Pros: * beautiful screen - good color and contrast through full brightness range * fast boot! * full (if squished) number pad * comfortable and quiet keyboard (the lights are fun but hardly essential) * less than half the cost of a similarly equipped Mac * light!

Cons: Screen/lid is very thin and flexible. I bought a nice bag and I'm not careless with my stuff, so this is not a problem for me. It seems tougher overall than the MSI my Sister got a year or so ago, and her's is still in great shape. Oddly placed delete key :)

Overall Review: IMPORTANT UPGRADE NOTE: Another reviewer said that adding an SSD would void the warranty, and there IS a sticker covering one of the screws warning about that. I called MSI Support (I talked to John, very helpful) and asked about it, and they said it's not a problem at all, and they expect people to take full control of their gaming laptops. Just to be safe he opened a ticket with reference number in case it ever became an issue. He said the sticker might be there more for other countries, but in the US swapping and upgrading hardware is expected and doesn't void the warranty.

Pros: Easy order, fast shipping, good prices. The chip'll be great, I'm sure, but...

Cons: Some people got the 05A from NewEgg already, but I still got the 05B. Now I'll probably have to get a new cooler just to keep it in spec. I haven't built the system yet, so we'll see how the peanut packing job treated my hard drives.

Overall Review: From the FAQ: "Q: Can Newegg.com ensure that I will get a specific serial number or stepping of a product? A: Aside from certain items that are designated on our website, our enormous stock moves way too fast to tag a particular item, with a particular stepping, for a particular order. We ship what we have, when we have it." Sounds reasonable, but the 05A/B marking is on a sticker on the front of the retail box over the words "Platform Compatibility Guide." That should easy to track, right? Am I crazy?

Pros: super cool!

Cons: enormous! Fits fine in my mid tower (Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX) but there's only room for one side fan because of the Zalman. I could mount a fan on the outside of the case if I needed it, but so far everything stays super cool so I'm not worried.

Overall Review: My i7-3770S Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz never breaks a sweat with this thing. It might be overkill, but that's how I like it. Take your time with the install - read and study the instructions VERY closely because there are important details about the orientation of small parts.

Pros: airflow, # of expansion bays, size

Cons: very thin metal, but who cares if you aren't using it as a stool?

Overall Review: This keeps my GTX 285 MUCH cooler than my last case. Airflow is the best I've ever had. You can replace the stock fans to make it quieter, but it's really not too bad. Space is a little tight for cables, but totally doable. Use a modular power supply if you can. I don't have one and it still worked out.

Pros: I posted these comments for the HV20, but they apply here too. Differences between HV20 and HV30: HV20 records 24p, 30i - HV30 records 24p, 30p&i. HV30 has a better zoom rocker, low glare LCD, and is black. Other Pros are: Price. Great quality in a small, affordable package. Huge and helpful user base. Wide compatibility with editing software. "Hidden" abilities for the determined. Ability to shoot true 24 fps, progressive scan.* Full HD through the HDMI port is great if you can take advantage of it; it's uncompressed unlike the HDV tape, and has twice the color information.** For anyone looking for ways to improve their image quality, this is a NICE feature. Can attach 35mm lenses for selective focus.*** Tweaky people can have manual control of shutter, focus, aperture, AND gain, with a little homework at hv20.com.

Cons: Low light image grainy unless you use the aperture trick. "Hidden" abilities require time, effort, or money to use. *24p recording is both sent to HDMI and saved to tape in a 60i "wrapper" that editing software doesn't convert properly to true 24p, because Canon doesn't put pulldown flags in the data stream. There is 3rd party free and pay software that can sense the pulldown cadence and capture true 24p at much larger file sizes for editing. **1920x1080 full resolution CMOS only available through HDMI port, NOT on tape drive. The HDV format is 1440x1080 by definition. The sensor captures full HD and sends it out the HDMI port unharmed, but the signal to tape is compressed and squished to 1440. On playback the pixels are stretched back to 1920 for proper 16:9 ratio. Some loss of sharpness horizontally, but the lens might not resolve that well anyway. The stock image is good in spite of compression and squishing. ***35mm lens mounts can be expensive but there are DIY solutions.

Overall Review: Very good quality for the close to no budget filmmaker, but you'll need editing software, and either time to learn a free way to capture 24p, or money. Using the HDMI port requires either a VERY jacked computer with added PCI card, or a portable dedicated capture device that costs more than the camera. If you don't plan to do lots of effects and green screen stuff, you'll be happy with stock HDV footage. With care, you can still do effects and green screen stock as well, but it's less flexible. If your goal is home movies and no fancy tweaking, you'll love it. If you are tweaky, patient, and budget extra money/time, you could also be in heaven. It's an exciting product, and I feel the buzz is justified.

Pros: Response to "Once you shoot hundreds of hours, what are you going to do with the footage? Put it on your hard drive? Well, what if that HD fails? All your movies are GONE! " - Data DVD and BluRay have a longer shelf life than tape for archiving non-tape systems, important for edited footage too! For large backups, you can put hard drives in a safe too. That will save space in the safe, but cost more.

Cons: I respond to this comment in Other Thoughts: "Besides, HD camcorders give you pictures that not as detailed and clear as the tape drive. The black/white sections will be 'blown' and see no details and all your footage is dark and heavy video-like quality because of the compression."

Overall Review: The blown black/white thing is partly true (there's a workaround), but format clarity and compression comments are untrue, no disrespect intended. About blown blacks/whites, I think you mean the diff. between YUV (for DV/HDV), and RGB. RGB (non-DV/HDV) allows the full 0-255 range so it's more detailed than HDV, depending on the codec. YUV is usually 16-235, reserving high/lows for SD TV broadcast rules (but HV20 is actually 16-255 - more whites). RGB played back on SD TV causes problems, and must be converted in editing first. BluRay and HD TVs can use the full 0-255 range, so when editing HDV footage for HD, you can stretch the levels for better contrast. For the compression comment, tape, hard drive, and memory cards use compression, but larger formats can use less compression than HDV. Judge by data rate, not format. For hard drive/memory cams using AVCHD, that's similar compression to HDV, and both squish the image prior to encoding, and stretch on playback. I hope this helps!