MSI G Series GP60 Leopard-010 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

So, I wanted to wait until owning this laptop for month or two before writing a review. There weren't many reviews on this latop when I was making my purchase, so I'll try to cover the bases I was looking for / curious about. Overall, this laptop is fantastic. The audio is great, the screen is bright, vibrant, and looks pretty good. I don't have much to compare it to, but if you want some futuristic 3d business or something, spend more money. It looks very good. 15.6" is also just enough screen. I have a desktop, but I wanted this for when I travel. 17" would be too big and cumbersome.I bought this thing for gaming, and the i5 runs great in the "Gaming" setting for the power options (like "Balanced, Energy Saver" etc...). I use the NVidia card for gaming... runs decently. I'm not sure if the 840M is really that much greater than the 820M, but I've never used the 820M. The benchmarks for the video card in this one were certainly better than the 820 (check GPUBoss.com).I wanted a really cheap laptop I could play my basic games on (WoW, CS:go, and this extremely cpu intensive game called Natural Selection 2) so I originally got an Acer laptop for around $600 dollars. Not only would it have not been able to play NS2, but the keys fell off the keyboard in the first night. Awful build quality. This MSI mechanical keyboard feels pretty good, and the laptop definitely feels sturdy. WoW, I get about 60 fps with "Good" settings in combat, CS is well over 100 fps when I just used the settings the game loads up with (1600x900 I think). I had to drop the resolution of NS2 to get it to play well, but it's running 12XX x 7xx something with like 60 fps. The game would be really difficult to play under 60 fps.Cooler Booster is awesome, I use it all the time. Turns the cpu fan on max. It's loud, but I use headphones. You simply turn it on by pressing the button above the keyboard. My only worry is that it will diminish the lifetime of the cpu fan. The GP60 comes preloaded with this MSI software called "Dragon Gaming Center" which is basically a dumbed-down version of CPUz and that other program they make that tells temps. You can see the loads (in %) on the cpu, gpu, ram, battery, hard drive etc. and it shows the temperatures for the gpu and cpu. Plus, this can be pulled up with one of the buttons on the top of the laptop, next to the power button. Very cool.*EDIT* Lastly, I forgot to mention... I got this laptop expecting to get the i5-4200M, which clocks up to 3.1 Ghz, but I got one with the i5-4200H... which clocks up to 3.4 Ghz. I'm not complaining! If you're buying from a buyer not from Amazon, maybe contact them to see which one they are carrying.Now some oddities/drawbacks:Windows 8.1 is awful. At first I thought it was the coolest thing, then I tried to use their apps, like facebook and Skype. the FBook app won't let you upload pictures because I guess the developers all got sick that day when they were planning on making that feature work, and the Skype app is moronic... it worked for a while, but now it doesn't work unless it's maximized... in other words, unless you're trying to look at all the Skype icons of your friends instead of play your games, you can't use the Skype app. I had to download the desktop version, which works fine, but I'm the kinda person who gets irrationally frustrated with stuff like that... why the **** do they even bother with the apps... I won't let that detract from the computer, though. Just saying, W8 is H8.The mouse pad is too sensitive. I like the tap to click, and you can change its sensitivity, but I basically find it's too sensitive or your breaking the tip of your finger to click. I use a usb mouse to game anyway, so it's not too much of a problem, plus you can turn the mousepad off, which is nice.Lastly, the screen has some some weird things... they're definitely not all the time, but occasionally it has rendering issues that look like it's not syncing correctly to the refresh rate. It will get all these lines for a second or two, but it goes away immediately. A little bit more worrying, I have had the screen simply black out on me. Most of the time, it comes back right away, but once it just stayed black for a while. I can't remember if I had to put the computer to sleep (power button) to make it work again, but I remember it was black for a while. I think both of these issues are probably related to the circuit and/or program which switches the video rendering from the intergrated chipset in the cpu to the dedicated nVidia card (can't remember what it's called, its some power-saving feature). I don't wanna give this computer 4-stars because of this, and this is probably the only reason I WOULD give it 4-stars, but the fact that it's happening only 2 months into owning it is a little worrisome.tl;dr it's a great gaming laptop. Good build quality, specs, and features. I think you will be spending your money well if you go with this MSI. I think after reading this through, I'm just gonna stick with 5 stars. I really like the laptop, and I think it shows you don't need to spend $1400+ just to get a gaming laptop. Unfortunately, I can't speak on how it would play Crysis, or Batman, or whatever, but for the basic games I wanted to play, it shines. And honestly, I think if you went cheaper, you wouldn't be able to play most games anyway. This is a bare-bones laptop built with gaming in mind, especially if you're trying to travel with it. You will be happy if it's in your budget.

After 7 months of 8 hours a day usage:Pros:*Performance: taking into account the price, the performance of the pc is very good. It manages to deal with not very demanding games like Dota 2, LoL @1080 p, Max without any problem. The processor (I got the i5 4210H) also does fine when using engineering software like Fluent or AspenPlus.*Keyboard: The SteelSeries unit is IMHO nice and comfortable. The "Windows" key is in a weird position but this is useful not to press it accidentally when playing full screen.*Screen: The anti-reflective Full HD panel is great for an entry level laptop. Great for those who work long hours in front of the pc. Viewing angles aren't great but they are MUCH better than a regular cheap unit.*Sound: It's good enough for my requirements.*Windows 10 ready: I have recently installed this new OS and it runs smoothly. Hadn't have any problem with drivers or so. However official drivers for W10 are not yet available in MSi site.*Connectivity is good (2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA, Card Reader, Ethernet...)******************************************************Cons:* Track-pad: Don't like it at all. It's not responsive enough and the tactile sensation isn't right to my taste.* Construction Quality: The materials are basic. Full plastic and it makes some noises where you rest your wrists.* Weird Glitches: I experimented some weird glitches in the display, like screen flashing or flickering lines. After updating the Bios and the OS they are gone. Hoping they will not come back.* Battery Life: 3 hours max (not gaming, of course)* Cooler Noise: Sometimes it's a bit annoying, but nothing too serious I guess.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Conclusion: A good computer for the price. You are going to be able to play games, work, watch movies, etc without selling a kidney in the black market. I recommend using a mouse though. I don't regret the buy at all but i would recommend going for the GE series if the money difference is not an issue.

I have had plenty of lap tops. I have never heard of this brand, but figured that if it is a "gaming laptop" it would have decent graphics and speed. This has poor graphics, average speed. I have constant problems with the key board. When I am typing emails, text will vanish, words disappear. It seems like there is a short somewhere.The touch pad is horrible. It is textured, so your finger NEVER smoothly runs over it. The bumpy texture is horrible and slows your finger down.The power button constantly shifts from blue to red, pretty sure that is not a good sign.The touch pad is either over sensitive or just doesn't work well, probably the latter. The curser is constantly all over the board. When I go to move the curser the page will highlight in blue for no reason.Graphics are awful, it is not clear, everything has a slight blur to it.I honestly suspect I will throw it across the room one day. This deserves a negative star. Stay away from it.

OS: Windows 10. A good laptop? Sure, for $800(at the time) it's a decent laptop. For gaming? Hell no. Although the laptop can run games pretty smoothly, it's cooling system can't handle it. The gpu and cpu were at 80-90 C when running oblivion(at medium quality) on "balanced" performance. That is outright unacceptable; reapplying thermal paste, cleaning out the dust and installing a cooling fan did little to nothing. If you are planning to buy this, make sure you don't upgrade to Windows 10... you will regret it. Had this laptop for nearly 3 years, it ran games pretty well until I upgraded to Windows 10. It still couldn't run games like Fallout 3 without overheating. Overall, it's a good laptop besides gaming.