fbpx

Hands-On: MSI GS70 Stealth Gaming Laptop

MSI’s newest gaming laptop to land in the Philippines, the MSI GS70, comes with a dashing SteelSeries backlit keyboard. It carries the latest generation Intel chip and the best possible hardware MSI can muster.

MSI certainly went to great lengths to make the GS70 their nicest-looking and most powerful gaming laptop. The large 17.3-inch matte display looks very stunning at a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels (works great with playing hi-def games and movies).

The body is made up of aluminum chassis, right from the lid all the way to the interior of the keyboard and palm rest. This adds more flare to the slim profile of the laptop.

The brushed-metal finish surrounds the metal cover which minimizes smudges around the body. Aside from the MSI logo on the lid, there’s also another dragon-inspired emblem just below it, probably signifying the Gaming G Series of the device in MSI’s line-up. There’s even a suede-type fabic that lines part of the bottom end of the laptop.

All the connectivity ports are found on both sides of the device — on the right side are 2 USB 3.0 ports, the SD card reader and the power port; on the left side are 2 more USB 3.0 ports, dual mini Display ports, HDMI port, LAN port and 3 audio ports.

What also got our interest was the full-sized keyboard which was designed in collaboration with SteelSeries. The rounded, island-type keys are very comfortable, has enough travel and spacing from each other.

As a gaming keyboard, SteelSeries placed its signature design, or bling, into the unit. The back-lighting feels like some gimmick at times but it does add to the gaming pleasure, especially when under low-light conditions. It’s not a first, and we’ve already seen it with the likes of Alienware laptops before, yet it does strike a good first impression.

We have to say though, the multi-color configuration of the backlit keyboard makes it look like there’s a carnival running in there.

MSI GS70 specs:
17.3-inch full HD 1080p display @ 1920×1080 pixels, Anti-Glare
Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4GHz
Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M 2GB GDDR5
Intel HD 4600 Graphics
16GB DDR3 RAM
256GB SSD + 750GB HHD
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
HDMI port
4 x USB 3.0 port
2 x mini Display port
Windows 8.1
6-cell Li-Ion battery

The Haswell chip also comes with an Intel HD 4600 graphics which can be used to prolong battery life and when not used in gaming. If you want more power, the discreet graphics can take over (Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M) to provide all the muscle you need.

As for storage, MSI placed a 256GB SSD drive (that’s two 128GB SSD on Raid 0) into the combo with another 750GB of HDD, addressing both performance and drive capacity at the same time. We got a PassMark score of 3,980.8 on the unit and 19,068 on 3DMark06.

Battery life is another issue though but that’s to be expected of a gaming laptop, we can hardly get a decent play time of about 3 hours or so on a single full charge. You’ll always have to find an outlet if you want to keep playing a little longer.

Over-all, it’s a pretty good gaming laptop — large, full HD display, powerful CPU and GPU, great combo between an SSD and a HDD, plus that colorful backlit keyboard from SteelSeries.

The MSI GS70 has a suggested retail price of Php99,995 and is offered in stores for Php8,333/month at 0% interest for 12 months.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 983 other subscribers
Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

14 Responses

  1. Avatar for Lakan Tutan Lakan Tutan says:

    bulag at tanga yata yang si @putanginamo…bukod sa hindi marunong gumamit ng google search para mapag-compare yung appearance ng msi gs70 sa razer blade eh ang kapal pa ng mukhang murahin si @Real Gamer gamit yung username nya. sigurado kapag niyaya mo ng suntukan yang si @putanginamo eh malamang tatakbo at magtatago yan sa palda ng nanay nya.

    bagay dyan kay @putanginamo ipa-rambo!

  2. Avatar for Real Gamer Real Gamer says:

    Am I the only one who thinks that the design of the MSI GS70 is very similar to Razer Blade’s design?!

    • Avatar for putanginamo putanginamo says:

      Yes, you are the only who who thinks the design itself is similar to a Razer Blade.

    • Avatar for Real Gamer Real Gamer says:

      @p***nginamo
      What’s wrong with you kiddo? Did your mom went off against your idea of buying your favorite toy this christmas? What a pity. Go fetch the brain you’ve just flushed down the toilet sink!

      It’s obvious that MSI is competing against the Razer Blade with the MSI GS70 for a fight in the thinnest gaming laptop in the world.

    • Avatar for Real Gamer Real Gamer says:

      @p***nginamo
      Guess I’m not the only one who thinks that the MSI GS70 is similar to Razer Blade, eh?
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2013/08/23/a-gaming-ultrabook-grudge-match-razer-blade-pro-versus-msi-gs70-stealth/

    • Avatar for Lakan Tutan Lakan Tutan says:

      @putanginamo
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDlMBVUdPBg

  3. Avatar for Ace Ace says:

    With that price, I would rather get a Sager 8255 Special Edition (with Nvidia 780m) which is priced at around 88,950 PHP locally. Plus Sager is very much customizable (like having 2 mSata slots and 2 HDD/SSD slots + 1 ODD slot convertible to HDD caddy). Or if you’re content with an 8970m or 770m GPU, then you can have it 10k – 20k lower than the Special edition.

    • Avatar for evollove evollove says:

      Where??? Saang store? Or sa Sager talaga mismo and dapat i-credit card?

    • Avatar for Ace Ace says:

      There’s a local distro here, with 1 year local warranty. Got mine from them last October. Not sure if it’s OK to post store names in this comment section, so just check the Sager thread in TPC to get an idea regarding the distro.

  4. Avatar for Mikey Mikey says:

    I saw this during the pinoy gaming festival and I was amazed but when I saw the razer blade in the event as well I was disappointing.

    The build isn’t that good, plus the sides are made of metal which can really hurt someone when holding. Its a bit heavy but its given for its size and purpose.

    Perhaps for the desgin my main complaint would just be it looks like the lid of my vivobook notebook

  5. Avatar for evollove evollove says:

    99k? It’s not too bad kung i-consider mo na thin and light ang GS70, pero mas maganda ang hardware ng ASUS G750JX ROG at approximately the same price.

    And if thin and light na gaming laptop habol mo, maganda and mas mabilis ang Lenovo Y510p for 30k less, kaso baka ayaw mo mag-deal with issues regarding NVidia SLI and naghahanap ka ng DVD drive sa laptop (not included).

  6. Avatar for MFC MFC says:

    Ano po price nito?

  7. Avatar for shemay shemay says:

    How much?

Leave a Reply
JOIN OUR TELEGRAM DISCUSSION

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *