I want to open this review with a conversation I had with Brandon one of
the camera and editing guys here at lonus Media Group about a year ago I was
commenting on the keyboard on some laptop I was reviewing and he asked me
why no laptop manufacturer uses mechanical keyboards if they're so great
to which I replied because that would be
stupid so without further Ado here's my review of the MSI gt80 Titan the world's
first gaming laptop with a cherrymx brown key switch mechanic gaming
keyboard oh and stay tuned because I'll reviewing their notebook that can use a
desktop graphics card soon too these guys are freaking
crazy cooler Masters case mod World Series is your opportunity to show off
your modding skills and win great prizes entries Clos February 7th 2015 click now
to learn more so let's kick things off with a tour of the outside shall we this
is a portable computer but to call it a lap laptop feels almost a little
misleading to me it weighs over 10 lb is nearly 5 cm or 2 in thick when closed
and has the keyboard positioned so close to the user that it literally wouldn't
balance on your lap if you wanted the keyboard at a comfortable distance for
use since we've got it open I guess we'll continue the tour here there are
four drivers located just under the 18.4
in 1080P PLS display that combined with the bottom mounted subwoofer make this a
relatively loud laptop top if you want to crank up the sound in games or movies
below that is a blank aluminum panel more on that later uh buttons for power
switching Graphics adapters and turning the fans up to full speed then below
that still is the touchpad and included red LED backlit mechanical keyboard what
a strange thing to behold this is in terms of performance well it's what
you'd expect the keys actually sit the same height off the desk as a standard
keyboard MX Brown round strike a great balance between Acoustics and tactile
feel and are my personal favorite switch and the inclusion of four Metal Key caps
is a nice touch I do have a couple of complaints however the lip at the bottom
makes the space bar a little less comfortable than a normal keyboard
especially if you don't have a wrist rest with you although MSI does include
one in the retail package this key doesn't need to be duplicated I'd rather
have another function there and the touchpad while
usable is just not a very practical
shape given that it appears to be just a normal touchpad that's rotated
90° more on why they did this a little bit later but one other needo thing here
is the number lock button on the top left of the pad the haptic feedback is
laggy and honestly I'd be happier without it but having the option to type
with a number pad at all here is something I did find myself using moving
on to the sides on the left is a headphone microphone Jack optical audio
out three USB 3.0 ports an SD card reader an optical drive and a very large
vent on the right is two more USB 3.0 ports and another very large vent then
on the back we find a killer land port HDMI 2.0 two mini DisplayPort 1.2 ports
one of those unusually beefy four pin power connectors and what two more
massive vents I guess this is a good time to open this baby up and talk about
the guts on the bottom the first two screws we're going to remove are here
and here these allow us to slide the top panel to the right and find the quad MSA
SSD slots in the gt80 yes its stock
configuration is four ssds in raid zero
for this model also up here is easy access to the 2 and 1 12 in hard drive
two of the 4 DDR3 sodium RAM slots and the optical drive making this already on
par or better than most gaming laptops in terms of upgradeability then we
removed the rest of the screws and pop the bottom off revealing the reason this
bad boy needs so much cooling down down
here we've got the battery Wireless module two more RAM slots the CPU socket
that contains a 47 wat core i7 4980hq
quad core that turbos up to 4 GHz we can see why the touchpad was crammed off to
the side because it's the entire thickness of the laptop that that
keyboard makes up and finally two
massive mxm GTX 980m 8 gig graphics
cards with this crazy long SLI Bridge connecting them and lots and lots of
heat pipes connect in the CPU and the gpus to the coolers and the weirdest
thing about all of this is that it actually almost looks like MSI wants you
to have easy access to everything and that's because they do along with this
notebook they're launching a program where they will guarantee that for two
full mobile GPU Generations they will provide mxm and cooling upgrade kits to
gt80 Titan customers who want to stay on the bleeding edge with NextGen Flagship
graphics cards an option that desktop users take for granted but notebook
users rarely get to experience but let's take a step back
from the amazing specifications and neverbe seen Innovation and take a
moment to talk about the actual experience of using this thing gaming is
a treat at 18.4 in and at the distance
that you need to sit to actually use this computer 1080p is less of an issue
than you might think you don't have to deal with any scaling and in games
thanks to Dynamic super resolution something you'll have ample power to
utilize you can still get a little bit better image quality out of them even
though the panel resolution is what it is but the touchpad necessitates the use
of a mouse when I mean aside from gaming if you want to get any serious work done
and the space the laptop takes up on a
desk in order to sit a comfortable distance from it and have room for your
mouse makes this just take up more room
than any other laptop that I've ever encountered so it's basically a portable
desktop suitable only for use where you've got a lot of room to stretch out
but it's not like you aren't getting something in exchange for all of that
hassle the keyboard is just playing better than any laptop keyboard ever
which I guess leads us into the conclusion a little bit earlier in the video than we normally would because
it's less of a two- sentence summary about who I think this product is
intended for and more of a massive list of the pros and cons of this incredibly
Unique Piece of gaming Hardware so the pros like I just said the greatest
keyboard on a laptop ever the performance and the upgrade path both of
which are the best I've ever seen on a laptop ever the cons it's heavy it's
bulky I mean even the power brick is heavy and bulky it takes up a lot of
space and it is extremely expensive with
the lowest end model starting over
$3,000 and then the somewhere in between pro and con fan noise cooling
performance and battery life are a but what you'd expect for a large powerful
gaming notebook and the overall fit and finish is still MSI I but not super
premium MSI like their GS Series Laptops with their sexy full metal bodies so in
my mind rather than comparing it to the other options in the market and saying
yeah go for it or no don't go for it all
I can do is present you guys with this video and let you make your own choice
because For Better or For Worse there is
nothing else in existence like this thing and I've been saving this for the
very end cuz I've been kind of putting it off but I have to give MSI this they
pulled off this concept in a way that I didn't expect and sitting using the
device convinced me that a mechanical keyboard and a laptop is a lot less
stupid than I originally thought it was so Cliff you can put that on the box if
you want guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it
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