSI has made sure that the GE62 uses a matte non-touch display panel which is a necessity on a gaming laptop, I’m happy that MSI has kept the display resolution at Full HD as
Windows 8.1
 is terrible at managing QHD+ and UHD resolutions, and it is already sufficient for a great computing experience, the viewing angles are good and you could actually use it outdoors with the bright display, MSI has also added its True Color Technology software to produce vibrant and accurate colors, users can also choose to adjust the display color settings according to their liking.

One of my favorite design feature of the GE62 is the keyboard area, its huge and not cramped like some 15-inch laptops out there. As usual with other MSI laptops, the laptop comes with a SteelSeries engine keyboard that has beautiful LED lights underneath (we have turned off ours) and I’m very happy typing experience, due to its thicker form factor and keyboard base I do actually experience a very solid touch to the keys, unlike some other chiclet keyboards that feels cheap and bouncy. In addition, the touchpad tracks gestures very decently, although its no MacBook quality but it is definitely much better than some other gaming laptops that I’ve used.

MSI has given easy access to the laptop’s hardware internals and we could actually see all of the available expansion slots being used up, its motherboard layout is clean and simple, there’s two cooling fans that dissipates heat from the CPU and GPU, and you will need to be careful not to damage its speakers as they could come out pretty easily. Overall, the GE62 is a well built machine that we couldn’t really find flaws in its hardware.

User Experience and Performance

I’ve been carrying the GE62 around for a week and I have to say that the laptop isn’t a brick if you are carrying a backpack, the laptop has been my favorite on the go video editing laptop, its powerful Intel Core i7 processor and GeForce GTX 970M GPU has allowed me to perform video edits on Adobe Premiere Pro fast and smooth. Thanks to the Dual M.2 SATA SSD, startup speeds of the GE62 is crazily fast, I managed to clock around 8 seconds on a warm boot and waking up the laptop from standby is almost instant.

I work on the GE62 for long hours most of the time (gaming included), the laptop’s palm area has been really comfortable to lay my hands on and while you could hear the dual cooling fans whirring happily when the system is under load, the working area feels comfortably warm and there has not been any overheating issues.

The GE62 comes with a pair of Dynaudio
powered speakers
 and subwoofer underneath and further enhanced by Nahimic audio engine, the audio experience has been truly immersive especially on headphones, in which you are able to hear extremely clear detail in games and movies, the speakers will work well in your small crib and you really don’t need to attach a pair of external speakers to amp up the volume, because it is really loud.

Apart from being a powerful working machine, the GE62 comes packed with a GTX 970M that packs 3GB of GDDR5 RAM, this is really surprising for a mid-range gaming laptop as the GPU is able to run most modern games decently in high graphics quality setting. In my tests, I forgo NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience optimized settings and tried tuning the graphics setting in games like GTA 5 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and I’m able to achieve an average framerate of between 25-45 fps in these games, such performance is really commendable for a gaming laptop as these games are truly resource demanding in every way and you can’t run these games properly without a decent GPU.

Apart from graphics performance, I have to emphasize that NVIDIA has really done a great job on implementing GameWorks on the Maxwell chipset, this technology is able to make graphics more lively and realistic while maintaining great performance. For instance, human and animal hairs are being rendered in strands rather than a single texture, shadows in games are being rendered smoothly thanks to NVIDIA’s ShadowWorks.

While 4K gaming isn’t possible with some games, you are still able to hook the laptop to a 4K display with a 60Hz refresh rate over its mini DisplayPort – sorry folks, no G-SYNC here.

MSI’s GE62 has been a powerful companion for the past week and despite of that, the laptop’s battery life isn’t something favorable for the productive user, you will be hunting for wall sockets after an approximate 2.5 hours (60% brightness, Power Saving Mode, MSI Green Shift mode) of use, gaming with NVIDIA’s BatteryBoost (max. 30 fps) will get you around 1:45 hours of juice.

Benchmarks

The GE62 ran benchmarks with no issues, the system is plugged in to an AC source and power profile is set to Balanced mode to be fair to users.

Verdict

As a gaming laptop, MSI has once again impressed us with the GE62 Apache Pro with its great hardware performance out of the box. The laptop isn’t difficult to afford coming from a gamer’s point of view, the base configuration of the laptop will start from RM4699 with a GeForce GTX 960M GPU and up to RM5499 for our particular model. At this time of writing, MSI have already refreshed the laptop with 5th Generation Intel Core i7 CPU and you should be getting slightly better battery life out of the new models. The MSI GE62-2QF Apache Pro is a gaming laptop made for those power craving gamers on a budget and we see no reason to consider owning one, only if you could live without SLI and a 4K resolution display.

The Good:

+ Speedy system performance
+ Reasonably priced in hardware range
+ Good thermal system
+ Great keyboard typing experience
+ Generous amount of I/O ports

The Not so Good:

– Mediocre battery life
– Can still be heavy for some

This is a sponsored review made for MSI Notebook Malaysia.


MSI GE76 Raider is the ultimate 17-inch gaming laptop you will ever want

16.5K

Looking for a new battle machine to pawn your opponents? With GPUs now running low in stock, it is now a good time to turn yo
ur attention to
 the MSI GE76 Raider gaming laptop, a powerful
 gaming laptop
 powered by the NVIDIA
®

GeForce
®
 RTX 3070 Laptop GPU and 10
th
 Gen Intel Core i7
 8-core
 processor, but there’s just more
to it on why you should definitely consider this as your next upgrade.

Unlike conventional gaming laptops, the MSI GE76 Raider has a low profile and unique
craftsmanship
 that makes it stand out from the rest, it strikes attention with the
all new
 MSI Mystic Light lightbar that gamers are able to configure lighting
patterns with up to 16.7 million
colors
,
 the lightbar brightens up your
gaming desk by expanding the light to the front, making your battle station the coolest of all.

Most complete I/O port selection and connectivity on a gaming laptop

The MSI GE76 Raider makes no compromises in functionality,
as it comes with a
 thoughtful and
 complete array of I/O ports that not many other gaming laptops could offer, you get a super
–
fast USB
-C
 3.2 Gen 2×2
port
that transfers data up to 20Gbps
, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2×1 and audio jack on the left
.

When you need to extend multiple displays, the rear offers a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with DisplayPort 1.4,
HDMI 2.0 and Mini DisplayPort 1.4,
 with the two ports supporting the DisplayPort 1.4 standards you can connect up to two 8K displays and if you desire, maximize
your productivity or enhance your gameplay with three 4K monitors.

With a full-sized SD card reader that supports up to UHS-II speeds, creators
will no longer need to invest an additional card reader to transfer photos and videos from their cameras
, while
two

full
–
size USB 3.2 Gen 1 port sit
s next to it for
connecting more high
–
speed devices
.

In terms of connectivity, the MSI GE76 Raider is equipped with
WiFi
 6E, which greatly reduces
transmission latency and enhances transmission speed that is as good as a LAN connection when connected to supported routers, while a Killer E3100 ethernet
remains faithfully available should lag isn’t something you can tolerate.

The Ultimate Gaming Experience powered by
NVIDIA
®
 GeForce
®
 RTX 3070
 Laptop GPU

As a 17-inch
gaming laptop, the MSI GE76 Raider is serious about offering the ultimate gaming experience,
which is why
the 17.3-inch Full HD display

comes with a 240Hz refresh rate with close to 100% sRGB color space to offer gamers a lag-free and beautiful gameplay experience,

this also attributes to the raw power of the
NVIDIA
®
 GeForce
®
 RTX 3070
 Laptop GPU, which offers a significant performance bump over its predecessor in both rasterization and ray-tracing
.

The
NVIDIA
®
 GeForce
®
 RTX 3070 Laptop GPU

features NVIDIA’s second generation RTX architecture known as
Ampere
, which comprises of improved
RT Cores, Tensor Cores and
stream
ing multiprocessors for the most realistic ray-traced graphics and cutting-edge AI features
, the
NVIDIA
®
 GeForce
®
 RTX 3070
 Laptop GPU has 10% of performance improvement over the NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 SUPER Laptop GPU.

Ray-traced gaming in 4K at 60 FPS is now possible all thanks to
DLSS 2.0
, which uses artificial intelligence to produce image quality that’s close to the native image and effectively reduce
s the frame rendering time, which enables
 improved frame rates throughout the gameplay.

Power efficiency if also further enhanced with Dynamic Boost 2.0, which automatically balances the power between the GPU and CPU so that the GE76 Raider runs more efficiently while delivering
the ultimate performance to your gameplay.

Unique to the MSI GE76 Raider is MSI’s PCIe Resizable BAR Technology, which essentially allows the Intel Core i7 CPU to fully access the memory of the NVIDIA
®
 GeForce
®
 RTX 3070 Laptop GPU
for improved gaming performance, this is definitely something to look forward to when you are looking to get more frames out of your games with the same amou
nt of efficiency.

Best for Content Creation and Entertainment

The MSI GE76 Raider features Duet Display,
a feature that makes it an ultimate streaming machine that
essentially allow
s you to capture your gameplay on external devices and even supports iOS devices through the L
ightning cable,
saving the need to invest in external game capture cards
which many other gaming laptops can’t do.

Furthermore, this is the only 17-inch gaming laptop to come equipped with a Full HD webcam that streams high quality video at 30 fps, it also features
a Duo Wave Speaker
system
engineered by
Dynaudio
, a
speaker noise cancellation
feature
that filters out unwanted external noise
s such as keyboard typing
 and

Nahimic
 audio
offers
 a realistic spatial audio effect in games so that you
stay focused in your gameplay.

T
he MSI GE76 Raider raises the bar of what a perfect
17-inch gaming laptop should be
with a beautiful craftsmanship

while not forgetting to offer
essential features that gamers and creators would want,
it is currently available for purchase in Malaysia at the price of RM9,999, click
here
 to purchase yours.

On a side note, MSI has also brought in the refreshed MSI GE66 Raider and GS66 Stealth that’s now powered by the
NVIDIA
®
 GeForce
®
 RTX 3080 Laptop GPU, check them out
here
.

gaming laptop
msi
msi ge76 raider


MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning revealed

361

Ahead of its launch, the existence of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti has been a while in the market but MSI just announces the OC-series GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning. Some pictures reveal a card that MSI threw all its engineering expertise and retains the yellow-black design scheme of its predecessors, and is characterized by an even larger Tri-Frozr triple-fan cooling solution. The cooler on the graphic card features a large nickel-plated copper base, from which five 8-10 mm thick heat pipes place between two dense aluminium fin stacks, ventilated by a trio of 100 mm spinners.

The cooler only makes up part of this product, a bigger chunk of engineering went into its custom-design 10-layer PCB, and with a 15-phase VRM that draws power from the combination of 6-pin and two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. An overabundance of overclocker-friendly features such as voltage measurement points, dual-BIOS with an LN2-friendly secondary BIOS, the ability to control speeds of individual fans, and more.

The MSI GTX 980 Ti ships with a factory-overclock of 1203 MHz core, 1303 MHz GPU Boost, and 7.10 GHz GDDR5 memory. However, there aren’t any official details about the price and availability at the moment.

geforce
gtx980ti
lightning
msi


MSI opens preorders for new GF63 THIN at RM4399

987

After announcing its refreshed gaming laptop line up with new 10th Gen Intel processors yesterday, MSI is opening preorders for the GF63 THIN gaming laptop, a 15.6-inch mid-tier slim gaming laptop that comes equipped with an Intel Core i7-10750H CPU and GeForce GTX 1650 with Max-Q design graphics.

Gamers can expect up to 33% improved performance from the previous generation while weight remains unchanged at 1.9kg, the GF63 will have up to 7 hours of battery life and features Hi-Res audio support for professional and gaming headphones. Apart from that, MSI will be speccing the GF63 THIN with 8GB of DDR4-2666MHz RAM (upgradeable to 64GB) and 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD, it has an additional HDD slot if you require additional storage.

The GF63 THIN will retail the same price as its predecessor at RM4399, interested customers can head over to MSI Malaysia’s online store to place their orders starting from April 2-15, where you will also receive an exclusive MSI BLACK Sports Bottle till stocks lasts, customers can also opt to have it sent to their home with free delivery.

Preorder the new MSI GF63 THIN
here
.

gf63
gf63 intel 10th gen
gtx 1650 max q design
intel 10th gen
msi
nvidia


MSI GS30 2M Shadow with GamingDock Review: A powerful and portable machine

364

When it comes to performing serious work on a gaming laptop, they were never favorites of road warriors, most of them are heavy, bulky and most truthfully, gaming laptops were never champions in battery life due to its powerful hardware internals. MSI has been attempting to redefine how gaming laptops should be back then with the GS60, it has proven to be a lightweight and powerful machine when compared to the rest of the pack however with poor battery life. The MSI GS30 tends to play the game differently, it is a lightweight 13-inch Ultrabook, comes with a powerful Intel Core i7 quad-core CPU onboard with Intel Iris Pro graphics, and its gaming power is handled by the laptop’s very own GamingDock, which houses a swappable NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 GPU and 3.5-inch mechanical hard drive, is this a machine that the business person gamer would want to consider? We find out.

MSI GS30 Hardware Specifications (2015)

Processor:
 Intel Core i7-5950HQ Quad-Core (2.9GHz, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz)
RAM:
 8GB DDR3-1066(upgradable to 16GB)
Storage:
 256GB M2. SATA Raid 0 SSD, 500GB (GamingDock)
Graphics:
 Intel Iris Pro 6200/NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (GamingDock)
Display:
 13.3-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS sRGB Display
Connectivity:
 802.11 b/g/n/ac Dual Band, Bluetooth 4.0
I/O Ports:
 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x Killer Gigabit LAN
Battery:
 4-Cell

Hardware and Design

Placing the MSI GS30 in a particular product category isn’t going to work, because the GS30 is a mixture of a few great things. First, it has the fire power needed to power the most resource demanding programs thanks to the powerful quad-core Core i7 processor; second, its lightweight form factor 1.2kg makes the machine lighter than a 13-inch Macbook Pro with Retina display, and lastly, this laptop gets boosted with gaming power with its optional GamingDock accessory, hence there is no way of calling the GS30 a vanilla device, we would simply call it a super notebook computer.

For a 13-inch light weight machine, MSI has managed to cramp the needed I/Os most road warriors will require, including two USB 3.0, one USB 2.0, one Killer Gigabit Ethernet, one
SD card
 slot and two gold plated audio and microphone ports, these inclusions make this one of the most complete Ultrabooks in the market despite of its size.

The laptop’s 13-inch display delivers a reasonable Full HD resolution which looks very decent already, color reproduction is accurate thanks to MSI’s TrueColor technology, which also delivers a great contrast ratio that makes blacks look really good.

Coming from many 13-inch laptops, the GS30’s operational area is one of the best that I have ever come across, the keyboard buttons are spacious and the Elan-branded touch pad is incredibly huge and responsive during my time with it. In terms of thermal control, the machine doesn’t heat up since its doesn’t come with a discrete graphics chip and its fan noise is barely audible under ECO mode, however once you hook it up to a power source and run resource intensive tasks such as web browsing and watching HD movies, its
cooling fan
 whirs noisily as if there’s a hair dryer right in front of you, it does so every now and then even if you leave it idle at times.

The GamingDock is an optional but needed accessory to make the GS30 a complete package and it is a very simple concept well executed with needed improvements. To begin with things, the rectangular box house a pair of stereo speakers with a subwoofer that sounds just okay but not impressive, it also becomes home to an additional 3.5-inch hard disk and a PCI-E 3.0 graphics card. Our review unit comes with a 500GB hard drive and MSI’s Twin Frozr V GeForce GTX 980 GPU, and just in
case
 you are wondering, these two components are thankfully swappable, making the GamingDock an extremely future proof accessory for the GS30.

User Experience

The GS30 is the most powerful 13-inch laptop that I’ve used to date, there’s literally no 13-inch machine in the market that offers M2.SATA Raid 0 storage configuration and a high performance Core i7 processor under the hood, the GS30 screams performance in whatever tasks you threw at it. A warm boot would take less than 10 seconds, applications will launch with a blink of an eye, coupled with that stunning Full HD display, you really can’t ask for more for a great work laptop.

The GamingDock proves itself to be a useful accessory if I ever need to game with the laptop, and when MSI calls it a dock, it really is a dock. Unlike Alienware’s Graphics Amplifier, MSI expects you to pair the GamingDock to an external monitor, you then dock the laptop on to the hardware, power it up and boom, it becomes a powerful gaming rig.

However, the bad thing here is that the GamingDock doesn’t work in a hot swap mechanism, which means everytime if you were to switch between the laptop’s built-in graphics and the GamingDock’s discrete GPU, you will need to power down your device and turn it back on again, there have been numerous times where I simply undock the device while it is on standby mode, the laptop sounds a long BIOS beep sound and I know that all my work I’ve done on the laptop is pretty much screwed the next time I power up the machine.

I do appreciate MSI’s effort on building the GamingDock for the GS30, it makes a laptop less obsolete with upgradeable components, however the trouble to make sure your laptop is fully powered off when switching modes has become a chore for my memory at times, however it is all about getting used to a product.

Battery Life and Benchmarks

Since the MSI GS30 doesn’t allow you to game on battery, you can expect that the Intel hardware to deliver some great battery life and in my tests, the laptop has lasted me 3:45 hours on MSI’s ECO mode, it is no champion of course but for such powerful hardware internals, I have to applaud MSI for being able to achieve that.

3DMark15

PCMark 08

CrystalDiskMark

Verdict – The fastest 13-inch gaming and working laptop with reasonable value

First, the MSI GS30 with GamingDock retails at RM10,999, that’s a crazy amount to pay for a 13-inch laptop, it all comes to how you perceive its value to be very honest. In my
case
, I will consider the MSI GS30 to be the perfect machine for both gaming and working, this is an extremely fast and portable machine that you will not regret buying in the market should you have thoughts of buying an Ultrabook and a dedicated gaming rig, which both will cost more than what you are paying for the MSI GS30 and its GamingDock. For those who are doubtful of the GS30’s full price tag, take out a calculator and start tapping away for a high performance Core i7 notebook and a GeForce GTX 980 equipped rig, I’m very sure its way more expensive.

The Good

+ Lightweight and portable
+ Generous amount of USB ports
+ Brilliant display
+ Comfortable operational area
+ High performance processor and Iris Pro Graphics

The Not so Good

– Expensive
– Noisy
cooling fan
– Inconvenient dock usability

We give the MSI GS30 with GamingDock a score of 8.3/10.

2m
gaming
gamingdock
gs30
malaysia
msi
review
shadow
with


MSI GS40 6QE Phantom Review: Small but Powerful

788

The MSI GS40 Phantom. Small in stature, but big in specs. However, does it live up to its offerings? If you look at all the gaming notebooks in the market, you can hardly find one that is smaller than a 15-inch, which can offer the same performance specs. The MSI GS40 Phantom, however, sports an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M, which is quite a daring thing to do, as MSI would need to make tons of effort to ensure it doesn’t overheat on top of supplying enough juice to power it. However, MSI did make a good choice to use an Intel Core i7 6700HQ as this CPU is not as power hungry, so it pairs well with the power hungry GTX 970M. On paper, the MSI GS40 is fitted with an Intel i7 6700HQ and a GTX 970M as mentioned, and sports 16GB DDR4-2133 RAM in dual-channel configuration, 128GB M.2 SSD with 1TB 7200rpm HDD, all on an Intel HM170 Skylake mainboard. We will talk about its performance in a bit.

Design

Let’s take a look at the MSI GS40 Phantom’s looks. Just like all its Gaming G series lineup, the GS40 looks very much like the hood of a shiny metallic sports car. The lid and the inner part of the chassis is made of brushed aluminum with a touch of red chrome accents peppered around it, while the rest of the chassis is made of matte plastic. Given how hot the GTX 970M can get, it wouldn’t have been wise to make its entire chassis out of metal.

In our
unboxing video
, we saw the lid being a little on the bouncy side when you open it, but it doesn’t really affect the experience of using the notebook, unless you’re trying to use it in a moving vehicle that is traveling over a stretch of potholed roads. The hinges are pretty steady and there wasn’t any creaking when trying to open the lid. We especially appreciated the fact that MSI included some rubbery nubs around the sides of the screen, so when you’re closing the lid, it doesn’t slam against the keyboard, especially since the lid is rather thin afterall.

Generally, the make of the GS40 is great that despite weighing a mere 1.8kg, it does not feel flimsy, cheap or lacking.

Connectivity

Connectivity is important especially with a small notebook such as the GS40. It is quite generous of MSI to offer a variety of ports on this notebook such as a HDMI and mini Display port to connect it to an external screen, as well as 2 USB 3.0 ports, one USB-C port, an SD card reader, microphone and headphone jacks port, and an Ethernet port. Glad they included an Ethernet port for a small notebook unlike other small notebook manufacturers who expect everyone to use wireless connections, or buy additional accessories.

Speakers are at the front of the notebook; but don’t expect to use that much as the sound it produces is quite teeny. You would fare better using an external speaker or a good pair of gaming headphones.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The MSI GS40 features a SteelSeries keyboard, which is pretty much like what you might find in MSI’s other Gaming series notebooks, sans the numeric keypad. It has a red backlight and being chicklet styled, the feedback is shallow as one would expect. Despite that, key travel is pretty good but if you’re a hard hitter, you might find the keyboard a little bouncy when applying too much pressure. It does bounce quite a bit as well since it looks like the keyboard plate is quite thin.

As for the touchpad, it is pretty responsive and precise, and even recognizes gestures even at the edges. For instance, you can scroll on the browser just by gliding your finger up and down the edge of the touchpad.

So whether you’re gaming or doing productivity work, the keyboard and touchpad is decent; heck, we even tried playing games using the touchpad when accidently leaving the mouse behind. It was serviceable, unless you’re trying to headshot everyone in an FPS game, then that would be asking a little too much.

Display

The matte IPS display of the GS40 is a 14-inch Full HD panel that offers an all-rounded output of colours, with an option to change colour profiles depending on whether you’re watching a movie, playing a game or using it for work. Using it outdoors is also not a problem, and you can use it in sunny areas without squinting to see what is on the screen. To our pleasant surprise, despite using it at high luminance, the battery power was not particularly affected.

Performance

Now, let’s move on to the million dollar question. How is the performance like? With the combination of an Intel i7 skylake processor, 16 GB of RAM in dual configuration and the powerful GTX 970M GPU, it was a rather smooth and uneventful experience. Combined with Windows 10-home edition preloaded into the machine, apps were launched quick and easy with almost no lag.

How about gaming? We tested a few graphic games such as The Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Knight, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Metal Gear Solid 5, and graphically-wise, there wasn’t any problems even when casting it on an external monitor, or even a projector. We ran The Witcher 3 at high settings and native display resolution without any snags, although it choked a little on Ultra settings. With that, you can expect to be prepared for most games thrown at you this year. The only issue we had was when playing online games, the texts on the chat boxes can be a little too small, given that this here is a 14-inch display. I got kind of squinty eyed when playing Blade and Soul, so I casted it on the wall using a projector instead.

Benchmarks

Cooling and Noise Emmissions

As for noise emissions, thankfully the GS40 did not sound like a vacuum cleaner which can prove to be pretty embarrassing if using it outdoors. The fans are quiet when idling, however, at really high speeds, you can hear a high pitch whining noise, usually when using it to game while connected to the charger. It especially does this random loud whining when running on a balanced mode, probably to dissipate heat buildup every now and then.

Heat dissipation is decent, that even playing at full load, palms and fingers do not get scorched although you really shouldn’t play games with it on your lap to avoid burning up precious jewels.

Battery Life

With all this performance, how does the battery hold up? Generally, the GS40 doesn’t consume as much power as many gaming notebooks, and battery life is reasonable, lasting for about 1 hour on maximum load. If you’re just surfing and doing productivity work, it should last even longer, for about 4-5 hours. This is quite good considering the fact that the GS40 comes with pretty powerful specs.

By the way, check out other photos of the MSI GS40 6QE Phantom below:

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MSI GS60-2QE Gaming Notebook First Impressions: Blazing fast, incredibly lightweight

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MSI has recently been releasing a couple of great gaming laptops. In my past experience, I used to own their motherboards and they are pretty top notch in terms of quality and features, this is the first time that I have the chance to get my hands dirty on the company’s latest slim gaming laptop offering. The GS60 is a 15-inch laptop that packs a powerful Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX970M discrete graphics, what’s most attractive about this machine here is the aesthetics, the GS60 weighs a mere 1.96kg and measures 19.9mm which is a killer to most high performance 15-inch laptops out there.

The review unit that we’ve got here is the Elite Pack version, which MSI has packed in a couple of nice and welcoming accessories – a mouse, keyboard protector, gaming mouse pad, and a SteelSeries FLUX headset. To be honest, not many gaming laptops today come with such a generous package and MSI definitely get a thumbs up from us on this.

MSI has also been kind enough to loan us the Stealth Gold color edition of the GS60, the laptop’s body is made with a very high quality aluminum that makes it feel extremely premium. Unlike some gaming laptops out there in the market, the GS60’s design is simple yet stunning enough to get folks asking you about the machine, there’s no crazy LED lighting on the exterior, but that SteelSeries Engine keyboard will definitely catch your eyes, you’ll be able to configure its LED transition and colors in the configuration program.

Speaking of the SteelSeries engineered keyboard, the GS60 has a full size chiclet keyboard with a numpad that doesn’t feel too cramped, there’s only one macro key on the “F4” button which won’t satisfy some gamers out there but it certainly isn’t a deal breaker (this is a laptop!), you’ll also notice that MSI has also removed the Windows button on the left side which I personally don’t find it a necessity, since most games today tend have that button disabled when running in full screen and I have to adapt to the right Windows button key whenever I’d like to access shortcuts to some features. The touchpad area is huge enough and I don’t like the fact that its a ELAN model, which is infamous for its inaccurate gesture controls and insensitive response, it still works reasonably fine though not perfect, you’ll still need to plug in an external mouse for using long hours.

In terms of input ports, the GS60 offers the best connectivity options that you can find on a slim 15-inch laptop, which includes three USB 3.0 ports, one HDMI 1.4 port, Killer Gigabit LAN, MiniDisplay port, a pair of gold plated audio/microphone ports and sound is powered by Creative’s Sound Blaster 2 engine, the laptop however doesn’t have an optical drive due to its slimness and you probably won’t be needing it.

Overall, the MSI GS60 is an impressive gaming laptop, it is built with the frequent travelling gamer and power user in mind with an impressive 4K UHD resolution display that doesn’t strain your eyes, a lightweight form factor that will not make you dread putting into your bags. I’m not going to spill too much beans here, we’ll be testing the GS60 as our daily driver and will return with a full written and video review on how the GS60 has fared in our review period.


MSI GS60-2QE Ghost Pro 4K Gaming Laptop Review: Monstrous Performance and Lightweight!

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Having used the MSI GS60-2QE for a good one month, its finally time to settle down to make a full review of this powerful and addictive gaming laptop, I was indeed spoilt by the Inspiron 14 7000 that we reviewed a couple of months back and MSI has destroyed me even further with the GS60-2QE gaming laptop, it is an extremely lightweight machine yet the company managed to pack the most powerful hardware internals into the size of a laptop. What does the GS60 offer no other gaming laptops can? Let’s dive in.

MSI GS60-2QE Ghost Pro 4K Specifications

Processor: Intel Core i7 4720HQ 2.6GHz Quad-Core, 6MB Cache, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600
Storage: Dual 128GB M.2 SSD RAID 0, 1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX970M 3GB GDDR5/Intel HD4600
Display: 15.6″ UHD (3840 x 2160) PLS Non-Touch
Connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n/ac Dual Band, Bluetooth 4.0, Killer Gigabit LAN
I/O Ports: 1 x HDMI 1.4a, 1 x MiniDisplay, 3 x USB 3.0, 1 x SDXC Card Reader, 1 x Gigabit LAN
Battery: 6-Cell Integrated Battery

Design and Ports

The word ‘gaming’ on a portable computing device has always lead to the impression of bulky and heavy devices that you will not dream of lugging it around, MSI has decided to redefine gaming laptops by producing a lightweight yet discreetly powerful product like the GS60-2QE. Our review unit here is a hardware refreshed model, the laptop measures 19.9mm and weighs a mere 1.9KG, which you can’t tell from the pictures alone but you really have to be present to hold it – its really light!

While most gaming laptops will look really funky with cool curves, fancy lighting or probably as boring looking as a business laptop, MSI has done things differently with the GS60 and has made it look extremely premium and expensive with the Stealth Gold edition we have here, some folks actually thought this is some kind of limited edition laptop when I brought it along with me.

While MSI’s laptop keyboards are engineered by gaming peripheral maker SteelSeries, the GS60’s keyboard isn’t a mechanical one and it still delivers a great typing experience when I use it for editorials, gaming is also fine however serious gamers will still want to use their own trustworthy mechanical keyboard if they were to really game on it as the keys feel pretty fragile when you are mashing them in the middle of an exciting game.

In order to make a thin laptop, there has to be compromises to be made however for the GS60, MSI has merely omitted an optical drive which is fine for most users however they aren’t stingy on offering a number of input ports – 3 x USB 3.0, 1 x HDMI 1.4, 1 x MiniDisplay, 1 x Killer Gigabit LAN and 1 x SDXC card slot.

User Experience

Lugging a 15-inch laptop in your bag that weighs a mere 1.9KG is like an impossible dream coming to real life despite not being as light as an Ultrabook, the fact that is a powerful gaming laptop really makes you feel that you can simply turn on the device and work away really fast thanks to its beastly dual M.2 SSD RAID 0 configuration.

Given that this is a gaming laptop, the GS60’s 4K display is definitely a necessary feature and the GeForce GTX970M graphics card is able to handle some games in that resolution without much issues, however the real problem here is working on applications such as Adobe’s Creative Cloud software suite, the icons are so tiny and there’s no way you can scale them up, text are at times tiny in user interfaces that you could really get frustrated in working on a written document. Of course, this could probably be resolved after Windows 10 goes live.

The gaming experience on the GS60 can certainly be on par with your mid-high end gaming rig, MSI has made it so powerful that it can literally replace your rig, the GeForce GTX970M delivers extremely good graphics performance in most of the games I threw at it, though most modern games like FarCry 4 and Dying Light won’t run at UHD resolution, playing at the screen resolution of 2048 x 1152 still isn’t too bad and I still managed to achieve an average 40-48 fps on Ultra settings. Once you start playing older games and turn the settings up to max, you’ll start embracing the display that MSI has provided.

The GS60 definitely has its perks of being a powerful laptop yet having a reasonably slim form factor, its cooling system is efficient enough to dissipate heat fast after finishing a game, however the chassis can reach extremely high temperatures which you do not want to touch on it or playing games on your lap, thankfully the keyboard and palm area remains a comfortably warm temperature at 34-36 degree Celsius, which means you can still game comfortably on the
desk
 in an air conditioned room. Heed our advise, don’t use the laptop outdoors.

Battery life isn’t great, but it makes sense

With such powerful hardware internals, the GS60 is an extremely power hungry laptop despite having packed a power efficient GPU onboard, bear in mind that it needs to power a 15-inch UHD resolution display, that fancy keyboard lighting and a super fast Core i7 processor, the laptop merely lasted us 2 hours and 45 minutes for productive activities on ECO mode and gaming on NVIDIA’s BatteryBoost will give you 1:30 of battery life, which totally makes sense with a 6-cell battery, so make sure you carry the power adapter along with you.

Benchmarks

While the GS60 is an extremely capable laptop, it isn’t one that can deal with 4K gaming all the time judging from 3DMark’s Fire Strike Extreme tests, its dual M.2 SSD configuration does make the laptop a beast though, we’ll let you be the judge on the scores here.


MSI GS63VR 7RG Stealth Pro Review: A Mobile Worker’s Favorite Gaming Laptop

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Back in CES this year, our video edits were made possible by the MSI GS73VR we reviewed last year, it is a 17-inch slim gaming laptop that weighs merely 2.3kg that features a Core i7 processor and a GTX 1060 graphics chip, which is impressive for its standards, I still transport it around if I require to do video edits out of the office. Recently, MSI passed over the GS63VR for my review, which is the smaller sibling of my GS73 with a 15.6-inch display, and the model I received doesn’t just come with some marginal upgrades, as it comes equipped with a GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q edition graphics chip, alongside with an Intel Kaby Lake Core i7 processor, is this the ultimate gaming machine and productivity workhorse on the go? Let’s find out.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OFj7Tgl9Ss”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]I released a video review of the GS63VR three weeks back, and my impressions of it hasn’t changed, it is still an extremely lightweight device that I have been transporting around for work, and it isn’t just for my video editing assignment, but also for my usual writing work. Weighing in at 1.8kg, the GS63VR is on par with the Dell XPS 15 and the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and it packs a set of powerful hardware that rivals the other two, such as the Core i7-7700HQ processor, 32GB of DDR4-2400 RAM, a 512GB PCIe solid state drive and 2TB hard drive, and a silky smooth 120Hz Full HD display. Not to forget to mention, the GS63VR is also lighter than the HP Omen 15 and ASUS ROG Zephyrus, it sure is the lightest gaming laptop of the same class.

MSI hasn’t compromised on the laptop’s build quality as well, it is built entirely in an aluminium chassis like most of its laptops, the display hinges are also stronger than the Skylake model of the GS63VR, which you can easily lift the display up without toppling the machine over.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
MSI GS63VR 7RG Stealth Pro Specs as Reviewed

CPU: Intel Core i7 7700HQ

RAM: 32GB DDR4-2400

Storage: 512GB PCIe SSD (Toshiba)/Seagate Barracuda 2TB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 with Max-Q Design

Display: 15.6″ Full HD IPS-Level, TN Panel, 120Hz 3ms Response Time

Connectivity: 3 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x USB-C 3.1-Gen 2 with Thunderbolt 3, 1 x Killer Gigabit Ethernet, 1 x DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x SD/SDXC Card Reader, Killer WiFi 1535 a/c Wireless Adapter, Bluetooth 4.0

Battery: 3-Cell, 51Whr

OS: Windows 10 Pro Fall Creators Update

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
 What I really like about this machine is that MSI included a suede leather material at the bottom, which is pretty comfortable if you want to use the laptop on your, though I won’t recommend that when you are gaming, as the heat could burn your legs like most gaming laptops.

Otherwise, nothing much has changed from other GS models, you still get the same amount of ports, including three USB 3.0, one USB-C 3.1 with Thunderbolt 3 support, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort display inputs, a Killer Gigabit Ethernet port, and a SD card reader. The speaker system on the GS63VR hasn’t changed, it can sound loud but definitely not one you will want to use for entertainment, I am however impressed that the machine is Hi-Res audio certified with the ESS Sabre DAC, which produces great audio quality through headphones.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
 The GS63VR uses a TN display panel to achieve its 3ms response time and 120Hz refresh rate, it covers 94% of the NTSC color space, which is decent enough for content consumption, viewing angles are also great as well if have pals sitting next to you to watch you game. I won’t recommend the panel for color grading tasks, as you won’t be able to get accurate colours out of it, however it will do well for the casual photo editing tasks like tuning highlights and contrast.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Having the GS63VR as my daily driver for a month has given me the opportunity to game on the go, I must admit that I have tons of purchased Steam games which I barely had the chance to finish, simply because I wasn’t at my desk all the time and always on the move with my trusty MacBook. Despite how lightweight my GS73VR is, its large footprint has been an issue when I only had a Starbucks coffee table to work on, which is why the GS63VR comes into place and has easily become my favorite gaming laptop.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Best of all, the trackpad has decent tracking performance despite an ELAN model, the keyboard also has good key travel and an extremely tactile feedback that I find it improved over the previous model. However, things aren’t exactly perfect on the laptop’s working area, as the trackpad isn’t resistant to accidental palm contact, at times causing my documents to go haywire though it can be easily fixed with a Ctrl + Z shortcut. Furthermore, the USB 3.0 ports placement isn’t going to give way to thicker USB devices (i.e. USB modem dongles, thick flash drives), if you already have a USB device plugged in.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
MSI’s Cooler Boost Trinity cooling solution has been an impressive cooling system for the GS series, it comprises of three fans with whirlwind blades and five heat pipes to dissipate heat from the CPU and GPU. Despite being a Max-Q design laptop, MSI hasn’t made any changes to further improve the laptop’s airflow intake, though I would assume that the design is already sufficient, the laptop’s CPU can unfortunately get pretty high temperatures when under load, I recorded a maximum temperature of 97°C when playing GTA V in an air-conditioned room, the GPU’s temperature is however reasonable at 81°C. Fan noise is reasonable, and if you can compromise performance a little, NVIDIA’s Whisper mode will be able to turn the fan noise down to 40dB or less. Battery life hasn’t changed from the previous GS63VR, as I am still getting 2 hours and 45 minutes of usability in a single charge, it is something that I wished MSI could have seriously improved on, even if it takes to add on feel extra grams to the laptop’s weight, an extra two hours of power extension would be great enough to not carry the power brick in the bag. Nonetheless, I’m thankful that the GS63VR’s power adapter isn’t heavy to transport around.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Synthetic Benchmark – Gaming

 With our usual gaming benchmarks, the MSI GS63VR with GTX 1070 Max Q managed to score impressive frame rates considering it has a lower clock speed than the standard GTX 1070, we are also seeing a 20-30 FPS difference when compared to the desktop GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition, which is surprising results.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

PCMark 10

All thanks to the faster clock speed and RAM frequency, the GS63VR was able to produce a performance boost of 18% than the GS73VR, which boasts a Intel Skylake processor and GTX 1060.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

3DMark

 Here we go again, another significant performance boost from the Skylake GS73VR, definitely better than a GTX 1060.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

CrystalDiskMark

The GS63VR I received comes with a Toshiba 512GB PCIe solid state drive and a Seagate Barracuda 2TB hard drive, data transfer speeds are pretty decent, while I’d hope MSI could have provided a SSHD for the secondary storage, it still has pretty decent read speeds for large files.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Verdict

 The Max-Q GS63VR is an impressive slim gaming laptop despite of its shortcomings, the hardware package and portability are something that many other gaming laptops still do not offer as of today, and this is a dream portable machine for gamers and professionals who wants great computing performance on the move. If you are not thinking to purchase the Max Q GS63VR, MSI also offers it in GTX 1060 and GTX 1050 models, but do also expect a smaller amount of storage and a standard 60Hz refresh rate display for the base model.
The Good

Solid build quality

Slim form factor

Superb gaming performance

120Hz display

Hi-Res audio

The Not So Good

No improvements to cooling for Max-Q design

High CPU temperature on full load

USB 3.0 ports closely placed

Visit the
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MSI introduces GS66 Stealth with GeForce RTX Super graphics and Intel Core i9-10980HK processor

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Its an exciting time for gamers as MSI has refreshed its gaming laptop family with NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX Super graphics and Intel’s 10th Gen H-Series processors, while at the same time unveiling the new GS66 Stealth gaming laptop.

The GS66 Stealth continues to be MSI’s crown jewel when it comes to slim laptops, as it now features a 300Hz refresh rate display and 99.9Whr battery, gamers will be able to notice a significant boost in battery life while enjoying improved performance.

The GS66 Stealth features a new design that MSI calls it the “Core Black” theme, taking on the low-key and minimalist design of the GS series. Weighing at 2.1kg, the GS66 Stealth is slightly heavier than the GS65 Stealth due to its increased battery size, it features a new Cooler Boost Trinity+ cooling system with 0.1mm thin air blades that ensures a consistent performance.

MSI GS66 Stealth Specs and Price in Malaysia

Three configurations will be offered and MSI is equipping all of them with an 8-core Intel Core i9-10980HK processor that has a turbo frequency of 5.3GHz per core, up to RTX 2080 Super with Max-Q Design graphics, 2TB of NVMe SSD and 32GB of DDR4-2666MHz RAM.

The MSI GS66 Stealth will retail from RM8,399 to RM16,999 in Malaysia.

On a side note, MSI has also refreshed the GT, GE, GP and GF series with 10th Gen Intel Comet Lake-H processors, while the former two will definitely be equipped with RTX Super graphics, we still do not have the official specs for these series that will be sold in MSI Malaysia, however do expect them to feature very similar designs to the existing models and they should pop up in retail channels soon.

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MSI GS73VR 6RF Stealth Pro Review: Best Slim 17-inch Gaming Notebook

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The dilemma of choosing between an ultrabook and gaming laptop can sometimes get serious. Ultrabooks these days have become very capable in terms of basic computing performance, and most of them could also easily last up to 8-hours with a single charge, however these devices are not going to be able to run processor intensive tasks such as video rendering and gaming properly, which leads us to gaming notebooks, they are the portable powerhouse that does almost everything that a powerful desktop PC could do, but they are mostly heavy and do not possess good battery life. Fortunately on the portability department, MSI has done it with the GS series gaming laptops, and I have been using the GS73VR as my daily driver for both gaming and work for the past two weeks, so just how has this improved over its predecessor, the GS72?

Design and Hardware

At first glance, the GS73 may look very much unchanged from its predecessor, you still get that premium brushed aluminum finish that is already available on its current laptop models, a simple MSI gaming logo lights up when the laptop is turned on and there’s no flashy RGB lighting to be found around the body, it is a rather simple design I personally like and do not feel awkward while using it in a coffee shop.

There are a few design refinements on the GS73, which comprises of two additional cooling vents at the back, a slightly slimmer body profile at 19.6mm, significantly reduced screen bezels and some aerodynamic styling on the working area. The GS73VR is also the lightest 17-inch gaming laptop at this point of time as it weighs merely 2.4kg, a 200g weight reduction and with its shorter body dimensions, you can easily mistake this for a 15-inch gaming laptop.

Accessing the GS73’s hardware internals is requires very minimal effort by unscrewing all the available screws on the base, lift up the plate and you will find a rather clean motherboard design, the 2.5-inch 1TB hard drive is easily removable, but the RAM and M.2 SSD slot are nowhere to be found on the top, which you might probably need to perform some disassembly to upgrade these components. MSI’s new Cooler Boost Trinity cooling solution is available on this machine, which uses three cooling fans with 41 blades to dissipate heat effectively from the slim chassis.

The GS73VR hosts a generous number of I/O ports and this is something most slim laptops do not get these days, it has three USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, one Thundebolt 3, Killer Gigabit LAN port, two gold plated audio jacks and unlike the recent MacBook Pro, this laptop has a perfectly working SD card reader. For gamers who want to extend the laptop’s display, you’ll be happy to know that the laptop has a HDMI 2.0 and Mini-DisplayPort, you can of course take advantage of the Thunderbolt 3 port if you happen to have a compatible monitor.

Even though our review unit lacks the optional 120Hz display, I still get to enjoy the beautiful 4K resolution IPS display throughout my usage, although MSI didn’t specify if the display covers 100% of Adobe RGB color gamut like its predecessor, colors can be adjusted using MSI’s True Color software and color saturation is rather favorable to the average eyes, it is by far one of the best 17-inch laptop displays in the market.

Performance and User Experience

The GS73VR is technically the first gaming notebook that I have it in my work backpack for the past few weeks, while this is definitely no lightweight device when compared to my MacBook Pro, it is more capable of running extremely heavy tasks on the go. Granted, the GS73VR may have a Core i7 6700HQ processor that is more powerful than my MacBook Pro and commonly found in lower end gaming laptops, the fact that it has a discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU under its slim body is what makes it even more capable than the highest end Ultrabook, the GTX 1060 is a desktop class GPU that matches the performance of last year’s GTX 980, which it can already handle games with high graphics quality in Full HD.

Aside from that, the GS73VR’s working area is also one of my favorite when it comes to work, the ELAN trackpad has been significantly improved over its predecessor with a smoother surface and tracks more precisely, it is also reasonably sized to allow performing gestures. The SteelSeries engine keyboard is beautiful with customizable RGB lightings, the key travel distance is fine and allows me to achieve 110WPM on 10fastfingers.com, however I don’t like the arrow keys placed to closely to the numpad, which I always get confused when especially pressing the ‘Right’ key. When gaming or running processor intensive tasks, the right palm area gets warm while the left remains cool, which is perfect considering that I use the ‘W,A,S,D’ keys for gaming.

Unfortunately in the audio department, the GS73VR’s loudspeakers sounded a little underwhelming, though it is loud enough to fill an entire room, bass is lacking which you won’t really enjoy if listening to EDM or gun shots, it is something that I wished MSI would really address in future GS series laptops, but thankfully audio playback via headphones sounded really good. As a matter of fact, I find Bluetooth audio to be very decent as there were times I streamed audio to my Sony MDR1000x headphones.

The GS73VR performs silently when doing non processor intensive tasks, fan noise during full load doesn’t sound annoying as well, which is all thanks to MSI’s Cooler Boost Trinity thermal solution designed for the GS series, the GS73VR’s system temperature is also maintained around 70 degree Celsius on full load and doesn’t cause any performance throttle, which is really commendable.

I have not put any high expectations on the GS73VR’s battery life in the very beginning of this review, since MSI only installed a 3-cell battery to power all that hungry hardware, one shouldn’t expect it to past the 2-hour mark. True enough, I managed to kill the battery in a matter of 90 minutes and you can barely finish a blockbuster movie on the go, hence this isn’t an airport and college friendly device despite of its portability, so keep that power brick handy and stay close to a power source if you intend to game in a café.

Synthetic Benchmarks

The MSI GS73VR performs decent in our synthetic benchmarks judging from its specs sheet, simply because of the lower clocked GPU and processor, there is a significant variance in benchmark scores and they do not affect the overall user experience.

As claimed by NVIDIA, the GTX 1060 GPU is as powerful as last year’s desktop GTX 980 GPU, however the GTX 1060 features more RAM at 6GB as opposed to the GTX 980’s 4GB RAM, which gives it an advantage over the latter in turning on more graphics features in games, hence it is able to handle ultra-quality graphics setting in 1080p without much issues.

The GS73VR sadly doesn’t feature a RAID option for its solid state storage, however the PCI-e M.2 SSD has managed to produce very impressive data transfer rates especially in the 4K transfer test, which means it could handle multiple small file size transfers without much effort.

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