My Mission

I was getting seriously concerned about the longevity of my laptop after 6+ years of constant daily use and decided to venture out and find a new and improved replacement to take me into the future.

My needs were not too extreme, or so I thought.  I wanted

• A big screen
• Lots of RAM (to run my VMs smoothly – I currently had 8GB and thought 16GB was the way to go)
• Lots of Drive Space

So I set out to my local suppliers (BestBuy, Canada Computers, Staples/Bureau en Gros, …) and was floored when none had any that could fit the bill.  They all seemed to be pushing 13″ tablets (I don’t call those laptops!).  So, since no local retailers had anything to offer, the world wide web had been promoted to my new best friend and so the search began.  I spent a lot of time going back and forth (amazon, newegg, …) reviewing dozens of laptops, but spending a lot of time on MSI and ASUS models, just the way my searches kept coming up.  After at least a month of my procrastination, I decided to finally purchase MSI’s GP73 8RE-079CA Leopard which had some impressive stats:

• CPU: i7-8750H
• RAM: 16GB
• HD: 512GB SSD, 1TB HDD
• Case: Steel (so they say, but in fact it has a plastic bottom which makes it prone to breaking when trying to upgrade/repair the unit!)
• Ports: HDMI, USB-C, USB 3, Ethernet, …

On paper, it looked like a lean and mean machine!

Within a few days, my box arrived and hours of work began.  Installing Windows, Office, every other programs…  Oh, did I forget the countless Microsoft never ending slew of updates!!!  OMG!

So What Are My Impression After a Month of Owning This Unit?  The Good, The Bad & The Truth!

Sadly, I am not overly impressed with the unit and was expecting much more from this unit based on the specs and the reputation that I have heard of MSI.  My main complaints at this point in time include:

• Screen – There is an issue with the screen color which I have to the end of this week to decided if I’m keeping the unit or not. It has a bluish tint and can’t seem to rectify it no matter what I do. I tried playing with the Intel color settings (good luck with that what a mess!). I tried using Windows Calibrate Display Color and that didn’t help.
• Software & Privacy/Data Collection – Typical bloatware, as with every computer nowadays!
• Software – The Dragon Center app (used to manage various aspects of the PC) is far from ideal. Help is buried on the last tab. And your supposed to figure out, somehow, that the update (Driver & App center) is within the Help Desk?! Even if you manage to download certain updates, good luck figuring out how to apply them!!!
• Battery – The battery does not last very long. You certainly are not going to get 5, 8, 10 hours of battery life. I think the reality would be around 2 hours of light computing (general office applications) in my experience.
  • Well, I’ve had my laptop for not even 2 months now and the battery will not charge above 91%.  Even after using the MSI Battery Calibration, it goes back up to 99% and then fade back down to 91-90% within a day or 2.  Nothing like a laptop that has to remained plugged in to be able to use it!
• Battery – Unlike my previous laptops that allow a click of a button removal/replacement of the battery  this unit’s battery is not easily removable.  It is “under the hood”, the unit must be disassembled to access it.  I haven’t opened my unit to see if even once opened up if the battery can be swapped out, but just the fact that you need to open the chassis to change a battery (that we all know needs replacing every year or two) is absurd and shows a complete lack of respect toward MSI’s clients.  What’s makes things worse is the fact that there are MSI models with easily replaceable batteries, so why would they not have implemented that here!?  This is standard throughout the industry and an inexcusable design flaw.
• VMs (Virtual Machines) – Sadly, and to my great surprise, this beast runs my VMs (using VMWare which is the same software I’ve always used) much slower than on my, previous, cheap Acer laptop.  Things that used to be almost instantaneous now take 5-10-20+ seconds and has turned my development VMs into misery to use!  I have tried tweaking all sorts of setting, but have yet to find anything that truly helps.  I will emphasize that there is a big difference housing the VMs on the SSD vs. the HD, but even on the SSD it is slow, the HD is disastrous.
• Chassis – The frame has a lot of give, twists and bends under its own weight.  It is also very weak around certain points making it VERY easy to break when trying to work on the unit.  The Chassis is also poorly designed as it does not provided easy access ports/doors to change the hard drive, RAM, battery.  Instead you need to open the whole unit every time.
• Track Pad – When using the laptop on my knees (or similar setup) the mouse is erratic. Scrolls for no reason, disappears, … I think this has to do with the flex in the frame impacting it electronic components (but that my best guess).
• Hard Drive – The hard drives are slow for a machine of this type!  This was also what was making my VMs so slow, they were held back by the hard drive read/write speed.  I’ve upgraded the secondary HDD and performance has drastically improved.  That said, on a machine of this price and hype, one should not need to upgrade the HDD just to get it functional.
• Over All Design – The unit looks nice, but as mentioned in the chassis section above it is sadly, from a maintenance perspective, is very poorly designed.  To change anything whatsoever you need to open the whole unit.  I’ve worked on numerous laptops and typically, at least the ones I’ve had the pleasure of working on, had ports with 1-2 screws to be able to swap a Hard Drive, RAM, the typical upgrade items.  This unit you have to open the entire things to do anything.  It is shortsighted, poor design and you risk breaking the chassis every time you perform any maintenance/upgrade.  Furthermore, not being able to easily swap the battery, on a laptop, is just plain dumb.  Batteries are consumables and should easily be replaced, like I can on my Acer laptops (one button release).

And then there’s :

• Privacy/Data Collection – Requires you to create an account for everything. Just ridiculous. A Microsoft account, a MSI account, a NVidia Account, and so on and so on… You can’t even update the NVidia drivers unless you create an account. Everyone wants your data!

On the plus side and there are a few:

• The unit is quiet.
  • Don’t get me wrong, when doing intense work and the cooling fans engage, it becomes noisy, but what do you expect and this is true of any laptop.   That said, for me, doing normal business computing, running VMs, the fans never actually engage, so the unit is silent.
• Very fast internet adapter! Drastic improvement over my past PCs
• Lots of RAM for my needs (running VMs – seem above CONS though!)
• Nice big screen

Windows 10 Problems

Originally, I had flagged the following issues relating to the laptop thinking it was an MSI issue:

• Screen – Randomly, when I put the computer to sleep and wake it up and the secondary screen isn’t recognized anymore until I disconnect and reconnect the HDMI connector.
• Wireless – Put the computer to sleep and wake it up and the wireless is gone. I have to restart the unit for wireless to be available again.
• Windows – I had a great deal of trouble getting power settings to stick.
• Windows – There are many other issue relating to Windows 10 (can’t change default app for instance Windows just won’t save the change?!  Apparently this is another Windows known bug!)

That said, over time, these issues have vanished, so I’m very inclined to think they were actually Windows 10 issues!

The Final Verdict

To me this unit deserves a 55-65% overall rating as I truly don’t find much of an improvement (if any) over my 6+ year old Acer i5/8GB RAM.  I guess that last statement says it all, it isn’t any better than a 6+ year old average Acer laptop.

I was expecting much more considering the increase processing power/RAM/… and price! I don’t see what the hype surrounding MSI computers is all about, and IMHO, is most certainly not warranted.

Spend your money elsewhere would be my final word of advice.