Very Good For Gaming and Heavy Multimedia Work
Bibaswan Dey (Dec 1, 2014)
on Flipkart
Got this laptop from Flipkart 2 days ago. Delivery timing was excellent, thanks to the one-day-delivery option. At this price range, your only options are Asus ROG series and HP Envy 15 series.
However, there HP is selling a over-priced laptop: they degraded the i7 processor (now it has only two cores, instead of 4 cores originally), also bragging about 4 GB DDR3 GPU does not help. Only experts will know a 2 GB DDR5 GPU is way better than its 4 GB DDR3 variant. But you do get a sub - woofer and perhaps a touchscreen.
Why not Asus? I myself previously shortlisted Asus G551JK-DM053H, but I have bought Asus Zenfone 5 recently and I am disgusted with the audio quality and their so - called SonicMaster technology, I cancelled buying Asus laptop. Clearly, big advertisements easily fool people. SonicMaster is just a name, it fails to yield anything good! However, in Asus ROG series there you get a Blu-ray drive, that is the only plus point. Also, they are providing 2 GB DDR3 GPU, compared to 2 GB DDR5 in MSI GE60. In DDR5 you shall get a higher performance slightly yes, but you shall. HP does not seem to know about this either or they are trying to profit too much.
Here the main advantages of buying this laptop:
1.] CPU:
CPU is awesome. It is listed in the description Intel Core i7 4710MQ, but I got 4810MQ, similar performance, but CPU speed is 2.8 GHz, compared to 2.5 GHz on 4710MQ! this is a really nice surprise from MSI and Flipkart. The motherboard model is MS - 16GF and BIOS from AMI.
2.] RAM:
8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM is more than sufficient for gaming in this combination. However, MSI has included the RAM stick in DIMM slot 0. So DIMM slot 1 is available and you can easily buy one 8 GB RAM for future upgrade. Two DIMM slots, max 16 GB RAM supported.
3.] GPU:
A very compatible GPU from NVIDIA. 2 GB Geforce GTX 850M can comfortably play the latest games in 1080p. GPU specifications:
ROPs/TMUs = 32/40. 40 Texture Mapping Units is very good.
Shaders = 640
Shader Model = 5.0
Bus Width = 128 bits
Pixel Fill Rate = 27.6 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate = 34.5 GTexel/s
Bandwidth = 80.2 GB/s
GPU Clock = 863 MHz
** Dual Graphics **
Intel HD4600 1 GB DDR3 and NVIDIA Geforce GTX 850M 2 DB DDR5. You can switch any time. I would prefer using NVIDIA throughout though.
4.] Hard Disk:
1 TB 7200 RPM HGST (Western Digital) Travelstar series HDD. Model: HGST HTS721010A9E630.
Intel Rapid - Storage option available.
5.] Sound:
Creative Sound Blaster Cinema should not be compared to a sub - woofer! but audio is very good. Coming through metal, it is crisp and won't get distorted. Realtek ALC892 HD audio. Stereo speaker, but sound is low if you turn Creative Sound Blaster software off. But it runs automatically in the background, so no harm if we keep it running eh? enough RAM. Audio is pretty good, better than Asus.
6.] Keyboard and Touchpad:
This is the unique feature of this laptop. Steel Series Engine PS2 keyboard. Very beautiful looking, backlit and customisable light by color and light pattern. Pulsing illumination is also available. Touchpad is good and responsive.
7.] Display:
15.6 inch full HD 1080p display. HP has a technology they say it as "mercury - free LCD display, as you can see in their model HP Pavilion 23fi, 22fi etc. But this is not available on this laptop. So display is average, not that eye - catching. But it is definitely better than most other laptop. Don't expect MacBook retina quality display in this laptop! visibility is decent under sunlight. Screen is anti - glare matte type.
8,] Connectivity:
Pretty good connectivity options. Intel dual band - AC 3160 WiFi supports Intel WiDi. Also Killer E2200 Gigabit ethernet is available. There is one HDMI 1.4 port, VGA port. 3 USB 3.0 ports (including one for charging other appliances) and one USB 2.0 port.
*** Please note that there is NO DisplayPort in this model, it's a wrong info provided by Flipkart.
9.] Design:
Very eye - catching design, polished metal - built and cool to touch. The logo on the lid actually glows white when the laptop is turned on (a la - MacBook look), no option to turn it off though. It looks cool and I don't really want to turn it off. The laptop looks very premium.
10.] Battery:
Very average battery life on this laptop is maximum 2 hours 45 minutes to 3 hours, if you are performing simple tasks. Because of the demanding CPU and GPU, battery gets drained very fast. It is a 6 cell 49 watt - hour battery.
11.] Optical Drive:
LG SuperMulti Drive can read and write normal DVD as well as Dual Layer DVD (DVD - 9). Asus clearly wins here. At this price, does it hurt to include a 5k - 6k priced Blu - Ray drive?? It's HD era and we are dealing with movies of file size 4 GB and above! you can't write many of them on a DVD, if the quality makes them of size above 8 GB. The only way is to buy an external Blu - Ray writer.
Packing from MSI and Flipkart is very good. It is a big laptop. I simply love it!
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