MSI - GS Series Stealth Pro 15.6" Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 - 1TB HDD + 256GB SSD - Aluminum black

I'm not going to go in great detail with a review about the obvious as you can simply read others reviews about this laptop all over the internet. I will say one thing about this laptop - it's a powerhouse. It can handle anything that you throw at it at 80+ fps with everything maxed out. Like I said above, rather than write a full review, I'm going to point out some "what you gotta do's" when you buy this as well as point out some possible "deal breakers." **To the people who are thinking about purchasing this or already have it and are noobs - pay close attention to the following... There are 3 things that you want to do with this as soon as you buy it. 1. Replace the 1TB hard drive. It' will get rid of the lag that you will hear people complaining about that have this model and the previous 6RF model. 2. Do a fresh install of Windows 10. Wipe all of the MSI junk and bloatware off of this laptop. You're stupid if you don't. Sorry to be harsh but if you'd prefer to keep the MSI junk just re-download it after you preform a fresh install. You'll thank me later. 3. Undervolt the CPU. As with most gaming laptops, the CPU is fed too much unnecessary power and causes temps to jump into the mid 90's while gaming. If you think this is OK then you're nuts. Simply go on youtube and search how to undervolt the i7 7700hq and download either program and undervolt the core by 0.100 volts. You'll notice that the CPU never goes over 85 celsius. Also, for those that want to know - these are the temps that I'm getting after doing everything mentioned above. Idle GPU(nvidia) - 50 celsius Idle CPU - 45 celsius(down from 55-60 celsius before undervolting) Gaming GPU(nvidia) - 85 celsius playing GTA 5 Gaming CPU - 82 celsius playing GTA 5(down from 95 degrees) **Also, if you've ever heard of coil whining, be prepared to become it's best friend owning this laptop. There's an ambient yet sometimes annoying whining noise coming from the i7 kaby lake CPU when you have the power setting set to high performance. Set it to balanced to reduce the noise. Also, after undervolting it will also reduce the noise a little more so that you won't hear it anymore unless you try to hear it, if that makes any sense. Any questions, reply to my review and I'll try to help out.

As stated above my various different reviewers this laptop is a powerhouse. The bloatware truly will slow it down as with any store-bought laptop and removing it all is simple just do a fresh windows install. Make sure to just have an external HDD or flash drive w/8gb available. There is all kinds of posts online about how to do it and it makes a huge difference. Second is the undervolting, it is so simple to do with the Intel XTU app which can be downloaded. Other then that replacing the 1tb HDD isn't a must right away but can be done down the road. I was choosing between the ASUS ROG and Eluktronics models. I couldn't pass up the slick look of this laptop and being able to buy it in store made a huge difference. As for the screen I cant tell the difference between IPS and this FHD model. 10/10 Would recommend. Feel free to ask any questions.

TL;DR: It's great - buy it I'm glad I did. I've had this laptop just over a day and I'm thrilled with it. What's there to complain about in a thin, light laptop that boots up faster than I can get ready to use it? While a day isn't enough time to have really put it through its paces and see how it performs in all situations, it's been doing great so far. From basic surfing and email to some coding work and gaming it's handled everything flawlessly. The only time I heard the cooling fans was while gaming, and that was a low sound that was not annoying or disturbing in any way. While I play a lot of games, I don't usually go for machines with extra lighting/LEDs/etc, so my expectation was that I would be turning off the colorful backlighting on the Steelseries keyboard. Fast forward to today, it's still on. It looks great, and when I turned it down (the brightness is adjustable) or off I found myself missing it. The software to customize the lighting looks like it'll be really useful if I feel like changing from the default lighting that I'm currently using. Speaking of the Steelseries keyboard, it works great. Good tactile feedback, solid movement, and the sound is satisfying in that you get the audible feedback you expect without it being too loud. The keys are stable - not mushy. There are a few odd bits, like the right hand shift key being a little small so I'm having to focus on hitting it while getting used to this keyboard. The zero on the keypad also led to a few mistakes as I'm used to a double-wide zero key on a full size keyboard. Again, it's just a small difference to get used to. I'm really happy with the screen. It's bright and crisp, very responsive, and hasn't shown any problems with the games I've played. Outside of gaming, pages are clear and easily readable when browsing the web, reading email, or coding. Performance overall is very quick, including both the SSD and regular hard drive. I haven't noticed any delays related to their performance. Similarly the Wi-Fi interface has been performing great. I've been installing software and games without a wired connection and it hasn't felt slow at all. I'm sure doing it with a wired connection would have been faster, but the speed I was able to download them at was more than satisfactory. There's only two small things I wish I could change. I would prefer that the MSI logo on the cover didn't light up, but that's really minor. The other - which I knew beforehand but chose to overlook - is the placement of the power cord jack. The middle of the right hand side is odd, but at least it's a right angle connector so it doesn't get in the way. All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase of this laptop.

After owning an MSI GS63VR, and working with the various models they offer, I have mixed feelings about this particular model (252). PROS: -7th Generation i7 is powerful and smooth -Solid build quality -Thin and lightweight design -Lightning fast performance after bloatware is disabled -GTX 1060 powerful enough for graphic intensive games -16 GB RAM DDR4 -Solid State and Hard Drive CONS: -The screen on the "252" model is very low quality compared to the "228", "229" and "230" models. The viewing angles are poor and the colors are washed out. -The solid state drive is SATA instead of the NVme drives on the "228", "229", and "230" models. Although fast, this means 1/3 the read/write speeds, noticeable to those working heavily with audio/video. -Bloatware makes it slow at first, must delete unnecessary apps for optimal performance. -Battery life is lacking. The screen on the "252" was difficult to look at for extended periods. If you're going to be using an external monitor often, this may not be an issue, but if you'll only be using the built in screen be sure to try it out at the store. Best Buy also sells similar models but with better screens and faster solid state drives for a bit more money. Overall, all of the GS63VR models offer great performance, but be aware of the differences in screens and solid state drives.

I purchased this laptop over a MacBook Pro. I just couldn't justify the specs vs price of the MacBook. I use Adobe CC daily, editing photos, video and with graphic design. I am not a gamer. I also purchased this after returning the new Dell XPS laptop. I had a number of issues with the XPS, though I liked certain things as well. One thing is that 4K monitors on laptops are problematic. That's all I'm going to say about that. This machine is sleek and attractive. This is my favorite keyboard that I've ever used on a laptop. Only thing that I'm not krazy about are the buttons on the trackpad. I use a Logitech thumb roller mouse now so no big deal. It's still a usable trackpad. I run the heck out of this machine and it handles what I throw at it. The matte screen might not be for everyone, but I like it. I often work with this laptop on my thighs with my knees in the air while on a bed, this machine can push some heat, so make sure you have long enough shorts or pants on so that your skin is not directly touching the machine. I do like the felt bottom design. It helps with the heat. The extra HD is awesome. I utilize the heck out of it and don't know how I ever survived with a single hard drive in a laptop. I still use outboard hds as well. The led lights on the keyboard are customizable. I have mine all set to red. Makes it easy to work in the dark. The touch and feel of the keyboard is excellent. This laptop is a bit wide for some, but suits my taste well. If you're looking for a laptop with high specs, this is a good sleek machine. Though I mentioned heat with this machine, please note MSI has some of the best tech as far as air cooling goes in laptops. Other machines are worse!

I purchased this computer for my son about 6 weeks ago. So far, the only issue we have encountered is the wifi adapter turning off, which I discovered to be the battery saver mode turning off wifi to to conserve the battery when unplugged. A minor inconvenience but easy fix. He plays multiple PC games, Occulus Rift, and uses the computer for his coding classes, and has not complained about the computer lagging or any other issues.

This laptop isn't the cheapest, but it hits the sweet spot for performance and form with a generous array of inputs for your PC gaming needs. An easy recommendation over the Alienware 15.

I've been building desktops for years and never really had a need for a high performance laptop and I also have an issue with the concept of something that gets outdated as fast as a laptop because there are limited possibilities to upgrade important systems (such as the processor and graphics cards). Recently I've been doing a lot of traveling so I took the plunge and brought this bad boy home. MSI gaming laptops get very good reviews overall, I had not seen the reviews on this particular unit before I bought it but after only a few days use I'd say this is another winner for them. By current 2017 standards this machine should run any currently released game pretty well (I play black desert online in high graphics mode) and the thunderbolt 3 interface adds a whole bunch of options for extra displays etc. The multiple USB 3 ports are great (and are backwards compatible with usb 2 devices). One of the things that attracted me the most to this machine is the "excellent" built in steel series keyboard. No other laptop that I've seen lately has such a nice feeling keyboard and the color changing keys is just an added bling bling. The keyboard also apparently can do macros but I haven't had a chance to play with that yet. The thin metal case just screams "firari" at you when you first see it and pick it up. For all the power in this machine it is surprisingly light. The keyboard is excellent the screen is better, I just can't find many bad things to say here. As always when you get a new computer you can count on many hours of upgrades both to the machine and windows, then of course you get to download your games and other stuff (does anything even come on a dvd anymore??). The machine comes standard with 16 gig installed, the guy that sold me the machine said he didn't think it could take anymore ram and they don't say anything about the issue in the book but from what I have read and seen the motherboard does have a second ram slot it is just not a simple matter to get to it. The ram slots are under the keyboard and the only way to get to them is to remove the bottom/back of the laptop and take out the motherboard. Anyone used to building machines and changing out laptop keypads etc. should not be too afraid of this but as these are high performance 16 gig ddr4 chips they are still a little on the expensive side (and a person concerned with best performance may want to have a pair of the same chip). I don't currently need the upgrade but when the RAM chips come down in price I may just go ahead and get one and install it as more RAM is never a bad thing. This machine has several cooling fans for the cpu and the gpu as well, no matter what you do..heat will always be one of the limiting factors for a high performance laptop just because it's so hard to deal with so much heat in the small space of a laptop case, those stands with the extra fans do seem to help but you can still expect a lot of heat on the bottom of the machine. The MSI tools include a temperature monitor and the ability to adjust your fan speeds etc. At full blast the fan noise is noticeable but it doesn't bother me at all as I use a headset for voice chat etc. You want your components cool, screw the noise. If you've never heard of USB C that's a sort of new thing, the google nexus 5x and some of the newer google phones use USB C, the main advantages are usb 3 communication speed and the socket/cable is not keyed you can plug it in any direction no issues. The C bus can also provide more than 5v of power over the cable and is also backwards compatible to other usb varieties with adapters etc. This is a very expensive laptop but the top end specs should mean it will last longer than a machine with lower specs going into the future. This model has two sata plugs for a hard drive and a small ssd to make windows load much faster, etc. From what I have seen so far you cannot access the contents of this smaller ssd by default (MSI probably did that for a reason). In theory you could pull out that small ssd and install a larger ssd or another old school spinner drive. Upon login you use the MSI set password not the windows password that is usually set when you log into another windows machine--personally I'd appreciate it if they'd give me the choice so it's a bit easier to remember the password. Yes, this was a heckuva lot of money but you'll spend as much on an apple book with probably lower specs than this one or an ipad with all the bells and whistles. You will be glad you made this purchase rather than dealing with a lower spec machine that cost less. it's sort of amusing that in the past games were written with the ability to run on lesser hardware because gamers tended to be poor, these days that trend seems to have totally reversed!