neminem
11-05-2010, 02:31 PM
Didn't see a thread for it yet, so I decided to register and make one to register my excitement over having a new computer. The MSI GX740: one of only two laptops I found with a 16:10-aspect screen still on the market, and the other one's like twice as expensive.
Before I bought it, I seriously scoured the internet for people complaining about it, to see if any of their complaints were dealbreakers. So I figure a list of everything I found, and whether they're actually true, could be helpful to anyone else thinking about buying this computer:
* The biggest issue was that it had major, massive problems with overheating. Out of the box, this was, in fact, entirely accurate. I guess MSI doesn't like publicizing how they messed up, because there's a ridiculously easy fix, available for download on MSI's site, but in a completely out of the way spot and no information on just how important it is. Anyway, if you buy this computer, you will want to patch the vbios. It takes a few seconds, and fixes all the overheating issues. Oh, and it increases the battery life enormously, too. Everything's still working properly afterwards, as far as I can tell. (Incidentally, I hear the same is true of the 660 - saw someone complaining about this in a thread a couple pages down, hopefully he found the fix eventually.)
* Some people complained about the noise levels. With the fan running, it was about as loud as my previous, 5-year-old laptop (seems about standard). When not under load, it's way quieter than my previous laptop. I have absolutely no complaints about the noise at all (though if I hadn't flashed the vbios, the fan would probably be running more and stronger to deal with the overheating... that might have something to do with the complaints.)
* Everyone's complaining about the swapped ctrl and fn keys. I figured I'd get used to it eventually; in fact, it's been about a day, and I already pretty much am. What people didn't complain about, and I have no idea why, is that the home and end keys were mapped to fn+pgup/pgdn. But unlike the fn key, they're available for remapping (though I did discover that native Windows remapping doesn't remap the pause key correctly; AutoHotKey works perfectly, though.) There's also a second backslash key between the space bar and the left alt that makes no sense; I extended the space bar onto it with AutoHotKey ;). (The keyboard also feels a little bit vertically squished, but I'm sure I'll get used to that soon enough too.)
* I saw a few complaints that the screen was anywhere from "mediocre" to "godawfully terrible", which worried me a bit... the screen looks great, as far as I'm concerned. I've got no complaints about it. Some specifically mentioned that it wasn't bright enough; I've got it turned to 80% brightness, 100%'s too bright for me. :p
* Several reviews actually specifically mentioned the ridiculous sticker that came attached, that was impossible to get off. This, at least, was entirely true. The sticker was glued on with the vilest glue I'd ever seen. Took several minutes to pull the thing off, and a couple hours prodding the remains to get all the adhesive off. Sort of lame, but if that's going to stop you from buying it, you should probably rethink your priorities.
* A couple reviews complained that it wasn't 16:9, which I just figured I'd mention cause I found it hilarious, being that that was precisely why I bought this laptop over all the others. (Some also complained that it didn't do 1920x1200, which doesn't really bug me. I'd have taken it, but I'm fine with 1680x1050, too.)
So, it took a bit of fiddling, but... I'm totally happy with the purchase. I haven't really tested its limits yet, but I did log into WoW, turned all the settings up to max, and flew into Lag City (i.e. Dalaran), and it only stuttered the tiniest bit. Everywhere that isn't Lag City, ran at max with no issues. And with all that... it's still way lighter than my previous laptop.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and MSI also installed about an order of magnitude less crapware than HP, too; that was pretty nice of them. And, unlike HP's, every one of the handful of stupid programs they installed had a working uninstaller, too! (Seriously. My last computer, was filled to the gills with garbage, and a couple of them I had to break out regedit and unlocker to get rid of them completely.)
Before I bought it, I seriously scoured the internet for people complaining about it, to see if any of their complaints were dealbreakers. So I figure a list of everything I found, and whether they're actually true, could be helpful to anyone else thinking about buying this computer:
* The biggest issue was that it had major, massive problems with overheating. Out of the box, this was, in fact, entirely accurate. I guess MSI doesn't like publicizing how they messed up, because there's a ridiculously easy fix, available for download on MSI's site, but in a completely out of the way spot and no information on just how important it is. Anyway, if you buy this computer, you will want to patch the vbios. It takes a few seconds, and fixes all the overheating issues. Oh, and it increases the battery life enormously, too. Everything's still working properly afterwards, as far as I can tell. (Incidentally, I hear the same is true of the 660 - saw someone complaining about this in a thread a couple pages down, hopefully he found the fix eventually.)
* Some people complained about the noise levels. With the fan running, it was about as loud as my previous, 5-year-old laptop (seems about standard). When not under load, it's way quieter than my previous laptop. I have absolutely no complaints about the noise at all (though if I hadn't flashed the vbios, the fan would probably be running more and stronger to deal with the overheating... that might have something to do with the complaints.)
* Everyone's complaining about the swapped ctrl and fn keys. I figured I'd get used to it eventually; in fact, it's been about a day, and I already pretty much am. What people didn't complain about, and I have no idea why, is that the home and end keys were mapped to fn+pgup/pgdn. But unlike the fn key, they're available for remapping (though I did discover that native Windows remapping doesn't remap the pause key correctly; AutoHotKey works perfectly, though.) There's also a second backslash key between the space bar and the left alt that makes no sense; I extended the space bar onto it with AutoHotKey ;). (The keyboard also feels a little bit vertically squished, but I'm sure I'll get used to that soon enough too.)
* I saw a few complaints that the screen was anywhere from "mediocre" to "godawfully terrible", which worried me a bit... the screen looks great, as far as I'm concerned. I've got no complaints about it. Some specifically mentioned that it wasn't bright enough; I've got it turned to 80% brightness, 100%'s too bright for me. :p
* Several reviews actually specifically mentioned the ridiculous sticker that came attached, that was impossible to get off. This, at least, was entirely true. The sticker was glued on with the vilest glue I'd ever seen. Took several minutes to pull the thing off, and a couple hours prodding the remains to get all the adhesive off. Sort of lame, but if that's going to stop you from buying it, you should probably rethink your priorities.
* A couple reviews complained that it wasn't 16:9, which I just figured I'd mention cause I found it hilarious, being that that was precisely why I bought this laptop over all the others. (Some also complained that it didn't do 1920x1200, which doesn't really bug me. I'd have taken it, but I'm fine with 1680x1050, too.)
So, it took a bit of fiddling, but... I'm totally happy with the purchase. I haven't really tested its limits yet, but I did log into WoW, turned all the settings up to max, and flew into Lag City (i.e. Dalaran), and it only stuttered the tiniest bit. Everywhere that isn't Lag City, ran at max with no issues. And with all that... it's still way lighter than my previous laptop.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and MSI also installed about an order of magnitude less crapware than HP, too; that was pretty nice of them. And, unlike HP's, every one of the handful of stupid programs they installed had a working uninstaller, too! (Seriously. My last computer, was filled to the gills with garbage, and a couple of them I had to break out regedit and unlocker to get rid of them completely.)