World's First Gaming Notebook with a Mechanical Keyboard - MSI GT80 Titan
World's First Gaming Notebook with a Mechanical Keyboard - MSI GT80 Titan
2015-02-01
I want to open this review with a
conversation I had with Brandon one of
the camera and editing guys here at
Linus Media Group about a year ago I was
commenting on the keyboard on some
laptop I was reviewing it he asked me
why no laptop manufacturer uses
mechanical keyboards if they're so great
to which I replied because that would be
stupid so without further ado here's my
review of the msi gt80 Titan the world's
first gaming laptop with a cherry MX
brown key switch mechanical gaming
keyboard oh and stay tuned because I'll
reviewing their notebook that can use a
desktop graphics card soon - these guys
are freaking crazy
cooler masters casemod World Series is
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click now to learn more so let's kick
things off with a tour of the outside
shall we this is a portable computer but
to call it a laptop feels almost a
little misleading to me it weighs over
10 pounds is nearly 5 centimeters or two
inches thick when closed and has the
keyboard position so close to the user
that it literally wouldn't balance on
your lap if you wanted the keyboard at a
comfortable distance for use since we've
got it open I guess we'll continue the
tour here there are four drivers located
just under the eighteen point four inch
1080p PLS display that combined with the
bottom mounted subwoofer make this a
relatively loud laptop if you want to
crank up the sound in games or movies
below that is a blank aluminum panel
more on that later buttons for power
switching graphics adapters and turning
the fans up to full speed then below
that still is the touchpad and included
red LED backlit mechanical keyboard what
a strange thing to behold this is in
terms of performance wallets what you'd
expect the keys actually sit the same
height off the desk as a standard
keyboard MX Brown strike a great balance
between acoustics and tactile feel and
are my personal favorites which and the
inclusion of four metal key caps is a
nice touch I do have a couple of
complaints however the lip at the bottom
makes the space bar a little
comfortable than a normal keyboard
especially if you don't have a wrist
rest with you although MSI does include
one in the retail package this key
doesn't need to be duplicated I'd rather
have another function there and the
touch pad while usable is just not a
very practical shape given that it
appears to be just a normal touchpad
that's rotated 90 degrees more on why
they did this a little bit later but one
other neato thing here is the number
lock button on the top left of the pad
the haptic feedback is laggy and
honestly I'd be happier without it but
having the option to type with a number
pad at all here is something I did find
myself using moving on to the sides on
the left is a headphone microphone jack
optical audio 3 USB 3.0 ports an SD card
reader an optical drive and a very large
vent on the right is 2 more USB 3.0
ports and another very large vent then
on the back we find a killer LAN port
HDMI 2.0 2 mini DisplayPort 1.2 ports
one of those unusually beefy 4 pin power
connectors and what two more massive
vents I guess this is a good time to
open this baby up and talk about the
guts on the bottom the first two screws
we're going to remove our here and here
these allow us to slide the top panel to
the right and find the quad and SATA SSD
slots in the GTA 2 yes it's stock
configuration is for SSDs in raid zero
for this model also up here is easy
access to the two and a half inch hard
drive two of the for ddr3 sodium Ram
slots and the optical drive making this
already on par or better than most
gaming laptops in terms of upgrade
ability then we removed the rest of the
screws and pop the bottom off revealing
the reason this bad boy needs so much
cooling down here we've got the battery
wireless module to more RAM slots the
CPU socket that contains a 47 watt core
i7 4980 HQ quad core that turbos up to
four gigahertz we can see why the
touchpad was crammed off to the side
because it's the entire thickness of the
laptop that that keyboard makes up and
finally two massive MXM gtx 980 an 8 gig
graphics cards with this crazy long sli
bridge connecting them
and lots and lots of heat pipes
connecting the CPU and the GPU to the
coolers and the weirdest thing about all
of this is that it actually almost looks
like a mess I want you to have easy
access to everything and that's because
they do along with this notebook they're
launching a program where they will
guarantee that for to full mobile GPU
generations they will provide
mxm and cooling upgrade kits to GT 80
Titan customers who want to stay on the
bleeding edge with next-gen flagship
graphics cards an option that desktop
users take for granted but notebook
users rarely get to experience but let's
take a step back from the amazing
specifications and never-before-seen
innovation and take a moment to talk
about the actual experience of using
this thing Gaming is a treat at eighteen
point four inches and at the distance
that you need to sit to actually use
this computer 1080p is less of an issue
than you might think you don't have to
deal with any scaling and in games
thanks to dynamic super resolution
something you'll have ample power to
utilize you can still get a little bit
better image quality out of them even
though the panel resolution is what it
is but the touchpad necessitates the use
of a mouse when I mean aside from gaming
if you want to get any serious work done
and the space the laptop takes up on a
desk in order to sit a comfortable
distance from it and have room for your
mouse makes this just take up more room
than any other laptop that I've ever
encountered
so it's basically a portable desktop
suitable only for use where you've got a
lot of room to stretch out but it's not
like you aren't getting something in
exchange for all of that hassle the
keyboard is just playing better than any
laptop keyboard ever which I guess leads
us into the conclusion a little bit
earlier in the video than we normally
would because it's less of a two
sentence summary about who I think this
product is intended for and more of a
massive list of the pros and cons of
this incredibly unique piece of gaming
hardware so the pros like I just said
the greatest keyboard on a laptop ever
the performance and the upgrade path
both of which are the best I've ever
seen on a laptop ever the cons it's
heavy its bulky I mean even the power
brick is heavy and bulky it takes up a
lot of space and it is
extremely expensive with the lowest end
model starting over 3,000 US dollars and
then the somewhere in between pro and
con fan noise cooling performance and
battery life are up but what you'd
expect for a large powerful gaming
notebook and the overall fit and finish
is still MSI but not super premium MSI
like their GS series laptops with their
sexy full metal bodies so in my mind
rather than comparing it to the other
options in the market and saying yeah go
for it or no don't go for it
all I can do is present you guys with
this video and let you make your own
choice because for better or for worse
there is nothing else in existence like
this thing and I've been saving this for
the very end because I've been kind of
playing it off but I have to give MSI
this they pulled off this concept in a
way that I didn't expect and sitting
using the device convinced me that a
mechanical keyboard in a laptop is a lot
less stupid than I originally thought it
was so cliff you can put that on the box
if you want guys liked this video if you
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