MSI X460DX Review Discussion

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a powerful yet portable multimedia laptop that costs less than $900. Say hello to the MSI X460DX. Measuring one inch thin and weighing just over four pounds, this 14-inch notebook has 7.5 hours of battery life and great performance. Read our full review to learn more.

Read the full content of this Article: MSI X460DX Review

 

Thanks Charles.

Brushed Aluminum on Lid and palm rest is great which gives a cold metal feel. This is definitely a better alternative than waiting for the Asus U46SV which has a horrible tiny sound muffled qualityeven @ 100% volume when tested @ Best Buy with the U46E version.

For people that doesn't care about 1600x900 or 900p, this is a great/sleek looking laptop with great features (GT 540m, light, long battery life) for the price of under $850.

 

Thanks for the comment. I agree, this is definitely a better choice than the comparable ASUS U-series. I've tested three or four U-series over the past year and was not engrossed in any of them.

 

so the build quality is better than the asus U series? Or better yet, can I travel with it on a daily basis?

Im not very found of the MSI consumer laptops, had one, been burned because of it, terrible build quality, that led to its inevitable demise

 

This notebook is not up to par with a Dell Latitude E6420, ThinkPad T420, or 14" HP Elitebook in quality. It's better than the average plastic consumer notebook because there's less flex and better/thicker plastics used.

 

Is it all plastic? I thought the palm rest and lid are brushed aluminum cold metal feel?

 

specs look great, especially the size, gpu and vid card.
just not digging the design or the screen though

 

People always find reasons and excuses to complain even when the lead moderator is already giving it a great recommendation. Did you expect it to have a matte screen w/ ips like display lol, or did you want a lunchbox look thinkpad or toy like spaceship alienware!?!

 

yeah sure, and the lead moderator who wrote the review also said similar things about the resolution and aspects of the design. take your axe to grind elsewhere.

 

It's not all plastic; the lid and palm rest are aluminum but it is only a covering. I was referring only to the plastics on the notebook with that statement (which is everything but the lid/palmrest). They are of good quality and slightly thicker than those found on a cheapo budget notebook like an HP G62.

It is a nice little combo and this laptop is quite portable. #1 thing I wish it had was a matte screen, then #2 would be getting rid of the glossy plastic.

DIYers could vinyl or cover the glossy plastic without too much effort I think, and put a matte screen protector on the screen. But it's still 1366x768. I have a hard time using this res for every day use, 1600x900 is pretty nice though (it's on my 15.6" Dell Latitude).

 

All we need is for someone to find a compatible matte 1600x900 or (*gasp*) a 1080p screen.

 

People have a choice in a T420 w/ 1600x900 if they need that screen estate for viewing side by side docs or coding etc but lacks a dedicated gpu... There's also the Vaio SA 13.3" if people needs a matte display that is 1600x900 that has a class 2 HD 6630m card but cost upwards $1000 and upto $1600 if configured with an SSD. Another one is the M14x but it is too heavy @ 6.5lbs and the fans when gaming/benchmarking sounds like a Jet taking off.

I believe the X460DX is targeted for mid-range gamers since the glossy screen gives movies and games more vivid colors and the GT 540m paired with a 1366x768 screen will play most recent games at native res and almost high settings at playable fps. This laptop is like the m11x r3 but with a much bigger screen and uses a full mobile cpu than a ulv and it weighs less than the m11x 4.3lbs>4.5lbs. Also don't forget the battery life lasting between 6-7 hours based on Charles reputable review. The price is also great w/ the i5 around $850 and i3 around $750.

Just imagine a 900p or 1080p on a GT 540m, that would tax the card too much. There's a reason why the M14x uses a GT 555m to compensate for the 900p or GTX cards for 900p/1080p if serious highest HD resolution gaming is needed.

 

I mean yes and no. I'll agree that the 540m doesn't handle 1080p spectacularly. Especially in a game where it's getting heavily taxed regardless. But it will handle some, you could play a bluray at 1080p if the monitor supported it. And I don't think its necessarily the reason it was put in the M14x, alienware isn't in the budget laptop game. Even if integrated graphics somehow handled everything, m14x would still have one of the better cards available at the time of manufacture. I think msi opted out of the higher res screen less because the 540m wasn't sufficient for it, and more to keep the overall price down. There's enough in the x460dx, that with a higher res screen it would of definitely been above 1000, not that I would of minded the option.

At 14 inches, as much as a high res ips panel would be awesome. The size doesn't make sense as far as the reason for owning the laptop. I'm not going to crowd a bunch of people around a 14 inch screen to watch a movie, or use it as my primary gaming machine. So at least for me personally, TN panel is fine. The reviews i've seen, the screen is not dim, colors look good...It's viewing angle isn't great but it's typical of a tn panel. The screen is going to be comparable to most other 14 inch laptops on the market, and the x460dx is there to fill the gap between portability and performance, and there's a lot to love here. Even the $400 more m14x has a super glossy screen. Not sure why MSI has a bad rep from people, yeah there netbooks were all plastic, but pretty much everyones had been. They have pushed out a lot of good machines over the last few years, and is known for reliability.

 

the problem aint the materials otherwise thinkpads due to the use of plastic were going to be deemed less than durable. The problem is the quality of the plastic/width that is used.

Having picked up a gx640 and owned a ex625, there is a clear difference regarding build quality between the 2, being the ex625 the extreme lesser one, not that the gx640 is much better, there were several known problems with that chassis.

So I dont know where you are taking that msi ditches out high quality notebooks. Only in the latter gaming series the chassis improved considerably regarding the previous ones, the gx660 chassis and the now released gt780.

The rest of the line was in range of 500 bucks laptops, riddle with flex, a terrible screen, a terrible keyboard, a terrible build quality and so forth.

 

Mine doesn't have durability issues. BUT, it is a fingerprint magnet so if you have a problem with cleaning it often, you may want to think twice about this computer.

Display is okay for me. 1366x768 is fine so far but I still want 1600x900..

 

I completely understand the options available, but the screen issue isn't a hardware one, it's a pricing one.

The 1366 x 768 resolution screens are ubiquitous. They are cheaper to produce, and fit in with the TV industry. They're included in the 460's because the allow MSI to produce the laptop at the right price point.

Games can always be down-scaled to deal with performance issues. 1080p decoding for video doesn't tax a GPU in any real measure. I'd like the real estate of a 1600x900 or 1080p screen for office applications and videos, with the ability to play games at a reasonable resolution (1366x768 is fine) when I'm away from my desktop. That plus portability wins.

I'm coming to this off a Sager 8150 with a 6990M.

 

Have had the MSI X460DX for a couple days now, figured i'd post my initial thoughts:

Screen is the only thing really that i've even thought was underwhelming at all, and it's still bright just took some calibrating and is a pretty typical TN panel. The gamma and contrast was a little off out-of-the-box. But i'd reccommend calibrating any monitor you get, whether it's with a professional tool or you just eye ball it. Viewing angle could be better, but honestly even after a couple days with it im really happy. It looks great streaming from hulu/netflix/youtube..as well as dvds and thats all i cared about. If youre coming from 1080p you might be more spoiled than I though.

Keyboard is great. Took a day to get used to the right side, has the pageup/pagedown on the right side of the enter key and when i went to hit enter initially, well i missed it lol. But after a day with it, I have no errors, and I like the general feel of it a lot. Would of been awesome to be backlit but I knew what I was getting into when I bought this.

S-bar is actually something I didn't think i'd keep, but it's pretty handy

Touchpad is nice. I like the texture to it, and the one button mouse-click bar turns a lot of people off, but it works great for me, i have no issues there.

Sound, no bass like most laptops, and its not LOUD, but it's solid other than the standard issues. Id say its comparable to most other laptops around, really.

Battery life is great as I thought it would be, really more than 5 hours while setting everything up and benchmarking, trying out games, and movies, etc... With wifi on as well as some heavy graphic card use, 5-6 hours I thought was really good.

Gaming on it is nice. I just wanted to try a few newer games to see what this could handle. I could play both hard reset and dead island at native resolution, no lag, and both looked great.

Build quality is great. It's a solid machine. Metal where you want metal, and the bottom is sturdy. Theres no bending, other then if you really try to push on the dvd drive. But the panel and rest of laptop, no flexing at all, really sturdy.

Heat...I thought this was going to be an issue from reading reviews. It hasnt been. It gets warm is all. During hard reset I noticed it get a little hotter, but nothing unbearable really. During day to day tasks, I don't notice heat at all. Light gaming, media, it gets warm. And heavy gaming it runs a little hot on the bottom, but I'm still fine at keeping it on my lap so it's obviously not that bad. I really bought this thinking i'd need a good notebook cooler for whenever I game, and I really don't think it's that necessary.

dvd/rw drive is a little hard to open, but i can't imagine that being a big issue to anyone.

Size...is perfect. I couldn't imagine anything bigger honestly. It's a great size.

Glossy plastic, yeah theres a lot. I'm not sure why they decided to use glossy plastic behind the keyboard section..But it really hasn't bothered me at all. You'll probably want to wipe things down once a month, but other than that, i havent really paid any attention to all the gloss.

Screen is glossy, i don't hate glossy screens though. Even used it outside earlier, and wasnt really an issue turned all the way up. And the fact that you can grab a matte screen cover, if that is an issue you at least have some options.

Overall, it's been wonderful. it's fast, it does what I want, it looks great, and it's been a joy to use. The keyboard took a day to get used to, really it was a little weird at first, just where I mentioned on the right...But I like the feel of it, and got used to it quickly. And if this thing had a 900p/1080p screen it would be absolutely perfect. It was the only thing it the first hour that I was like .....oh no....what did I get myself into. But after some slight adjustments, it's really not bad. When playing videos online it actually looks really good. And is a lot brighter than I expected. I probably wouldn't go bragging to friends about the screen specifically. But overall i'm happy with it. For the $809 I paid for this, I couldn't be happier.

If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to ask me as well.

 

Excellent writeup, mstefanko.

I used to own a laptop with 1366x768 resolution, what I did was:
-Dock start bar on the left side of the screen and set it to auto-hide.
-Set the zoom level in an Internet browser to 80-90%, this makes it like you are using a higher-res screen.
-Also set zoom level in MS Office programs to 80-90%.

Overall, it is usable. And if for any reason you still need more space, it's not the end of the world, you can hook up to a monitor/TV.

For $809 you got a nice deal. Best of luck with the machine.

 

Thanks, and Great tips! Auto-hiding and setting zoom levels definitely help. As well as making creative use of desktop space, rocket dock helps. As well as stardock fences. If you really need extra space, i'm sure there is the equivalent to the linux desktop virtualization for windows 7, but I really haven't had any issues for the day-to-day. I've already done some php coding/web dev on it as well as some minor graphic design, all went smoothly. Thankfully, my last portable machine was of the netbook variety. So as much as I use a desktop for heavier things, this has been a huge improvement what i'm accustomed to.

Also, for anyone interested.. A decent owners discussion was taking place here. Including links to an ICC profile which definitely should help anyone who doesn't personally own a calibration tool.

Also, i've started an owners thread, hopefully that helps some people out.

 

My X460 is awesome! The GPU overclocks quite well, I've hit 10,000 3DMark06 points.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/622834-msi-x460-540m-gpu-overclocking.html

I went on a trip Friday and this is what the battery gave me:

3.5 hours watching a DVD
2.5 hours playing JC2
5 hours surfing the web.

I don't really like the single button mouse, but it's usable.