[ASK] Anyone know good review for MSI EX625?

Hi friends

Anyone here know a good website review for MSI EX625 ? im looking around but the only comprehensive review is for EX620..

Cheers

 

the only stuff i found googling MSI EX625 is not a comprehesive review, more like an advertisement type site, spec list and generic info..

is MSI laptop EX series known for quality ? anyone got any problem with EX series or other MSI stuff ?

 

No reviews yet. Check back here tomorrow evening.

 

ok mate , cheers

 

I assume you're reviewing it right now?

 

i need the review bad..

 

well, buy it then...
and make a review for all of us here
be the 1st proud owner of the EX625

 

still undecided lol

 

Just got mine, so far its nice enough. Im not certain I like the glossy screen, but thats just because my laptops have all had a matte one. The screen has a bit more flex than I would like.
Exterior and palm rest are pretty shiny, they're gonna get fingerprints all over.
Sound is decent enough, certainly not for the audiophile, but good enough for the occasional youtube video.
Ive got no review on the gaming performance as Im trying to set up Vista x64. The laptop, even though it came with 4GB RAM only has x86 installed, and I love my RAM.
As a side question: the buttons at the top, such as the eco button and the media control, is there a specific driver for these or will Vista automatically detect them? I ask because I do not want to kill their functionality.

Alright, I figured out that you need the SCM.

I've got something to add to the review: The laptop does get a bit warm on the palm rest, especially with heavier HDD usage as the HDD is right under it.

 

Well stickciv got his, so you guys can hound him for a bit on the information. Mine didn't come in today as expected, it's currently sitting at the UPS distribution center about 20 miles away. I'll try to setup the review like the NBR format, and compare it alongside the MS-1651, Sony VGN-FW170J and the ASUS G50VT-X1.

 

Thanks bro, please update with the gaming performance if you done setting up vista 64

few question for you :

- What you mean the screen 'flex' ? is it low quality build ? will it be detrimental in the long run ? any hinge defect ?

- what about the screen lcd quality ? i mean the viewing angle and especially the brightness ? hows the LCD compared to HP DV7 ?

- what the keyboard quality i heard it flex too much ..

 

Alright, here's some answers:
The screen flexes a bit as in if you grab both sides of the screen and gently pull/push in opposite directions, it will go far more than im comfortable with. It only does this in the left-right direction, there is no twisting up-down, so I wouldnt particularly worry about it.
The screen is pretty bright at the maximal brightness, enough to make any reflections due to the glossiness disappear. The lowest brightness setting, the one you get with Turbo battery Eco mode is pretty dark though, Id look into raising it. Viewing angle is decent, although I cannot comment on that too much as I havent had a chance to test it out. The screen is easily adjustable to where you need it in tilt, so the vertical viewing angle should not be much of a problem, if at all.
The keyboard doesnt flex too much. I can feel it go down when I press in the center, but its not squishy. id say its fairly decent.

For games, I havent had much of a chance to play any. Battlefield Heroes beta ran like a dream at max settings at 1366x768 resolution, Sins of a Solar Empire also did fine at max settings and the same resolution. I think with such a low-res screen, you dont need to worry much about anything but the most graphically intensive games. Its really good for a mid-range gaming laptop I would say.
Its also pretty light, although that may be based on your physique. I lug around textbooks in my backpack, so the laptop feels like a feather.
I would reccomend bringing the adapter with you though, at the windows battery mode, I got around 2 hours of power, although that figure is by no means exact.

I have a word of warning though. I dont know if it was because of shipping or what, but my laptop ran fine for the first day. Today, in the middle of classes, it stopped booting. Extensive testing revealed that the SATA controller is likely dead, or at least broken. Ill be shipping it to FrostyComputers for warranty service tomorrow, and so hopefully it gets sorted out fast. Frosty seemed like he was on top of it though, and assures me service will be as fast as possible.
If I had to rate this laptop on a scale of 1-10, id give it 7.5
its packed with features, some that you dont see on notebooks of this price. At the same time, there are some things that could have been better done. The HDD placement is annoying, and would have been better if it was under the touch pad. While you would still feel it, your finger is in contact with the surface a lot less than your wrist if you type. The laptop is also a fingerprint magnet. I've only had it for 2 days and already it is COVERED with them. I like the fact that the wifi and bluetooth power buttons arent the toggle type which I all too easily flick to off, but are rather touch-sensetive buttons. This at the same time can make it a bit difficult too, because there is no tactile response. In the dark, its hard to see if your finger is going to hit the Eco Engine button or the wifi button. Keyboard layout is a bit annoying, but can be gotten used to. The arrow keys are shifted to the left, making the shift key short. I ended up hitting up arrow instead of the shift key most of the time because my hands are pretty big.
On the other hand, it can game, the screen res is big enough for 720p video and for surfing. Im sure that with Premiere Pro, im gonna feel the lack of pixels though.

 

stickciv, did you have issues with the ATi Catalyst drivers crashing on you?

 

sticky, thanks for the reviews and heads-up ...

 

The ones that came with the laptop (Catalyst 9.1) Had no problems whatsoever. I wanted to try 9.3, but didnt get the chance to.
Againt, I want to stress that I probably did not stress them enough in the time I had the laptop in a working condition.

 

Can you do a 3DMark06 test, please? I wonder how good the 4670 is.

 

it should be around 6k 3d marks without much problem

 

DMC 4: 2.87 GHz OC, High Details.



stickciv, you can use the GT725 VGA drivers too if you want Catalyst 9.2. As for my random display driver crashes, it seems to have been solved when I stepped up to 9.2. I'm very satisfied with how this card performs.

 

As I said, the laptop is currently out of comission. Im going to ship it back to FrostyComputers on monday for a replacement, and after that Ill be doing some heavier testing.
How much of a performance difference is there between Cat9.1 and Cat9.2?
I wouldnt want to go to drivers that are potentially unstable for the machine for a tiny performance gain.

 

Whoops, sorry about that, I had an Alzheimer's moment.

Performance difference seems negligible, besides the BSODs not occurring anymore, I don't see any difference. I still wish we can find a way to see the GPU temperatures.

 

MSI EX625-227US

First and foremost, I would like to apologize to Frosty Computers for initially thinking they were selling the EX623. Since the EX625 never showed up on the MSIMobile.com, I thought it was a huge misprint. I went ahead and took a chance ordering, and sure enough, three days later, it showed up at my doorsteps.

The MSI EX625 is MSI's budget entertainment notebook, offering generous hardware for less than $800. It contends directly with the Gateway MD series and HP Dv6t. Although the Core 2 Duo P7350 processor isn't exactly Intel's highest performing part, it does the job. An interesting note is that this notebook is untouched when it comes to its 3D/gaming capability in the sub-$800 segment. This is possible due to its 512MB GDDR3 ATi Mobility Radeon HD 4670.





Yep, as the model number suggests, there is an EX625 for the United States. I have no idea how Frosty got it ahead of everyone else, but I'm not going to question good luck.

• Intel® 2 Core Duo™ P7350 2.0 Ghz 1066 Mhz FSB Processor
• 16" WXGA (1366 x 768) Wide Screen LCD panel
• Mobile Intel® PM45 Express Chipset Family
• ATi Mobility Radeon® HD 4670 512 MB GDDR3
• Windows Vista Home Premium 32 Bit
• 4GB DDR2-800 RAM
• 320GB Fujitsu 5400 RPM SATA HDD
• Built In 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
• Atheros 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN
• Bluetooth/10/100/1000 MB/s Ethernet
• Dolby Home Certified Subwoofer/ speakers

Build Quality and Design

The MSI EX625's overall build is average at best. While it does not offer the fit or finish of Apple/Lenovo/Sony notebooks, it certainly isn't bad at all. The LCD lid and upper casing has a glossy finish, so yes, it will become a fingerprint magnet. The lower casing is your typical composite based material, similar to other MSI notebooks. The LCD hinge is tight and it takes some force to make the screen wobble slightly, but there is some flex on the bottom of the LCD bezel, where the MSI logo is. So far, that is the only glaring problem with this notebook's build quality.



When it comes to aesthetics, the notebook looks good. The subtle wave-like pattern on the LCD lid and upper casing, and the black/silver gradient makes this laptop stand out, but doesn't scream overkill. This is one laptop that anyone can take into a Starbucks, the library or a business meeting without shame. The chrome surround on the speakers are borderline tacky, but I might be nit-picking at this point. Dimension-wise, it is barely wider (It is half an inch wider than my MS-1651) than most 15" notebooks and its 6.2 pound weight makes it just as easy to carry around as a 15" notebook.

Display



One of the things noticeable about the EX625's 16" 1366 x 768 WXGA Glossy screen is how bright it was. At maximum brightness level, it is at least 200-220 nits, and backlighting is even overall, with slight bleeding at the bottom right of the screen. Color balance is quite good, with slight saturation to the warm colors, but the colors are quite vivid in general. The only thing that I can complain about is the average viewing angles. Horizontal viewing angle is shown below; picture is taken as soon as the color looked inverted when we move away from the the direct view:



The 1366 x 768 resolution is a bit low, but remember folks, this is a $780 laptop. While glossy surface of the LCD does give off reflection, it's not as bad as the HP HDX notebooks.

Keyboard/Touchpad/Media Controls

The EX625's keyboard is somewhat cramped, due to the numerical pad. Fortunately, it is an improvement over the one found in older MSI notebooks, and MSI was gracious enough to make the comma, period and backslash key full-size again, along with making the right shift key larger. Although not perfect, it is easier to type with. Previous MSI notebook users will appreciate the change, although first-time owners will have to get accustomed to it. There is some keyboard flex, but it is only noticeable if there is quite a bit of pressure applied to the keys.



Above the keyboard is a touch-sensitive panel, where the basic media control such as back, play/stop, and forward controls resides, along with the ECO and on/off controls for the bluetooth, WLAN and camera. There is also a 'P1' button, which can be configured by the user for a certain action such as opening a program.



The EX625's touchpad is based on a textured surface, which feels comfortable to use. The buttons feels a bit stiff and gives off an audible click noise when pressed.

Speakers

The EX625 features a 2.1 sound setup; essentially stereo speakers with a miniature driver on the bottom of the notebook. Unfortunately, it does not sound much better than the typical stereo speakers found in most laptops, being quite treble biased and the driver not offering much to the sound dynamic or range.

Performance and Benchmarks

While the Core 2 Duo P7350 brings nothing new to the table and offers modest performance for daily use, the main incentive of this notebook is its Mobility Radeon HD 4670 with 512MB GDDR3 VRAM. With the factory Vista Premium operating system and drivers, it scored 6454 in 3DMark06 at a resolution of 1280 x 1024. Gaming performance is also extraordinary for a sub-$800 notebook, being able to run the Devil May Cry 4 benchmark at 50-60 FPS at 1680 x 1050 resolution and high detail. For its price segment, nothing touches the EX625 in gaming.

Heat and Noise

Heat is the EX625's Kryptonite. While it does not overheat, the notebook has a very small heatsink, which causes the notebook to run a bit hot, even when it's not under heavy load. The palm rest can get a bit warm after half an hour, and even when running only Windows Update, the P7350 will reach 68-70C. Unfortunately there was no way to monitor the HD 4670's temperature, but it is certain that the EX625 will be limited in CPU/GPU upgrades due to its poor heat management. It is somewhat confounding that its smaller 15.4" brethren, the MS-1651/GX620, features a better heatsink.



Left: GX620 heatsink, Right: EX625 heatsink.



The EX625 heatsink (Top) looks mediocre compared to the GX620 (Bottom).

Fortunately, fan noise level is good. The EX625's fan stays pretty quiet at idle or internet browsing, and even in gaming, it does not sound obnoxious. Fan noise is probably around 30-33 decibels at idle, and close to 40 when under load.

Battery Life

The 6 cell battery provided the EX625 with approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes of plug-free internet browsing, with only the wireless card on and the screen at 60% brightness. This is a bit below average compared to its competitors.

Conclusion

The MSI EX625 offers gaming performance of a $1000-$1200 notebook for less than $800. While its keyboard is somewhat cramped and the speakers are somewhat lacking in sound quality, the notebook is attractive to look at and offers a good selection of connectivity ports and features not found in other budget priced notebooks. In summary, this notebook has a lot to offer for $800.

Pros

• Price ($780).
• Attractive design.
• Exceptional gaming performance for its price segment.
• Bright, easy to read screen when viewed directly
• Smaller and lighter than most 16" notebooks.
• Numerous connectivity ports.
• Uses MXM video card, upgradeable/interchangeable.
• Numerous features for its price range, such as bluetooth and fingerprint reader.

Cons

• Keyboard layout can take some time getting accustomed to.
• Vista Home Premium...32 bit? 4GB of RAM but not a 64 bit OS to fully utilize it.
• 16:9 screen ratio isn't for everyone.
• Poor heat management.
• Sub-par battery life.
• Disappointing screen viewing angles.

 

thanks, nice complete review !!

Will MSI EX625 be a good gaming machine with 3dmark score of 6000 ?

is ASUS G50VT-X1 (3Dmarks=9000+) a better choice for gaming machine ?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=322058

 

For $100 the asus gives you

a faster processor,
faster GPU,
faster hard drive,
better battery life,
64-bit vista,
a turbo button for easy overclocking.

Unless not having those lightning bolts makes up for all that, I'd have a hard time choosing this laptop for gaming unless you have a hard cap at $800.

 

As neilnat stated, the G50Vt is going to be better overall than the EX625, unless your budget is strictly limited to $800. The ASUS will give you more bang for the buck, unless you don't mind trading off some gaming power for portability, which ended up being the case for me.

This EX625 ended up replacing my girlfriend's G50Vt because she does not like carrying it around and found the LED lights and overall design tacky. The only 3D game she plays is World of Warcraft, which the 9600M GT GDDR3 renders well at 1366 x 768. I let her try it out over the weekend before we sell the ASUS, and this morning she confirms that she prefers the MSI just because it's easier to carry, it's 'prettier' and still plays her games fine.

 

Mine just came. It's my first laptop and I'm hoping I made the right decision after shopping around for 7 months before buying.

 

Nice review TRF-Inferno.
I sent mine off today, should arrive at Frosty's in 2 days, and from there we will see. Im gonna need to have the whole things replaced for the most part, so I dont know how long it will take, especially if stock is low. Well, I've got my desktop to do gaming.
TRF-Inferno, how did you get 2:10 hours of battery life? I had it on Turbo battery mode, screen brightness on 40% and didnt do anything and only got 1:55 hours of battery out of it. And It was fully charged before, and this is a new battery ( supposedly)
Wifi was on, everything else was off. No apps were running, cpu dropped speed to minimum.

 

The only thing I can think of is that I used Vista's 'Power Saver' power management, not MSI's profiles.

 

I also had that on maximum battery.
Now Im beginning to wonder if my battery is 100% new..

 

Great review, this nice little laptop looks much more expensive than it is

 

where did you find the asus for that price??

nice review also..

 

Best Buy, just search for Asus. It's the gaudy one with lightning bolts on it. They have them on display at every Best Buy I've been to.

 

yeah i dont like the way it looks but for the price its a nice deal for someone i know looking for a cheap system

 

The MXM compatibility and weight of this laptop is enticing. I look at Notebookcheck.net often and I would go up 30 ranks in the mobile GPU benchmark list, I would go down 16 ranks in CPU however. I think the MXM compatibility is worth selling my XPS M1530 to get anyway. I like the design way better, and the fact it has a numpad is a big deal to me because I use Excel very often for my Accounting class. Game performance would certainly improve. I'm going to polytechnic next year so I will be walking around with it through lectures. I'm not losing any weight through the swap but I desire better gaming performance than what I have now.

 

Ive a side question: Where can I buy MXM GPU's? As in, outside of ebay. Reason I ask is that if this notebook is that upgradeable, it's life just got doubled. My last one gave me 5 years of service, and if this one can do that too through some upgrades, it would be amazing.

 

MXM-Upgrade.com; They're based in the U.K. though, so shipping time and cost can be high.

It looks like my EX625 is going back to Frosty too. The laptop is fine, but it appears the HD 4670 has a defective VRAM. I got the artifacting again while running Crysis, and it appears to be VRAM affected because it temporary 'bugged out' on the MSI BIOS screen as well, so it's not driver issues this time. Not a good start for this notebook, so far two people bought it and had to send theirs in due to issues.

 

Well, at the price it was offered at, there had to be some tradeoff's. I just hope it doesnt become an 800$ shipping weight.

 

Hi TRF-Inferno,

I wondering if you ran the 3dmark06 test using a 2.4 ghz system as opposed to 2.0 ghz (which is the processor listed out for EX625 in Frosty Computers). I'm dying to know if 6454 is the real score for the EX625 system.

cheers,

Soul-Acid

 

The EX625 has a 2.0gHz processor. Whatever FrostyComputers has listed that is otherwise is wrong.
On a side note, mine should be arriving back from MSI tomorrow.

 

i think he was asking if the system was overclocked for testing

 

^
Well you're half-correct zfactor (I wasn't thinking he oced it, rather he probably used a different system altogether)

If you guys looked at this test, it says that the processor is 2.4GHZ, and I'm just wondering if this is indeed EX625, because as far as I know it's suppose to be T7350 system (2GHZ) with an ATI GPU 4670.

So I'm bloody confused now.

-Soul-Acid-

 

Oops, I forgot to clear up the confusion. Those test were run on my GX620, not the EX625 because:
A. It allowed me to test above 1366 x 768 resolution.
B. It allow me to see if a faster CPU made any difference.

As for (B), a faster CPU didn't do much. I overclocked the SP9400 to 2.87 GHz, and got an extra 200 points in 3DMark06, and virtually no gain in DMC4. The single DMC4 screenshot with the HD 4670 was run with the SP9400 at 2.4GHz.

 

Hmmm...I guess I gotta wait for stickciv to go and do his review...

Man the anticiption is killing me, I'm undecided over which of the following I should get:

GX620(2.26GHz)/GX630(2.0GHz)/EX625(2.0Ghz)

Any recommendations?

thanks,

Soul-Acid

 

Alright, I got it back. I have some classwork to do, but Ill be installing Vista x64 while im doing that and getting some benchmarks up and running.
Some first pictures

As you can see, the screen is fairly glossy, but this is more of a shot to show it boots, at least to BIOS

The keyboard is almost full-size, but the arrow keys are smushed into the 0, Right Ctrl and Right Shift keys. This becomes especially annoying if you're used to typing on a full-sized keyboard where to find the shift key you simply move down the outside edge of the keys from the home row (it's how I find it without looking at least)
Now the shots of the BIOS:

System data, time, etc. Fairly standard.

The advanced menu isnt very advanced, especially compared to a desktop motherboard. Not much a problem though as I do not see much overclocking going on with this notebook. As was pointed out earlier, the heatsink is pretty small.

Boot menu. Pretty sparse

Boot settings sub-menu. Nothing exciting here either.

Screen's pretty ed glossy.

-------------------------------
I can't tell quite yet, but I may be having the same issue as before again. I tried to install Vista x64 and it did the whole file copying bit fine, but its stuck on crcdisk.sys when booting safe mode. I forgot to record some identifying info about the motherboard, so I cannot say if they changed it.
Ill try Ubuntu and FBSD 7.1

EDIT - Ubuntu's doing this to me again:


-------------------------------
EDIT2 - Apparently, this notebook really, REALLY does not like Vista x64. I installed x86 and it ran fine. Currently its doing its windows update thing which I hope to finish really soon as Conficker.C is set to go active soon.

 

Compared to some other notebooks out there, the glossy coating on this notebook's screen isn't too bad. You want to complain about a lot of screen reflection? Look at the Lenovo Y530 or many of the newer HP displays.

 

If you touch the cinema pro button the subwoofer activates, try it.

 

Wow, that makes a lot of difference. Up close, the sound becomes pretty ed good. Ill test battery life with it on in a bit. See how much juice it eats

 

I also found that the cinema pro improves sound with headphones in.

I've had mine for almost 2 weeks now and I love it. It looks a lot better in person, too.

 

That it does.
---------------
Some more observations about the laptop.
During regular usage the bottom of it gets warm, but not overly so. Its cool enough that it feels fine on the lap, even after an hour or so. As I already said, the subwoofer is quite useful and it makes the music sound pretty nice. Certainly its no full-size speaker setup, but close to the laptop it sounds good. Havent noticed a major decrease in battery life with it either.
The right shift key is still annoying me, and if you go between a desktop and a laptop, be prepared to be annoyed by it as it becomes near impossible to get used to it. The keyboard otherwise is quite comfortable and doesnt show a lot, if any, flex.
I am also finishing downloading Sins of a Solar Empire and will play a few games to see how well that fares in the late game on huge maps ( Big CPU and RAM hog those)
I do seriously suggest getting a laptop mouse to use with this as the right side of the touchpad is a scrollpad and it has no designation on it at all, so you cannot even feel it with your finger. Really messes with you sometimes.
-------------

 

Just to ask somethnig, not that I'm going to buy one, but I'm interested in the performance of HD4670. Can somebody else make tests with 3D Mark 06. Because as I saw on Inferno's review that this card beats mine?!? And as I read HD4670 should beat only GF9600M GT, but not GF9700M GT. I've OCed mine to the clocks of 9700 and this made a huge improvement in game performance, but still it manages to make only 6465 3D Marks (This is with OC On om my MSI MS-1722, so the CPU is @ 3.3GHz). My tests can be seen on GPU link in my signature. Thanks!

 

About the sound: I have noticed that when not in cinema Pro only the left speaker (in my case) actually works therefore the poor mono sound and the dramatic improvement when activating it. I also can't find any settings to adjust sub woofer. Does anyone have the same problem with the speaker and somebody knows how to change anything about the subwoofer?
PS: sorry for my poor English