Processor: Intel Core i5 430M 2.26GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD GMA and ATI Radeon 5730 1GB (switchable graphics)
Screen: 15.4inch 16:9 ratio LED backlit
HDD: 500GB 7200rpm
Wireless LAN: 802.11 b/g/n
Ports: 1 x HDMI, 3 x USB 2.0, 1 x e-SATA/USB combo port, 1 x VGA, 1 x LAN, 1 x modem, 1 x express card slot
Battery: 9 cell
Optical Drive: Super Multi DVD drive
Sound: SRS with sub woofer
Others: Touch based inputs such as mute, volume up/down, switching graphics, CINEMA Pro mode, 1.3MP webcam
Weight: 2.7kg
Exterior
The GE600 is glossy all sides, that includes even the insides of the laptop. This meant that the laptop is a fingerprint magnet. It's not as bad as some other glossy surfaces but I had wished that it was a matt surface. The description says it's black and gold but the dark gold colour is subtle and is not overly striking. The hinges are strong and does not feel like it's falling apart. The keyboard is a full keyboard with keys of ample size. However the keyboard is sunk into the laptop compared to the palm rest and this made typing a little awkward. This is something that one can get used to though. The function key from MSI is finally changed from its original position of bottom left hand corner to beside the CTRL key. There has been complaints about accidentally pressing the function key instead of the CTRL key when people play games. Glad they took the complaints into account. The glossy screen did better than expected. It was not completed washed out in bright light.
The keypad has good tactile feedback and the keys provide strong pressure. One bad thing was that the notification lights were at the bottom right hand corner and they were small. There's only lights for wireless, battery, sleep mode, harddisk in use, scroll, num and caps lock. The touch panel above the keyboard is useful but not very visible. The speakers grill at on both sides of the touch panel which seemed quite solid. There's also a subwoofer output at the bottom. The ports were also well placed with one USB port at the left, back and right side of the laptop each. The e-SATA combo port, HDMI, power, VGA (which annoyingly juts out) and LAN port are on the right as well. The optical disk and audio inputs are on the left. The ventilation fans are on the back.
The 9 cell battery juts out at the back but that's to be expected for a high capacity battery. The weight is not exactly light at 2.7kg so this is a sacrifice to make if you want a gaming laptop.
Performance
The switchable graphics works well. At the touch of the button on the touch panel, the system ask if you're sure and you can either click to confirm or wait 300s for the change to take place. The switch takes about 5 seconds. While using the integrated graphics card, you can really feel that the laptop is cooler and the ventilation fans blow out relatively cool air. Windows 7 Aero interface is not laggy even with integrated graphics but watching HD content wasn't as smooth.
The CINEMA Pro SRS certified speakers was a letdown. I'll say the sound quality was more consistent when the feature was not switched on. With the touch of the Touch Panel, the CINEMA PRO is activated, the screen is slightly more vibrant and the subwoofer is used. Listening to pop songs such as Lady Gaga's Telephone and One Republic's All The Right Moves was disastrous. The volume was loud at first then mid way the volume was fluctuating even though I did nothing to the volume setting. The feature seems more stable at mid volume. The sounds were also hollow with or without the feature. Instrumentals such as the Black Mage's The Extreme (FFVIII) and JENOVA (FFVII) also came up to about the same quality. However Lady Gaga's Alejandro was quite good on the feature. I have not watched movie on it but I would say this is one disappointing feature.
The graphics is pretty good, though ATI 5730 is still not a class 1 card. Not much can be expected from this card except mid end gaming. So far I've only tried Starcraft II Beta and Devil May Cry 4 which both yielded stable frame rates (> 40fps) at high settings. Heat produced was considerably higher but a cooler is still not required, though I don't expect the same thing if I were to play Crysis.
Overall this is a good mid range gaming laptop with sufficient screen size and gaming power. If you can look past the keyboard and the lousy sound quality, this might just be your dream machine at this price.
Pros:
Good graphics
Value for money
Switchable graphics
9 cell battery for longer battery life
Touch Panel for convenience
Decent screen size for gaming
Heat ventilation is above average
Cons:
Quite heavy
Sound quality is very bad
Keyboard feels a bit awkward to type on
Glossy surfaces which are fingerprint magnet
you can't really tell that the surface is gold colour. the screen is glossy but not overly reflective
here's a look at the touch panel and speaker's grill
the keyboard seemed a little on the chiclet side with good tactile response. too bad it is sunk in and that makes it a little awkward to type
the keypad comes with Epad technology which allows you to use multi touch to perform certain functions such as opening My Computer or scrolling horizontally and vertically
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