Customer Reviews

MSI GT725-074US 17-Inch Laptop

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have had this laptop for a couple of weeks now, and I can only say that it is honestly the best laptop I have ever owned. I have owned several before - including some Apple iBooks - but I can see myself using this laptop as my only and main computer for quite some time.

The video card is superb, and every game that I have played through it: Runes of Magic, TF2 - and they both run at the highest setting, with everything maxed. This laptop blows away my desktop - and it's large enough to replace the desktop and be your main rig.

This laptop is huge, and for some that might be a low point - if so, you probably are not in the market for a laptop like this anyways. This laptop put performance and functionality over portability. You should also be aware, the battery does not sit flush with the back, it has about a 1 inch lip that protrudes from the back.

Some positive of this laptop are:

1. Beautiful huge screen that shows vibrant colors and contrast
2. Full keyboard (and numberpad)
3. Plethora of ports: SD/MMC, USB 2.0, IE1394, Esata, HDMI!
4. Great speakers for a laptop
5. Very fast performance
6. The ability to play just about any game on the market now
7. Good power management tools
8. Comes with a good backpack to carry it in.

Some areas that people may not like are:

1. Vista 32 bit is installed - NOT 64 bit like we would all like
2. Protruding battery
3. Right side shift key is very small to make room for keypad
4. Heavy!

I'm very happy with this laptop and would recommend it to anyone who is in the market for a large, big screened laptop that will play games decently. If you are a hardcore FPS fan and need the hotest thing out, look towards Asus' new SLi laptop. You will play around $1,000 more then this one though.

This is a fine rig! Very fast. Little added junk software that you normally get from other manufacturers. I have had no heat problems. It smokes Fallout 3 on maxed settings and Total War: Empires the same. Minus one star for one very disappointing detail........Comes with Vista 32 not 64 as advertised.....A lonely tear dropped when I saw system properties but quickly dried when the pc ripped a hole in the space time continuum from pure awesomeness!

I bought this laptop over a year ago and I'm still using it. It still plays lots of new games at medium/high settings. For the price I paid it was excellent value. Other laptops with the same specs, at the time of purchase cost upwards of $2000 and to get something with similar specs you'd have to spend around $3000. MSI may be new to the laptop game, but they've entered strong with this entry.

There are a few cons however. The battery sticks out like a huge butt! You might find this annoying if you plan on putting it in a laptop bag (remember, it's a 17 inch!). Also, it came with Vista 32bit, which was lame. It has 4GB of memory, it should have come with 64bit! The first thing I did was format it and install Vista 64. Now that Windows 7 is out I have Windows 7 Ultimate x64 installed on it. It runs great with no issues!

The final complaint is that there is a function button on the bottom left of the keyboard. This is normally where the left control button would be and it's annoying the press this function button in games instead of press control.

The screen is bright and games, images and movies look great on it. The battery life isn't really that long, though to be honest, I use it mostly at home and college where I have it plugged into a power source. If you are looking for a light and portable laptop solution I'd suggest something smaller, maybe even a netbook. This is more of a desktop replacement and although I don't live on campus, it's still as portable as most laptops, but not as portable and efficient as a netbook.

The laptop has a pretty power CPU too, and is instantly overclockable with the turbo button on the laptop. In turbo mode, it overclocks the CPU to 2.8Ghz! This is more than enough for the average user and good enough for gaming. I have no speed issues with this laptop, it's almost as fast as my desktop, which is 3Ghz. In fact, I barely notice the speed difference between the two.

The graphics are powered by a dedicated ATI Radeon 4850M which is about equivalent to a HD4830 or nVidia 9800GT. Yes, this means it WILL run Crysis and on high detail too! This laptop pretty much handles any game I throw at it, including Bad Company 2 (though that game really needs a quad core), Modern Warfare 2, Stalker and Civilization 5. Considering the screen's recommended resolution (1680x1050) I think it should have come with more than 512MB of VRAM.

My laptop came with a 320GB 7200rpm hard drive. Most laptops that don't have a solid state drive have 5400rpm drives. These aren't that good for gaming, which is what sets this apart from a regular laptop (as well as the fast CPU and dedicated graphics of course). 320GB is enough for what I use it for, which is college work and a backup gaming computer for when my PC fails.

The 4GB is more than enough to run any applications and games. It's also fast too - it's DDR2 800, not cheapo memory you'd find in a Dell.

Since it's over a year old there are better laptops out there that offer more value, but overall this is an excellent gaming laptop and a great desktop replacement. If you are a college/uni student that will be living on campus and don't want to drag your huge desktop PC, this is a great alternative. It's more than powerful enough for college work and can handle gaming too.

One last thing - this laptop still handles the latest games really well. If it's cheap, I'd recommend it, however, I'd also recommend formatting and installing a 64bit OS like Windows 7.

This is the best gaming laptop out there yet so get your hands on one!!!I've been using it for 4 weeks and everything is perfect with high fps in all the latest games!! Not to forget that I got a 10500 score with 3dmark 06 and 5800 in vantage.

Runs Wow and Crysis at full settings without a problem. Only con is windows 32 bit but still a great laptop. Definetley worth buying.

This is the easily the most cost-efficient gaming laptop on the market. Released only a month ago, it's very recent and its video card combined with a very good CPU, large and fast hard drive, and 4gigs of ram completely dominate nearly every laptop on the market under $2,000. It does only come with 32-bit version of Vista, but I borrowed my friend's 64-bit CD and just upgraded with the key from the pre-packaged 32-bit with no issues (and it's not illegal as far as I know). This thing can play crysis on high (overclocked) at around 26-28fps average.

Another thing that's quite amazing about this laptop is that it's very lightweight and thin compared to many other 17" gaming laptops (ex. Alienware which has 17"s at more than 9lbs). It also runs quite cool for so much power and an acceptable ~2 hours battery life.

The only major complaints most people have (aside from 32-bit vista, but that can be easily changed as I mentioned above) are a tiny right shift key and some other small keys including the directional keys. Still, it's a very, very minor issue and shouldn't deter you from buying such a powerful yet efficient (in power, weight, and cost) laptop.

this laptop is a great deal and the overclocking button is awesome(although it isn't necessary because the laptop already runs plenty fast). I had shopped around for a long time looking for a good gaming laptop that is also a good deal and good quality, and this is the best laptop i could find. I would highly recommend it to anyone in the market for a good gaming laptop.

I have owned this laptop for over a month now. It has not given me a single problem. I use it for gaming mainly. I run 2 WoW accounts at the same time on it, effortlessly. That is saying a lot for something priced this low.
I have owned high end Dell and IBM products in the past, and am real picky about what I buy. But I am on a budget right now. I do not regret the decision at all.
With 2 sessions of WoW going, I can run 75% of the settings at full tilt, and back 25% down to half. The native display resolution is large enough to fit 2 (800x600) sessions side by side (windowed), but I usually run the main toon at (1280x1024). No lag, no hard drive spooling problems. Just smooth. I can't attest to battery life yet though.

[EDIT] - I have a 1 year update to this review now. 1) The keyboard is not acceptable for business use. It is the 1/2 sized keys that make it very hard to type. If you are composing a lot of text, this is not great. The "End" key is totally missing, for example. If they had just removed that strip on the far left (with power button) and put a full sized keyboard in, then it might be better. But 14 keys are small width on this keyboard. This makes typing a hit/miss situation. 2) This laptop still runs fast, and does all that is asked of it. Great value. Great features.

Pro's:
- Price / Performance
- Gaming potential
- Separate keypad makes it easy to mark up mobs in instances

Con's:
- Using Red ink to color Function keys is a mistake. Hard to see in low light.
- Using squished 1/2 size keyboard keys on far right is a mistake. Keys in wrong place.
- Matte brushed metal effect on lid, really shows fingerprints.
- 32 bit OS. Easily fixed though.

Pros:
This thing is amazing. With ATI Radeon 4850 DDR3 graphics and a stellar processor you can't lose. This thing was designed with the core gamer in mind. It may not beat those $3k+ machines out there but it's not supposed to. It can run any game out there and more with the power under its hood.

The on the fly power setting changer is a great plus and very helpful for power management. The screen is gorgeous and has a nice glossy look to it plus an unbelievable viewing angle.

It's incredibly thin for a laptop with this much hardware and sleek to boot. The backpack that came with it is a perfect fit for school and it holds my NZXT cooling pad along with all of my accessories nicely.

Cons:
I've got a couple complaints but nothing that would knock this thing down an star.

1) The d-pad. It's incredibly small and fairly hard to use with some RTS games. I was getting a hand cramp while playing Warcraft 3 and it looks like I'll have to use an external keyboard if I want to play these kind of games.

2) Vista 32-bit. No excuse for this one. It's a laptop designed for gamers requiring to use every ounce of hardware. Why limit it with a 32-bit system?

3) Power management mode is kind of weak when using this thing in a car. Hard to hear the speakers while driving but not necessarily a bad thing. Just an observation I noticed when pushing this thing to its limits

Final Thoughts:
The very first thing I did when I got it was boot it up and run the standard set up. Once that was done I created a restore disk (in case I ever wanted to return to these factory settings again) and then reformatted using Vista Home Premium 64bit. The process was painless and all of the drivers and features worked flawlessly.

If your in the market for a sub $1500 laptop then do yourself a favor and pick this thing up. I was weary picking up the MSI brand being a DELL/HP laptop fan but this is all the bang you'll ever need for not that much of your buck.

I didn't know quite well the company (MSI), just that they manufactured and modified pc and laptop components. Now I can say this is a great company and laptop. Very fast, I play Live for Speed (LFS) with full settings in 1680x1050 resolution. The turbo mode is great! it makes a difference! although I never need it! so I guess it would be useful in the future. Compresses and decompresses rar files very fast (1gb in less than 3 minutes). I can open more than 10 different applications (excel, powerpoint, word, premiere cs4, photoshop cs4, firefox, outlook, notes, skype, norton..... etc, etc...) with no impact on performance. It comes with several battery mode options available with the touch of a button, which is nice, although it conflicts sometimes with the vista battery modes, but no biggie. It is big, you should expect a big laptop, because if not, this is not for you. It starts and shuts down very fast. Mine is the 074US so I guess the 075US would be a bit faster, but for me its more than I expected. Hope this helps to anyone.