Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

MSI GX640-098US Owner's Lounge
Feel free to discuss GX640 related issues here

 

Are you buying from amazon? I believe they're the only one with a 6-cell instead of a 9-cell battery...

 

Mine is currently at Xotic having the processor swapped out and it should be sent to me as soon as they finish the upgrade. I'll post a short review once it gets delivered.

 

Nope. I'm going to buy it at NCIX, and ask them to pricematch PC Canada ($1139) when it comes in stock at PC Canada (tomorrow, April 7)

 

I'm most interested in the temperatures, build quality, and battery life... can't wait to hear.

 

Oh alright. Might wanna see if you can get a 9-cell (if you care about battery life). Do you know of any good resellers in Canada that let you upgrade from the stock unit?

 

None that I know of.

 

I DESPISE everyone in this thread, honestly I'm green with envy (and not the nice HP variety either) and still can't find any details on an UK release that will no doubt be priced a lot bloody higher! >_<

 

Yeah... earlier I was moaning about how the Canadian Envy 15 (FIRST GENERATION) costs $2200 CAD when clearly, CAD > USD (as of April 06, 2010). I guess we don't have it as bad as you guys do in Europe.. hehe

 

This.


Hope its as good as it seems. Really thinking about canceling my 1558 Dell for this unit.

 

haha wow we hit 1:1 today (although currently at 0.9999 lol). Gotta wait til the 12th though since most places to convert currency base it off of the average of the previous 30 days.

Year, must be rough to follow electronics on in Europe sometimes, at least you guys don't get as screwed over as the enthusiasts in Australia.

 

Damn. It was 1.00100 earlier.

 

I'm debating purchasing one right now.

I'm a little concerned about the build quality, the weird keyboard (small space bar and extra key?), and the battery life.

 

Same here.. just waiting on some reviews. But in all honesty its the best 16:10 15" laptop for me right now.

 

ordering tonight or tomorrow... want to get it before everyone else orders and i get put on backorder. really want to see a review though.

 

Already ordered. Payment went through, just waiting for shipping now. I went for express shipping. Expect a review from me soon

 

i'll order tomorrow, hope to see a review before they ship it out, and if it's bad, i'll cancel... hahaha. hope this works out. maybe they'll take longer than the weekend to make it.

 

Does anybody know of any credible sites that we know are working on a review?

 

xotic said they were gonna have one. i'll email and ask when we can expect it.

 

All I want to see is some game benchmarks and heat management, if things are kept under control I will be a happy dude!

 

Ikas you are in every thread with the hope of being a "happy dude". You want the G73, the Clevos, and now the MSIs? Stick with one and make up your mind lol

 

That's the problem man with all this good stuff out or coming out soon my heads spinning.
I've had them all in the past MSI,CLEVO,ASUS and honestly I liked them all
just trying to get the best bang for my buck.
I see you've been to every thread too bro
I'm a spaz when it comes to new laptops, I want one of everything!
Soon as I get a couple sold I'll bein the hunt for a new one, just trying to cover all my bases.

 

Just purchased a GX640 from XoticPC. i7-620m, Blu-ray, 6GB 1333mhz ddr3, 500gb 7200 rpm hdd. I'm going to be on vacation in a bit, so I ordered overnight shipping and rush processing to make sure I get it before I'm away. Not thrilled about it, but meh. I'm hoping to have it by the end of next week or beginning of the following week.

It seems like the perfect choice for a college machine for me. It's pretty lightweight, can get 3 and maybe 3.5 hours of battery life on light browsing and documents, but can still game very well (for a laptop, at least). This is my first MSI, so I'm excited to see how it compares to the Sager, Gateway, Toshiba, and Apple notebooks I've owned in the past.

 

Okay, regarding the screen, scratch that. But i'd like to know if there is any lighting that helps in 'visibility'. I see that the GT660, has back-lit LED screen but no backlit keyboard. What does this notebook have in comparison to that?

Edit: Also, I don't find the design style of the notebook so hot, sort of a square notebook.

 

I don't think its an LED screen, just a standard LCD. The brightness isn't the greatest apparently.

 

So which sites have it shipping already?

 

Its a CCFL screen, and the GT660 is an LED screen.

 

Dam.... might wait for the GT660 instead then. Though the GX640 has a better graphics card, i'd go with GT660 for multi-entertainment wise. I game a lot, but mostly mmorpgs, so I think the GTX 285M will suffice. Still don't know the ETA on it though.

 

Is "CCFL" different from "WSXGA+", which is what every site says the GX is equipped with? It's just an LCD screen right?

 

CCFL is a backlighting type of the LCD screen.

LED-backlit LCD screens are said to be low power consuming and brighter.


WSXGA+ is a resolution of the screen, specifically 1680x1050, which MSI seems to simply loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove.

 

I was hoping for a bigger price difference between the 1656 and 1727 barebones. Makes it more difficult to choose between the two.

 

So will it be better/brighter than the LCD screen on my old HP DV2610us? Bought it in November 07 at Fry's. That screen's brightness/clarity was amazing in my opinion, so I dont mind if its very similar. I also am currently using my desktop with an old CRT monitor, so my standards arent that high, nor do I know how to measure LCD/LED/XGA etc etc

 

What was the total bill, and where are you located ?

 

Often, LCD monitors with CCFL backlighting show excellent contrast ratio, and I personally never used the max brightness of LEDs, they were too bright for me.

I would not personally care if a laptop came with CCFL or LED, so don't worry about qualities of screens unless the LED's are RGBLEDs...

 

Alright guys, so I got home and took this thing out.

Very nice very sleek machine, much smaller than the G1S it's due to replace. It's booting up Win7 right now, installing devices, etc.

One thing though, the keyboard DOES flex. Pressing on the space bar you can see the whole keyboard tray sag by about 1mm. This is not the case on my G1S. On the other hand, anywhere else on the keyboard, the keys feel quite solid. I'm going to do that double sided tape thing later when I get around to it for sure.

The machine booted up now. The screen is great, SO much brighter and better color saturation than the G1S. The colors are much more white than the ASUS also.

I must say, though, coming from the very solidly built ASUS (which also weighs 1lb more) to this, I find that the case is not as solid. If you press down too hard on the center front of the notebook beside the touchpad, you can feel the chassis bend down a bit. I guess that's a given, considering the weight.

This post will be continually updated while I play with the MSI

 

Would you try overclocking the GPU to 880 mhz core and 1200 mhz memory?

 

Not yet. Going to make sure everything works first. Also get rid of bloatware, and all those things.

 

The best so far , keep it coming. What's the max GPU & Memory clock in Overdrive ?

 

Without by ridiculous shipping and rush processing, the computer itself came to around $1923.

I am located in NJ. Shipping costs seem to have been independent of location, though.

 

I haven't touched overdrive yet, right now I'm cleaning up the system and installing the latest drivers. Benchmarks are coming later.

I'm going to have to fix the keyboard flex later using the double sided tape fix. Seems like a small problem for me though, since I usually use an external keyboard anyway. In any case, I'm a good typist, since I can average 130+ wpm on any usual keyboard, I find that getting used to a keyboard that has a bit of flex to be easy also.

My full review along with pictures will be done by Saturday at the latest, I promise

 

OK.

Max memory = 1200, Max GPU = 805. Currently set to 625 / 10000

 

625 / 10,000? you mean 1000?

 

Looking forward to it. Is the keyboard flex only on the space bar or is it an entire bottom row thing?

 

What is the Vantage GPU score and temperature? +rep.

 

The keyboard flex seems to be mostly focused on the space bar. Bear in mind that any keyboard will flex if you pressed hard enough, I'm basing this on comparison with the G1S, of course. By most accounts, the G1S is a very solidly built machine with a solid keyboard.

Yes, of course I meant 1000 mhz for memory. 10,000 would be quite insane

I'll run 3DMark06 first and post the temps, so to get that out of the way.

 

Just an update,

Idle temp: 56
3DMark06 running peak: 80
3DMark06 score (1280x1024): 11500.

Pics coming on the weekend

 

Hmm.. idle 56? The Envy 15 5830 idles at 45, and the underside is pretty warm (though that's because of the metal case). How is it on your lap? While gaming?

I'm considering returning my Envy for one of these... still got 2 weeks to go on my 21 day return policy.. looking forward to hear more.

Problems I have with the Envy are heat on my lap and battery life.. if those are better on the GX640 it'll be a very tough decision The build quality seems decent on the GX640.. it's very good on the Envy except mine is barely (just barely) uneven.. the front left rubber nub is just SLIGHTLY off a flat surface, so when I push down I can feel it go down. I put two sheets of paper under it to solve it.. yes that's how slight the tilt is.

 

The bottom feels cool, although I haven't, and wouldn't use them on my lap for fear of blocking too many heat intakes and frying things. I have to remember that the video card IS a monster of a card in a 5.8lb 15.4"...

I'll let you know about the battery life sometime soon. But I got a 9 cell battery with it by default, so I'm assuming 3+ hours should be possible.

 

Was the 3dmark run stock or overclocked?

 

Everything stock with 10.3 official drivers.