Pros: - Excellent build quality. Aluminum surrounds the touch pad and keyboard keys. The hinge is strong and both the keys and touch pad are very responsive, unlike my old Asus G73JH laptop which sometimes wouldn't register keystrokes or touch pad interaction from time to time, even when it was new. - 2x SODIMM slots, but only 1 is being used. To have a matched pair of memory, I removed the factory 8GB module and installed a 2x8GB Crucial DDR4-2133 pair for 16GB of RAM. - Empty M.2 slot. I added a 500GB Samsung M.2 drive to install the OS and applications on an SSD. This is fantastic as it allows for 1.5TB of SSD+HDD space. - Using a SanDisk 32GB USB drive, MSI's Recovery software is easily backed up to an external drive. The recovery partition is around 18-19GB, so a 32GB USB drive is necessary. I used this drive to do a factory recovery to install the OS/system apps to the Samsung M.2 drive, then used the (free) EaseUS Partition Master software to delete the *5* partitions from the factory 1TB drive and format as a single large 1TB HDD for data/files/etc. - The i5-6300, GTX 960M, and M.2 SSD work well to play The Division when portable gaming is necessary. It won't get 60fps on ultra settings, but that wasn't the point. It plays smoothly on a mix of low/medium settings.

Cons: - As others mentioned, you will void your warranty to do any upgrades, even RAM. For me, this wasn't intimidating at all, and was a similar experience when upgrading my Mac Mini a few years ago. There is one screw hidden behind the "Warranty Void If Removed" sticker that you must remove to get to the internals of the laptop. - Even if you're willing to void the warranty, getting to the internals has a couple tricks. - The factory HDD is formatted into 5 partitions. Windows partition manager can't combine the two drives into one due to a recovery partition being between the two logical drives. I used EaseUS Partition Master to make one large 1TB drive after adding the M.2 drive for OS/apps.

Overall Review: This is an excellent laptop for those looking for a sub-$1000 laptop for portable gaming. Sure, you won't run The Division on ultra settings at 60fps on a GTX 960m, but it can play the game quite well on a mix of low & medium graphics settings. Steps to disassemble the laptop for RAM/M.2/HDD upgrades: - Be willing to void your warranty. Know what you're doing. Fully test all features of the laptop BEFORE voiding your warranty. I used it for a week with stress testing benchmarking apps while checking all ports and wireless connectivity with various programs before deciding that it was ready for long-term use as a modified laptop with no warranty. - Close the laptop. - Pry off the flat, long, thin plate between the hinges. Start with the corners at the back of the laptop at the inside of the hinges. - Turn over the laptop and place it on a cloth - no sense in scratching up the back of the laptop as you work on the other side. - Remove all the visible screws, plus the one hidden by the Warranty Void If Removed sticker. - Now remove the optical drive. It will slide out (with a little force at the SATA connector) since you removed the one screw on the back plate that holds it in. - Remove the 3 flat black screws that were hidden behind the optical drive. These are the last screws holding the back plate to the laptop frame. - Lift the back plate up at the optical drive side, then slide it out and away from the opposite side of the laptop to take care of how the ports (headphones, mic, etc) are poking through that side of the back plate. You're done and can now do hardware upgrades to RAM, M.2, and HDD. Installation is the same steps in reverse order. I would make sure everything works, including all the steps below if you're reconfiguring the OS to M.2 and partitioning the HDD before screwing in the back plate again. Just place the backplate in the right spot and let the laptop "sit" in it while you're doing the OS recovery to M.2. You don't need the optical drive installed. To install the OS on the M.2 drive and make the HDD one large drive, do the following: - Get a clean 32+GB USB drive, preferably USB 3.0. (I used a SanDisk 32GB USB 2.0 and it took some time due to 18-19GB of data to transfer.) - Use the MSI Recovery software to create a USB recovery drive. You can't miss this software as it pops up the first time you boot the laptop. It's in the Start menu if you've dismissed that prompt and it never pops back up. - Install the M.2 drive. I temporarily removed the HDD at this time as I considered installing a SSD as well, but decided to stick with the factory HDD after I had the M.2 drive configured and running perfectly. - Boot from the USB recovery drive to begin the recovery process on to the M.2 drive. (If you removed the HDD, it will boot from USB by default. You may need to press DEL when booting to select the USB drive as boot drive in BIOS if you still have the factory drive installed.) - Reboot into BIOS and make sure your boot priority is M.2, then USB. You're not going back to booting from other devices. - After installing the OS to the M.2 drive, keep the 32GB USB Recovery drive in a safe place. You will need to use this for recovery if you follow through with the next steps to configure the HDD as one large data drive instead of an OS/recovery/data partitions. USB devices are much less prone to failure over time than a HDD anyway if they're stored securely. - Install EaseUS Partition Master (free), or other partitioning software. - Install the factory HDD, but be sure to boot from the M.2 drive since they'll both have the OS installed. If you set your boot order in BIOS correctly, this isn't an issue. - Use partitioning software to delete all *5* partitions on the factory drive. You will be prompted to reboot during this process to remove the boot and OS partitions, so do so when prompted. - Now partition and format the factory HDD as desired. I created a single partition of max size to fully use the 1TB of storage space as one large data drive. It has been running flawlessly for a couple weeks now, and I couldn't be happier with this purchase. $800 laptop + $160 500GB M.2 SSD + $73 16GB RAM is an excellent PC. You could cut some corners and go with 128/256GB M.2 and adding a single 8GB RAM module to the factory 8GB module that exists if you're more concerned about budgeting upgrades. Here are the newegg products I purchased that I can confirm work perfectly in this laptop (prices may vary): 1 x ($159.99) SAMSUNG 850 EVO M.2 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal SSD Single Unit Version MZ-N5E500BW 1 x ($72.99) Crucial 16GB (2 x 8G) 260-Pin DDR4 SO-DIMM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Laptop Memory Model CT2K8G4SFD8213 If there is demand for it, I'll install some monitoring software and give more of a gaming performance review with specific graphics settings for smooth play in the future.

Pros: fast silent fan keyboard best price on the internet

Cons: little heavy huge charger

Overall Review: i would recommend this laptop to anyone who have around 1000 dollars budget

Pros: Performs well and fits my needs [games, schoolwork, general browsing] Satiates my want for nextgen [it DOES have the option for pci-e gen3 m.2 even if the page doesn't show it] i5 Skylake DDR4 GTX 960m 7200rpm HDD m.2 pci-e 3 (empty) Thoughts: Audo - speakers are decent.. they're laptop speakers - audio sounds surprisingly nice through headphones (MSI does boast their audio boost feature and I'd say it shows) Monitor - A bit of bleed, but its crisp and only really noticeable on load/black screen - viewing angle is fair, but don't expect to use this from crazy positions as you can with some of the fancier monitors keyboard - has a nice feel on key press, firm and responsive , still have to get used to typing on it though touchpad - actually impressed on this one. I'm not a fan of touchpads by any means, but I find this one quite useable, has a nice feel and responds well ports - all the new fun fancy stuff [usb3, usbC, mini displayport, hdmi, mic/audio, ethernet, SD] extras - DVD drive - decent utilities to check performance - button to max fans to cool system [gets loud but i like the option for when im wearing headphones and dont care] most newer games I've played run flawlessly at least at high settings.. max is 'playable' but not for me [1080p] | FFXIV | Fallout4 | Borderlands:presequel | Diablo 3 |

Cons: There is one major con and one minor con that are actually important: *UPGRADING VOIDS WARRANTY* .. -major con- the bottom panel is one giant panel and one screw is covered by a 'warranty void if tampered' sticker This makes it impossible to upgrade memory, or to take advantage of the open m.2 slot Keyboard isn't backlit - minor con- I knew this going in, but for an $800+ 'gaming' laptop it's kind of silly not to have it negligible cons: Keyboard has some oddly placed buttons - the delete key is over the numeric keypad instead of over the backspace where it would be comfortable audio kept popping until i turned off the 'Nahimic Audio Enhancer' - software issue so I'm not going to fault that HDD - although it's 7200rpm I miss the snappiness of an SSD (... *points fingers at warranty tamper sticker*)

Overall Review: I had originally wanted the MSI GS40, but a $1600+ budget is not something I had. Not too sure about the battery life since I haven't fully tested the mobility of the unit, but I'm fairly certain on light use I could at least get a few hours out of it Definitely planning to upgrade this system once warranty is up with more memory and a SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 512GB -http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147467 Overall this was a good buy and I would recommend it

Pros: Out of the box it didn't take long to start up and get windows updated and ready to go. I was worried the 5200rpm hdd would make loading take forever, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The cooling is amazing, i havent tried to run everything on max, but monitoring temps with low/med settings the highest I saw was 67c on the gpu without the fans going full speed. With it on it'll drop to 60s, the cpu highest I've seen while gaming is 65c. I haven't run any stress tests or overclocked anything because I want this thing to stay cool and be well taken care of. I haven't had a pc in what feels like forever so coming to windows 7 to 10 was a little different. I considered overclocking but it seems the gains would be minimal with a locked gpu clock of +135, you would gain frames but the extra heat wasn't worth it to me. The i5 processor isnt bad and does everything I need it to, for gaming the i5 and i7 are identical as far as frame performance goes according to comparison sites. It is upgradeable but from what I understand it does void the warranty and thr hdd wasn't as bad as I thought so I will probably hold off atleast until thr warranty expires. The packaging feels super premium once you get it, not just a plain box, but an Msi gaming box with a list of features on the back and specs on the side. Registering my warranty I was offered to extend my warranty for 3 more months for free for completing a short survey, which was super easy. So far this laptop has been amazing at gaming. Everything I've thrown at it runs great, WoW runs at 100+fps without vsync on medium settings. I just turn vsync on because as far as i know the laptop screen is 60hz and so is my external monitor so the frames don't do anything extra. Dead by daylight, the free game I chose with the purchase, runs low settings at about 48 to 50 fps and maybe 40 to 44 with medium settings with full resolution settings, but the game isn't very well optimized, steam forum users are reporting people running ultra on desktop 1080s are having frame drops. Overall this laptop is well worth the price, i5 quad core cpu and 960m 2gb gddr5 can play pretty much most modern games and looks pretty good. I almost got an Acer from here but heat was a big concern and after seeing the internals on another site I decided to go with this laptop for the cooling and option to increase fans to max if absolutely necessary. If you wish to see look up reviews on this laptop. An Ssd isn't absolutely necessary but if you really want you can always save money and get this and upgrade at a later time. I guess the ODD is nice, but I'll be honest, with steam and other online game downloading sites I haven't even popped it open to see if it works. May just use it for another hdd slot at a later date.

Cons: No ssd is really the only con, but for this price range 699 usd at this time is hardly a con. Lowest price I've seen is 684 on a flash sale but I missed it.

Overall Review: Great high performance laptop will fill your every day needs. I'm using it for gaming and school for the moment and exceeds my expectations. I guess depending on your requirements I'd reccomend this version for the i5 but the 627 model has an i7 for 100 dollars more, but if you're just gaming the i5 is plenty.

Pros: Upgraded my RAM to 32GB, put in a Sandisk 1TB SSD and also a Samsung 950 PRO M.2 SSD and this machine is flying like a sonic jet.

Cons: The original specs for this laptop is not bad but certainly not the 2016 era standard. The 1TB hard disk is a big pain when you are used to SSD performance. MSI does not allow me to tear the laptop apart for upgrade is a pain since I need to void my warranty.

Pros: - Overall this is a great little machine. Newest gen Intel Processors, GTX 960M and room for expansion plenty of I/O including SD cad reader which I used a lot actually. I purchased this machine to replace my aging Lenovo Thinkpad T420 that had NVIDIA GPU and 16 GB RAM that I used for 3D CAD modeling. I am a big fan of the I/O placement as it seems to fit my needs and doesn't cause me to get tangled with wires and my particular work area, this may vary on peoples usage. Solid performer so far for my 3D modeling needs.

Cons: -Upgrades VOID warranty. - Still getting used to the keyboard layout. My previous laptops never had a number pad so I am adjusting. -Default Audio settings have poping noises and reverb on....simple tweak Nahomic fixed that. -Did I mention upgrades VOID warranty. - Crazy partitions on OEM HDD. - For me a little too much added software on MSIs side that I will never use since I don't game.

Overall Review: - So since VOIDING the warranty didn't bother me one bit I decided to ditch the HDD and replace it with a 240GB SDD that I already had. Looked into the M.2 drive didn't want to fork out the cash. So instead I purchased and optical drive bay HDD Caddy, put the OEM HDD there after some partitioning tweaks...now I have a 240 SSD boot drive and 1 TB of internal storage. I never use CD/DVD any more so I am ok with it. - I will stick with 8 GB RAM for now until I need to upgrade...I have been monitoring RAM using durng heavy modeling and other processes. Dont need it yet so I will hold off and evententuall get a 16 GB kit

Pros: - Best laptop cooling system out there. Google the insides of this thing, 4 heat-pipes and 2 dual exhaust blower fans. Gpu-side blower fan stays off until it needs to be turned on. - Reasonably priced (in comparison to other laptops) Buy it on sale. Got mine for $699 (760 After CA Taxes). - Physical button to ramp up fans to max speed, press it again to turn it off. - Reasonable MSI software to create recovery USB drives / CD drives. Also has another software that allows 3 game modes when plugged. - Screen looks nice. Displays at pretty good angles. I came from the cheap Acer laptop models that sell here on Newegg to this laptop and it was a huge improvement in display color and lighting. - Keyboard is decently made, not loud which is nice.

Cons: - Had to void my warranty to install an M.2 Drive for an SSD upgrade and another stick of Hynix DDR4 8GB RAM (cheaper route to do it myself) - Windows 10 first boot sequence ran 6 times, it wouldn't allow me to decline ALL windows 10 tracking features. It would just restart and re-run the first-time boot sequence.

Overall Review: - Trackpad/Touchpad required adjusting settings. I had to open the settings and tell it to recognize the dual finger gesture to scroll. It was extremely frustrating to use this laptop's touch pad without this feature, I don't know why it is even turned off. Also discovered corner tapping for shortcut functions in this setting. - Note that this laptop isn't the slimmest laptop, it is the normal size of a 15.6 inch laptop, but it is kind of thick. I didnt mind it though. The cooling was more important to me than the portability.

Pros: - Price to performance ratio is hard to beat - Quad-core i5 Skylake processor (as opposed to the dual-core low power variants) - SSD large enough to hold OS and several large games - MSI's easy product registration - Good FHD IPS display. Very bright. - Decent graphics for stable gameplay on medium-high settings - Sturdy build

Cons: - The trackpad buttons are loud. Very loud. They remind me of a Pentium 3 Gateway laptop I owned in the early 2000s. They work fine, but be prepared to annoy everyone in the same room as you. - Comes pre-loaded with a lot of bloatware. Took me nearly an hour to remove it all. - The OS and drivers are somewhat out-of-date. It took me several hours to install the Windows 10 anniversary update and new hardware drivers. Apart from the NVidia drivers (which I got from their website), I had to go through Device Manager and update each piece of hardware individually. There might be faster ways of doing that, but Windows Update didn't offer to update everything and there were a lot of things that needed updating. - I had to uninstall and reinstall the audio drivers and Nahimic software after updating the OS because the speakers stopped working correctly and started putting out very jarbled sound. That reinstall fixed the problem, so try that if it sounds like your speakers are blown.

Overall Review: - Overall, it's a good laptop for the money. I use it for work and light gaming (Minecraft, Civilization, Starcraft II, WoW, Diablo III, EVE Online, etc.) and it doesn't give me any grief. - If I had to do it again, I might buy the version with the Core i7. I haven't had severe processor bottlenecking, but I also haven't done a lot to tax it yet. Or maybe I wouldn't. This version was almost $200 cheaper. - When you register this laptop with MSI, it might ask you to take a survey. Take the survey. They gave me three months of extra warranty coverage for taking it.