Pros: -Good price point
-Hard drive is Western Digital
-Looks sexy without being too flashy
-Decent keyboard for a laptop
-4+ hours of battery life with power management (only 1.5-2 while gaming)
-Button to disable touchpad is a godsend

Cons: -TN Panel
-Runs really hot when gaming
-Touchpad is meh, I use a mouse anyway

Other Thoughts: You'd think that getting a thicker laptop due to it having an optical drive would translate to decent airflow/cooling. Unfortunately that's not the case here as most games will push the CPU temps up to 90c. Get a cooling pad if you plan on buying this laptop, she's toasty. Docked an egg for this. Otherwise it's a good machine for the price.

Some people have been complaining about the webcam not functioning or being detected. It is off by default and can be enabled by pressing Fn+F6

Pros: So this is my first gaming laptop, ever. Got to say I'm somewhat impressed, especially for the price. Nvidia GTX950m for under $750 can't really be beat, and they didn't really cut corners to get there.

+Keyboard is best laptop keyboard I've used.
+Screen is surprisingly clear for 15.6". Mine had no dead pixels.
+Plays anything I throw at it.
+Great sound for a laptop.
+Nvidia GTX950 at this price point is absurd.
+Wireless and wired networking are fast. Best download speeds of any computer in my house, desktops included.

Cons: - Trackpad isn't very good. Can't use tap feature because there is not individual sensitivity slider for it and it's too sensitive. Had to turn off all multi-tap features because they don't really work properly.
- Battery only lasts 2 hours, regardless of tasks.
-The power cord plugs in right next to exhaust fan, not the best design choice.

Other Thoughts: My first MSI laptop (have used their motherboards in the past) and I really like it. At this price point I was expecting something flimsy, and it's not. Nice keyboard and sound were also unexpected bonuses. Also wasn't bogged down with endless annoying bloatware (I'm looking at you Lenovo). Just had to uninstall Norton and was ready to go.

Overall I give it 5 eggs because it has no competition at this price point. I'm very happy with this purchase.

Pros: I'll start off with a list of pros:
-Great keyboard. Not too loud, not too soft.
a)I love the #pad.
-The Cooler Booster was a smart implementation by msi!
-The Nvidia graphics card handles many steam pretty decently
(Rare fps drops, but not much of an issue).
a)tf2 getting around 45-60 fps at maxed settings (With a minor lag spike at the beginning).
-Smooth textured laptop and that anti-glare really came in handy with the sun shining though my room
-Audio quality was fairly decent
-Quiet laptop when not gaming
-Great with muti-tasking since I usually browse the web and play games to procrastinate on homework
-The Gaming Dragon Center button msi implemented was a nice feature. I can easily observe performance, temp, and network speed.

Cons: Now, let's begin with the cons:
-This laptop is am oil/dust magnet. As I mentioned, the smooth texture was fine, but this is an oil/dust magnet. I have to clean it every few days.
-Bumpy mousepad. Not an issue, but could have been smoother.
-SLOW in boot up
-Sometimes, an app may crash or take a while to load for some odd reason.
-The buttons to open up the DGC may not work and I have to restart it to work (not a major issue).
-Flimsy screen, which concerns. I believe it needs to be a lil thincker or use stronger materials for the screen (May be a concern in the future).
-When I game, it does get pretty hot in there (without fan).
-I do not see an SSD msata in there (which upsets me the most).
-I may have missed this, but does msi have an official webcam app? I checked the webcam is working, but I don't\see one (Not an official one anyways).
-Some minor delays when opening up my desktop apps.

Other Thoughts: Overall, I'd recommend this laptop. It's not those super fancy and expensive ones where you can play very intense games, but it can handle some moderate games. If you're a mobile student, this laptop is HIGHLY recommended. I had this laptop for about 3 weeks now (from 09/26/15). I hope I included everything I wanted in this review as it's my first. If there's another problem that's major, please let me know so I could experience or help with the problem.

Pros: Good gaming laptop for the price. This puppy can run most of the games that I play without hesitation here are some benchmarks

Gary's Mod (Dark Rp and Flood Game Mode): 50-130fps on max settings

Crusader Kings: 60fps until you speed up time to the max then it stutters just a bit

Minecraft: 80-120fps on max settings

This War Of Mine: 60fps

Sims 4: 60fps on max until you speed time up the. Stutters a bit

Also the keyboard feels really nice for gaming as well for typing and screen looks nice with matte finish. The laptop looks better then the picture I didn't like the look of the laptop in the picture but when I first got it the laptop looked really nice.

Brings little to no bloat ware, boot up is already quick without SSD, and brings pre-installed software to monitor your cpu and gpu temperatures which is great in my opinion.

Cons: Tends to get hot nothing a cooling pad can't fix though.

A con for me was the touchpad I don't when companies texture their touch pads instead of leaving them nice and smooth. I use a mouse so I don't mind it to much.

You void your warranty if you open up the laptop. I voided mine to put in a 500gb Samsung Msata SSD and put in a 4gb ram.

Not to big of a con for me but may be for others is the battery life it isn't to long for gaming but either way when I game I have it plugged in anyways. Not sure about batter life when not gaming I'll update this when I do use it for web surfing and movie streaming.

Other Thoughts: Overall a good gaming laptop for the price tag especially if you get it on sale it's a no brainier.

One last thing the laptop brings the gpu on automatic so some games may not use the Nvidia gpu but rather the Intel graphics so you have to go in the Nvidia control panel and enable it to be used for all games

Pros: Hey, I'm Michael. I did a review on this laptop a little while ago and I listed my e-mail so if anyone wanted testing done I would happily do it for you all. And I DID! :D

In my last review I talked about how a few games played, in detail.

I'm not sure what was wrong with GTA:V at the time of review, but it I ran it again about 1 week after review and these are the settings that worked the greatest while only getting 60+fps all the time.

This is what I sent back to a customer about this laptop after they e-mailed me to re-run my GTA:V benchmark.

dx 11
fxaa off
msaa off
vsync off
pop density max
pop variety max
distance scaling max
texture quality normal (still looks ******* amazing)
shader quality very high
shadow quality high
reflection quality very high
reflection msaa off
water quality very high
grass quality high
soft shadows softer
post fx normal
anisotropic x16
ambient occlusion high
tesselation off

This got me at a stable and very happy 50+ fps

Super ******* beautiful. If I dropped the shadow quality to normal and shader quality to normal I always got 60fps+

Cons: this isn't my first review so I explained everything that was a con in GREAT detail in my last review.

This is only a follow-up.

Other Thoughts: In other news I just downloaded Mad Max and it runs everything fully maxxed out at 60+fps :)

Something you all should know is that I swapped out the HDD for a 500GB SSD
As well as doubled the RAM, it now has 16GB of 1866mhz RAM. :D

I took those out and put in the original hardware for the tests so don't you worry your pretty little head.

If ANYONE wants me to continue testing anything email me

michaelhpettit at gmail dot com alright! I am more than happy to help.

I know how hard it was for me taking the chance to spend the money to buy a laptop in the hopes that it would be everything I hoped for. And this laptop got very darn close.

The only thing the sucks is the shift key being tiny on the right. :(

Superd laptop though!

Pros: Can play graphically demanding games

The fan is really quiet

The keyboard is really responsive!

So far the laptop stays pretty cool while playing games, even if it starts to get warm you can boost the fan with one press of a button.

The price for the specs you're buying is pretty good.

It feels lighter than other gaming laptops, not as bulky.

The screen is great, not the best but 1080p makes games look crisp.

So far pretty it's a pretty fast laptop, it has ports for a SSD drive if you want your boot up and loading speeds to be faster.

Free windows 10 upgrade.

Decent webcam

Has matrix display so you can use multiple monitors which is pretty neat.

I haven't really tested out the speakers for music yet, but so far on my games the sound quality is good enough. No idea how it is with headphones yet.

Cons: Not really a con, it's not quite as "Stylish" as other gaming laptops, as say Alienware and Asus ROG models. But it has a pretty simple and sleek look which I personally like a lot, but others may not.

An IPS screen would be better, but this screen isn't bad by any means.

The rubber feet on the bottom to hold the laptop in place feels a little slippery on the front. I always use a cooling pad for my laptops. I'm using the same pad as I did on my old ASUS and this slides on the pad easier than my ASUS did, which stood in place.

Not really bad but if you're using a cooling pad that tilts it really high at an angel, you might want to make sure it has front brackets!

Other Thoughts: So far I'm enjoying this laptop a lot. I can play a lot of new and old games that my old laptop couldn't handle. For example, League of Legends, Nether, Day Z, Battlefield 4, Titan Fall, Dirty Bomb, ect.

The specs are are decent for a laptop, but just don't expect to play all the new games on Ultra with 100 FPS. Be more realistic.

I was a little weary of this laptop because some bad reviews, but honestly I've had zero issues since I plugged it in. Everything installed fast and I haven't had any heating issues or faulty drivers/windows updates that some have claimed to have on here.

It has a pretty good fan which you can boost at any time.
Also installing the right drivers helps a ton, some of the people that had freezing issues might be using bad drivers or something?

Anyways if you're interested in a gaming laptop but you have a tight budget like me, this laptop is perfect. I took a chance on getting this model and I'm glad I did.

Lastly, even if you don't have issues with it, it's always best to get an extended warranty! You can never be too safe.

Pros: Nice and sexy laptop you can get! I get some nice FPS so I can play games with good FPS, quite like 160~290 fps on Minecraft, etc...

If you want a laptop, get this one!

Cons: Windows 8.1 and/or Windows 10 are nice, but though when the processor is at 100%, the taskbar starts to be unresponsive, and I installed Windows 7 and everything is fine... until the HDD being slow at bootup and while playing games it makes my sh* to freeze or crash completely so I had to order a 7200 RPM HDD (I know I can order a SSD but i'm not ready to)

Other Thoughts: I'm very satisfied with my purchase! Great laptop for your gaming needs!

Pros: Decent specs. Screen isn't bad. Wireless has great speed and signal strength and worked out of the box with Ubuntu 15.04 though I haven't tested the 5ghz in Linux.

Cons: This thing runs hot according to core temp. even under minimal loads this laptop will easily hit 80-90C. prime95 will push it to nearly 97 on all cores. I thought maybe it was just thermal paste or a clogged up heat sink, when I opened it up I realized the bottom panel has vents for the fan but they are offset by nearly an inch. The fan is tiny compared to other laptops I've opened up before. I applied some new antec formula 7 thermal paste which made no difference in temps.

As others have stated the touchpad is junk. it will click and drag at silly times. I mostly use a mouse so its not that big of a deal

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com or contact our support toll free number at 888-447-6564 m-f 6am to 6pm pst. and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Pros:
Dedicated graphics card, with 2GB of memory
Windows 8 (vs. Windows 10)
M.2 Sata port
Supports 16GB ram

Cons: Limited HD space/Partitiion setup seems silly
only 8GB RAM

There is limited, and sometimes conflicting, information available online about the motherboard in this model, and it's specs. I've seen reports that state it supports 32GB, 16GB, and 8GB max RAM. I can confirm that it supports at least 16GB.

Other Thoughts: I immediately purchased an upgrade of RAM for this machine, a faster timed 16GB matched pair. I wish there was a good way to communicate with other owners of this machine that I was selling the RAM that came in this machine.

You have to enable the dedicated graphics card, in any game you choose to run it in, or enable it system wide. Not a big deal, but worth noting.

The other comment I have, is I'm up in the air about MSI's customer service. I've contacted them twice, and both times, been given answers that don't answer my question. I doubt they're being intentionally obtuse, but I question whether their support staff are adequately trained.

I can't wait for M.2 SSD prices to drop (if they ever will), then I can put the SSD in, as the boot drive, and keep installed apps, and other frequently written areas on the 7200RPM SATA drive I moved from my old laptop.

Pros: Fast PC, boots quick, runs High rez games on max settings with ease
the battery does not get to warm, and very light weight

Cons: Just seemed like one problem after another with this Laptop, i dont know if i was just the unlucky 1 in a thousand or what. But once I booted it up for the first time i realized a dead pixel near the middle of the screen which was an immediate turn off :(
The touchpad is garbage but thats to be expected, plan on using a mouse anyway
But the biggest problem was the webcam did not even exist!
I see it..
I can touch it..
But my laptop acts as if it doesnt exist..O_O

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com or contact our support team at our toll free number 888-447-6564 m-f 6am to 6pm pst. and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com