MSi future direction / suggestions!

Hiya, so now that I've thoroughly read, inspected, viewed, etc etc all of the 2013 lineup, I have to say that I'm very impressed! I think that MSI currently is the best gaming notebook brand when it comes to price vs performance vs laptop form/build quality. They've aggressively targeted all regions of the market and are doing quite well at it. The GE40 is putting pressure on the Razer Blade, the GT60/70 are hitting the heavy laptop market, and the soon to be GS70 will give the Razer Blade Pro a run for its money if it runs well. However, they're not perfect so I'd figure I'd go ahead and give some suggestions/feedback based on what I've seen.

GT70: The flagship of the MSi lineup. Highest specs and heaviest laptop, this laptop offers the powerful performance. However, given the size MSi has to work with here, I think a dual fan setup would benefit the chassis in general; especially consider how many reviews made comment of high heat. Also, I think physically the laptop's chassis could use some more love. While I don't want it to be as flashy as Alienware, I think that the backpanel of the display could use some love. The GE60 and GE40 both get some interesting design, why not have a metallic Dragon Gaming Series logo etched/embedded around the MSi logo? And around the palm rest do something similar

GT60: The portable tank. This is basically similar to the GT70 however it comes with a smaller chassis. This is my personal favorite of the MSi lineup (I'm a proud owner of one of these) since it's very unique. Not many gaming laptops are 15" and come with this much power at MSi's pricing. As for cooling and fans, I think it's more feasible for MSi to keep the one fan setup for the GT60. So far, with cooler boost, I run pretty cool. Max around 80-85 deg for intensive games like BF3. As for the laptop physically, I have the same ideas for the GT60 as I do with the GT70 (read above). A note I will mention about the keyboard (this applies to the GT70 as well) is that the layout could also be improved. Some keys are in weird spots, and it's a bit annoying at times. Nothing that can't be fixed or resigned of course.

GE60/70: The middle ground. I don't have too much experience with these however these look to be of the weaker in the MSi lineup. It appears heat and battery issues are present, however those can and should be fixed. The GE60 appears to run quite hot... which can be problematic. I'm no hardware designer, but hopefully MSi can work this out. The GE70 on the other hand appears to run a lot cooler. More space to move air? Hmm. As for the battery, I really think that both of these rigs deserve 9 cell batteries instead of 6. People are reporting only 2.5 hours of life... I'm scraping 4-5 on my massive GT60 D: Aesthetically I think the GE60/70 are fine. However, I wish the keyboard could be 3 zoned, or at least allow that one color to be changed on the fly, or at the VERY least allow people to choose a different one color when ordering :b

GE40: The light but powerful. Not too much info on this puppy yet, but my one of my friends is set on getting this so I've scoured the internet for reviews. It looks alright, but people say the laptop gets hot EXTERNALLY. Which can be quite bothersome for the user. It doesn't appear to run too hot on the GPU/CPU, only have temps around high 70 - low 80. However the chassis gets quite warm, reaching near 100deg F in some areas :\ I hope MSi can fix this. the GT series remains cool almost all around, and the GE60/70 appears to run pretty cool as well externally. My biggest gripe with this GE40 is the keyboard. Why is it not backlit?! Even if it were white LED backlit that would've been far better. If the GE40 had been backlit it would've seriously put some pressure on the Razer Blade 14" Still though, for 1200-1300$ instead of 1700$, it's nonetheless a worthy competitor.

GS70: The new "Stealth" model. Not much has been revealed yet, but I like what I see. Super thin, austere, LED touchpad, and full backlit keyboard. If the chassis and performance are great, MSi will once again seriously put pressure on Razer's flagship. And undercut them as well, the projected price is 1600-1700$ for the GS70 while the Blade 17" is supposed to be 2500$.

any love/sign for a GS60?

Well that's it. What do you guys/where do see MSi going?

 

No doubt they need to make a new design with dual fan.
Make a notebook with two of thouse monstrous fans, and nothing can touch MSI

 

Would love to see a higher rated PSU to OC more and dual fans would be amazing but only if they make less noise, not that these laptops are annoyingly loud ( well maybe with cooler boost ) but a quiet dual fan set up would be my things to improve.

 

Totally agreed and definitely wanted to see in the GT beast dual fan cooling solution. But then people want dual or more hdd for raid etc. and then a bluray and all the bells and rings... But they have done even more than that presenting 3 msata slots, an sata and a bluray (for me is a waste since I have bluray in my alienware m18x and I have never used it), in a 15.6 system.

I guess they will have to stick to msata all over and place the cooling fan for the gpu on the other side of the system where msata disks are present. And what is with that hybrid business? Implement a 230/240v power supply, its not that much big difference in size and this will be one of the best 15.6" system on the market.

P.S. Leave Turbo Boost as it is even if it is dual fan for overclockers

 

Thanks for your input and we love to hear suggestions from customers. I will try to answer some here for now.

GT70: The flagship of the MSi lineup. Highest specs and heaviest laptop, this laptop offers the powerful performance. However, given the size MSi has to work with here, I think a dual fan setup would benefit the chassis in general; especially consider how many reviews made comment of high heat. Also, I think physically the laptop's chassis could use some more love. While I don't want it to be as flashy as Alienware, I think that the backpanel of the display could use some love. The GE60 and GE40 both get some interesting design, why not have a metallic Dragon Gaming Series logo etched/embedded around the MSi logo? And around the palm rest do something similar
One of the reason why MSI didn't use dual fan is because MSI try to achieve a longer battery life for the unit and MSI feels that having single fan can provide enough heat dissipation in normal usage. In 2013 generation MSI added a Cooler Boost 2 feature which helps lower the heat around 15% and fan noise up to 30%. MSI is always trying to provide a better solution over generation. About the ID, we do have a dragon edition which have a addition engrave dragon on both A side and palm rest area.
GT60: The portable tank. This is basically similar to the GT70 however it comes with a smaller chassis. This is my personal favorite of the MSi lineup (I'm a proud owner of one of these) since it's very unique. Not many gaming laptops are 15" and come with this much power at MSi's pricing. As for cooling and fans, I think it's more feasible for MSi to keep the one fan setup for the GT60. So far, with cooler boost, I run pretty cool. Max around 80-85 deg for intensive games like BF3. As for the laptop physically, I have the same ideas for the GT60 as I do with the GT70 (read above). A note I will mention about the keyboard (this applies to the GT70 as well) is that the layout could also be improved. Some keys are in weird spots, and it's a bit annoying at times. Nothing that can't be fixed or resigned of course.
The keyboard we design with SteelSeries which we believe a lot of gamer accidently hit the window key while gaming, so we moved it to the right side which won't interfere while playing game. It saved me a few lifes in BF3 for sure.
GE60/70: The middle ground. I don't have too much experience with these however these look to be of the weaker in the MSi lineup. It appears heat and battery issues are present, however those can and should be fixed. The GE60 appears to run quite hot... which can be problematic. I'm no hardware designer, but hopefully MSi can work this out. The GE70 on the other hand appears to run a lot cooler. More space to move air? Hmm. As for the battery, I really think that both of these rigs deserve 9 cell batteries instead of 6. People are reporting only 2.5 hours of life... I'm scraping 4-5 on my massive GT60 D: Aesthetically I think the GE60/70 are fine. However, I wish the keyboard could be 3 zoned, or at least allow that one color to be changed on the fly, or at the VERY least allow people to choose a different one color when ordering :b
GE series are design for more portable gamers. In order to make it easier to travel with, battery weight and sizes are taken into consideration. From our polls and questionnaire, we find that most gamer plug in power while using units anyways, so that's where the decision is made on the battery. There are also improvement over last generation on the GE series by using newer Intel chipsets and different material on keyboard side. Backlight keyboard was added in this generation from huge demand, we will consider to add different color in future.
GE40: The light but powerful. Not too much info on this puppy yet, but my one of my friends is set on getting this so I've scoured the internet for reviews. It looks alright, but people say the laptop gets hot EXTERNALLY. Which can be quite bothersome for the user. It doesn't appear to run too hot on the GPU/CPU, only have temps around high 70 - low 80. However the chassis gets quite warm, reaching near 100deg F in some areas :\ I hope MSi can fix this. the GT series remains cool almost all around, and the GE60/70 appears to run pretty cool as well externally. My biggest gripe with this GE40 is the keyboard. Why is it not backlit?! Even if it were white LED backlit that would've been far better. If the GE40 had been backlit it would've seriously put some pressure on the Razer Blade 14" Still though, for 1200-1300$ instead of 1700$, it's nonetheless a worthy competitor.
GE40 is a truly mobile gaming unit. In order to fit everything in that small form factor, some feature have to be sacrificed like backlight KB. Heat are happening from pushing high setting game which this unit is designed for a more casual normal setting game play. There are new bios coming which will improve on the heat issues as we see more higher setting gamer are using this unit.
GS70: The new "Stealth" model. Not much has been revealed yet, but I like what I see. Super thin, austere, LED touchpad, and full backlit keyboard. If the chassis and performance are great, MSi will once again seriously put pressure on Razer's flagship. And undercut them as well, the projected price is 1600-1700$ for the GS70 while the Blade 17" is supposed to be 2500$.

any love/sign for a GS60?
You will be seeing the info of GS70 soon, keep your eyes on the official website for update info. As for GS60..... keep posted.

Thanks

 

I like where the msi systems currently sit but if I could have anything it would be a dual card beast with 3d display and 3 beastly fans. Adding to the range. However it would require an expensive new chasis so I know it's not likely.

 

Love it when company reps post on forums. I had to sign up for this forum (grr I hate signing up for forums but I understand the rationale) just post this comment / question / suggestion:

I've been a hardcore game fanatic who has met some professional success in life; I've been building the highest of high end desktops for years, had 30" monitors since they first came out, am rocking a quad HD 84" at home etc -- I love tech and I will happily pay for it.

In 2010 I starting travelling the world for work and I spend about 50% of my year in hotel rooms and in planes; I had to move to a laptop so naturally I went Alienware since nothing else out there was competitive (ie didn't have SLI, big SSDs, etc...). I bought a fully loaded job for about ~$6,000.

I'm now on my second Alienware laptop (another $6k). When I went shopping though, it was a few months before the haswell chip enabled form factors like the GS70 and Razor Blade. Sure, it's not SLI top end, but it's the 2nd best GPUs out there, and travelling with 25lbs of laptop & gear multiple times per year is decidedly not as enjoyable as it used to be. I'm just now willing to make a sacrifice or two.

So, to my actual question after the rambling -- would your company be willing to allow some bespoke options if I was willing to pay outrageous prices for it? For example, I love the GS70 (though I'd rather have a "GS50" or "GS60" if such existed), but I would like either a higher end GPU or dual GPUs, and I would like 1 TB of SSD vs 256GB of SSD + 1 TB of old school.

I'm VERY willing to pay for it, I just want the best.

Any plans / options?

 

The problem is not money (in any reasonable level) but simple physical laws. A 780m would be more power efficient than a pair of 765 chips but the size of the machine does not allow a more powerful chip to be properly cooled.

 

Laptops are going to end up as thin and light convertible.Having used a convertible for the last month. I dont see the need for the tablet anymore..
Windows 8 without a toch screen seems crippled now lol

anyway, as a guy who works all day on laptops and travels quite a bit. I'd love a

13.3" laptops with hinge designs like the Acer R7.or Surface Pro
13.3" laptops with hinge designs like the Acer R7 / Sony Duo 13 with gpu thats enabled with the dock keyboard is connected via internal pcie /thunderbolt?

 

I completely disagree with the GT70 suggestion. I am very happy with my barebone jet black GT70. The more dragons and etching and crap all over the laptop only makes it look like it was designed for a 14 year old or someone on the Jersey Shore. The less dragon teenage crap on it the better!

 

This power efficiency thing with single fan and cooler boost 2 its all crap! Anybody knows that if you use the system on battery you say goodbye to the dGPU. It's a must dual fan cooling (and they are 5v vs 12v current system) in order to keep those GT series cool and get more customer demand. People have to do a lot of tweaking and still do not get very promising temperatures over other brands. You loose a lot of customers going for clevo / sager products just because of that (prince range is about the same). I am not involving alienware 17" model here because it is more expensive compared to the GT60 model + is a bigger guy; but yes competes very much with GT70 and most of customers especially from US / Canada will go for alienware (similar price).

These 2 factors are very important if you want more clientele: dual fan cooling and better power solution - 240w (more juice). I would definitely buy another MSI, no questions asked (I have no problem with plastic / metal combination as long is durable and great built just like the 2013 models).

 

Cooler booster was only made to make the computer dead silent on light usage. It does not help when gaming or taxing the system. I am sure both the CPU and GPU would perform better in single fan if they were independent. Plus make reasonable fan speeds on load, at the cost of sound. But still it would be nice to have a dual fan for each device I guess. I don't particularly care about the fan, I care about the PSU which should be higher by default.

But more importantly, as Meaker mentioned, I would be very interested in a dual high end gpu laptop, even if it required a new chasis.

 

For me:
- Stop using glossy plastics, still present in some part.
- Dual fan solution.
- Stop using SCM, KLM stuffs, just give a buttom for activate by hardware the fan full speed and on/off keyboard light swiitch.

 

3 suggestions:
- make a gs60/gs40
- get rid of the glossy lid on the ge60
- on that subject, get rid of the gloss around the gt60 touchpad (and on the button) and control bar.