MSI has recently been releasing a couple of great gaming laptops. In my past experience, I used to own their motherboards and they are pretty top notch in terms of quality and features, this is the first time that I have the chance to get my hands dirty on the company’s latest slim gaming laptop offering. The GS60 is a 15-inch laptop that packs a powerful Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX970M discrete graphics, what’s most attractive about this machine here is the aesthetics, the GS60 weighs a mere 1.96kg and measures 19.9mm which is a killer to most high performance 15-inch laptops out there.
The review unit that we’ve got here is the Elite Pack version, which MSI has packed in a couple of nice and welcoming accessories – a mouse, keyboard protector, gaming mouse pad, and a SteelSeries FLUX headset. To be honest, not many gaming laptops today come with such a generous package and MSI definitely get a thumbs up from us on this.
MSI has also been kind enough to loan us the Stealth Gold color edition of the GS60, the laptop’s body is made with a very high quality aluminum that makes it feel extremely premium. Unlike some gaming laptops out there in the market, the GS60’s design is simple yet stunning enough to get folks asking you about the machine, there’s no crazy LED lighting on the exterior, but that SteelSeries Engine keyboard will definitely catch your eyes, you’ll be able to configure its LED transition and colors in the configuration program.
Speaking of the SteelSeries engineered keyboard, the GS60 has a full size chiclet keyboard with a numpad that doesn’t feel too cramped, there’s only one macro key on the “F4” button which won’t satisfy some gamers out there but it certainly isn’t a deal breaker (this is a laptop!), you’ll also notice that MSI has also removed the Windows button on the left side which I personally don’t find it a necessity, since most games today tend have that button disabled when running in full screen and I have to adapt to the right Windows button key whenever I’d like to access shortcuts to some features. The touchpad area is huge enough and I don’t like the fact that its a ELAN model, which is infamous for its inaccurate gesture controls and insensitive response, it still works reasonably fine though not perfect, you’ll still need to plug in an external mouse for using long hours.
In terms of input ports, the GS60 offers the best connectivity options that you can find on a slim 15-inch laptop, which includes three USB 3.0 ports, one HDMI 1.4 port, Killer Gigabit LAN, MiniDisplay port, a pair of gold plated audio/microphone ports and sound is powered by Creative’s Sound Blaster 2 engine, the laptop however doesn’t have an optical drive due to its slimness and you probably won’t be needing it.
Overall, the MSI GS60 is an impressive gaming laptop, it is built with the frequent travelling gamer and power user in mind with an impressive 4K UHD resolution display that doesn’t strain your eyes, a lightweight form factor that will not make you dread putting into your bags. I’m not going to spill too much beans here, we’ll be testing the GS60 as our daily driver and will return with a full written and video review on how the GS60 has fared in our review period.
