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Priced well under $700, the MSI GV62 8RD-275 is a solid enough gaming laptop for entry-level gamers on the look-out for a budget machine. It looks and feels similar to an Acer Predator Helios 300 but shines for its price and performance ratio. It’s a stylish gaming laptop that will tempt students and entry-level gamers. Pros An excellently designed cooling system Features a powerful set of specs that get all sorts of work done Comfortable chiclet keyboard with backlight and number pad Beautiful minimalistic design Relatively lightweight Easy maintenance Wide port selection Cons Plastic body is not as sturdy as would be desired Dull display Waiverable battery life Its matte black finish is a fingerprint magnet The fan can get pretty loud when gaming MSI GV62 8RD-275 15.6" Performance Gaming Laptop... Display: 15.6 inches Full HD eDP IPS Level 45 percent NTSCGraphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050TI 4G GDDR5Processor: Intel Core i5 8300H 2.3 4.0GHz Check Price The MSI GV62 8RD-275 might not blow you away with any particular aspect except for its price tag. If anything, if you’re looking for the newest features in the graphics card, you won’t find it here. It rocks an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti GPU with its only newest feature being the Intel Core i5-8300H processor. Discouraged? Well, don’t be. All these features combine to make a budget gaming laptop capable of playing the latest games smoothly at 1080p. While it can't guarantee you an ideal 60 frames per second (fps) in AAA games, it can consistently stay above 30fps, more than acceptable for the price and a noticeable bump over the GTX 1050. Add a modern gamer-themed design, a strong sturdy build, good battery life, plenty of storage and this Dell is a winner in the entry-level gaming field. Overall, it snags the Editor’s Choice award for the best budget gaming laptop for its impressive performance and reasonable price tag. We easily recommend it for users who can’t afford the $1000 price of an Acer Predator Helios 300. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Specs Screen size 15.6-inch Display 1920 x 1080 Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5-8300H Memory 8GB DDR4 Storage 256GB SSD Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti Dimensions 15.1 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches Weight 4.8 pounds Battery Life 3 hours 54 minutes MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review-Design and Features The MSI GV62 8RD-275’s design features several hallmarks of a gaming laptop. From first glance, you’ll see the few red accents, an aggressive MSI logo, and angular form with muscled lines on the chassis. The build quality is great even with a fully-plastic chassis…well, nothing close to the all-aluminum unibody designs of the MacBook Pro and Razer Blade 15. Most of the laptop is complete with matte-black plastic and brushed black anodized aluminum that looks sharp. The two blend up well and offer plenty of soft-touch finish that’s great to the touch. Overall, the design doesn’t fall too far away from the Acer Predator Helios 300 laptop. In fact, MSI borrows the black and red color scheme, the same tried-and-tested aesthetic for gaming laptops. Like every gaming laptop, we’ve reviewed in the past, the rear has a series of car-like vents. The MSI GV62 8RD-275 picks up on this design but adds a bit of fine through attractive red accents along with the vents. Opening the display is easy and it takes just a single handle to swing the lid up. The MSI’s interior is no less lovely inside than it is outside. The interior has more of that modern black soft touch, with a spacious keyboard, touchpad and palm rest to go around. At 15.1 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches and 4.8 pounds the MSI GV62 is an average weighing laptop. It’s definitely lighter than the Acer Predator 15 (15.4 x 11.8 x 1.5 inches, 8.2 pounds). The Acer Predator Helios 300 (10.5 x 15.3 x 1.1 inches, 5.51 pounds) has a smaller footprint but weighs slightly more compared to MSI. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review - Display A gaming laptop with black and red theme color scheme The display offers a full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution with IPS technology. That translates to crisp clear images and video and overall great viewing angles. For the most part, this is pretty ordinary for a 15.6-inch laptop in this price range. Users with extra change in their pockets can opt for a 144Hz panel or a 4K panel too. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review - Ports Port selection is similar to other budget gaming machines. All the basics are here, including two display outputs that support a minimum of 4K at 60 Hz. The dedicated microphone and audio out jacks are appreciated, as is the Ethernet jack, a connection that is becoming increasingly rare these days. The lack of Thunderbolt 3 is notable, but its absence is to be expected at this price. The MSI GV62 8RD-275 comes with a pretty neat selection of ports - nothing out of the ordinary from what we expect at its category, but all the same comforting to have. The right side hosts the power jack, card reader, and USB 2.0 port. The left flank comes with a Kensington lock slot, an RJ-45 port for a wired Ethernet connection, a USB 3.0 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, a mini DisplayPort, a USB 3.0 port followed by a USB 3.1 (type C) and a microphone and headphone jack. The two display outputs support display of a 4k at 60Hz and the presence of a separate audio out jack and microphone jack is a welcome feature. Wi-Fi connectivity is via Intel 9462 card that supports 802.11 ac Wi-Fi over a 1x1 connection. It is fast, strong and stable, although not as fast as with large file downloads as a 2x2 card. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review - Performance A quick glance at the spec sheet of this laptop suggests a well-balanced machine capable of handling pretty much anything you throw at it – and on the whole, this is the case. First, fire up the machine and it immediately feels snappy thanks to the 256GB Solid-state drive storage that houses the operating system. Other than storage, the system comes with an Intel Core i5-8300H processor, 8GB RAM, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti GPU. It’s a combination powerful enough to handle most daily productivity tasks, editing, and gaming. Furthermore, it’s a combination with enough muscle such that the system remains cool and calm even under load. For better understanding, the Core i5-8300H is a quad-core processor with HyperThreading and TurboBoost. It’s part of the Intel Coffee Lake H family of high-performance mobile processors meant for multimedia, gaming and workstation laptops. The Cores have a base clock speed of 2.3 GHz, but they can Turbo up to 4.0 GHz (Max Single Core Turbo). As you’d expect, this Coffee Lake processor is used to power mid-range multimedia laptops and entry-level gaming notebooks. It’s an excellent option for users on a tighter budget who aren’t willing to shove the extra $150+ for the i7 or just don’t need the high-tier extra performance of a 6-core Coffee Lake option. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review - Memory and storage MSI included an 8GB DDR4 memory for this laptop. 8GB might not seem like much for some but it’s considered the baseline amount for casual and gaming laptops. With 8GB, the system can handle demanding tasks such as office productivity, web browsing, media streaming, photo-editing, and gaming. As far as storage goes, MSI brought in a 256GB Solid-state drive storage and no hard drive. The SSD is fast enough to keep boot-ups and the loading of software and games nippy. Our main caveat with this system with regards to storage is that it’s not enough. You will likely run out of space in a month. Users looking to save huge data files, games, video and multimedia might hardly enough storage space for such huge data. In that case, it might be advisable to invest in external hard drive storage as a buffer. A 1TB drive will set you back roughly $50, and a 2TB drive about $130. This upgrade is critical for anyone who plans to use the MSI GV62 as a gaming laptop, as games today can easily push 50GB of space. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review - Gaming Prowess When it comes to gaming, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti at the heart of this laptop does a good job of getting you close to those 144fps when gaming at 1080p. On the flip side, cranking up the details on settings and the system will struggle a bit in the latest AAA titles. Nevertheless, it will max out the refresh rate of the display in some less demanding games such as Fortnite, Counter-Strike and Quake Champions. Inevitably, like most systems, because of the huge effort of the graphics card and processor, a lot of heat and noise is produced. Fortunately, for the MSI GV62 8RD-275, the cooling system manages the heat pretty well. It, however, does ramp up under load, but nothing to loud to get to an annoying level - so day to day use shouldn’t see you disturbed. Here are some gaming benchmarks: Game Title Frames per Second (fps) Dirt Rally 65.5 fps at Ultra High Settings and 1080p Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor 58.3 fps at Ultra High Settings and 1080p Hitman 43 fps at Ultra High Settings and 1080p MSI GV62 8RD-275 Battery life Like most gaming laptops, battery life is not an aspect to be pleased about. The MSI GV62 8RD-275’s battery lasted 3 hours, 54 minutes, on battery rundown tests, which isn’t so different from other gaming laptops. Competition such as the Acer Predator 15 lasted 4 hours on the battery test which consists of continuous streaming over Wi-Fi. Compared to the Acer Predator Helios 300’s 3 hours 45 minutes, these two laptops are almost at par. The battery life won’t last you through a whole day of productivity which means you will have to carry your charger with you. You might be able to squeeze in a few minutes of battery life by setting the screen brightness below 150 nits. However, it’s unlikely you’ll get much more than half an hour or so by doing this. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review - Keyboard MSI is well-known for its Steel Series comfortable backlit keyboards and gaming mice. The MSI GV62 8RD-275 has a built-in SteelSeries keyboard well-crafted with three zones and a predominant red lighting pattern. Each key comes with a 1.9 mm key travel which is above our preferred threshold of 1.5mm. At 1.9 mm, the keys can comfortably handle those cruel keystrokes with ease and with a decent amount of actuation force. Right below the keyboard is the spacious palm rest that accommodates the touchpad. The touchpad itself is somewhat slightly aligned to the left which means it favors right-handed users more. The touchpad is also responsive to the touch and works with Windows precision drivers to make hand gestures possible. While the MSI GV62 8RD-275 is a gaming laptop, you can easily use it for home and office productivity without much trouble. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Review - Conclusion The MSI GV62 8RD-275 is one of the few laptops that carry more positives than wrinkles to their name. With its impressive performance, high-end features, modern design, and affordable price tag, this is a laptop to be reckoned with. If you can overlook its few flaws such as loud vents when under load, it is certainly a go-to-option gaming laptop in an impressive package. Is there another alternative? The MSI GV62 8RD-275 is a triumph of gaming grunt and power consumption, especially for its price category. It will handle the latest games in HD resolution at medium and high settings without chocking, unlike some laptops we’ve come across. So are there other alternatives? Yes. But you will be hard-pressed to find one that has the same balance of performance and price. The Acer Predator Helios 300 for instance, is a great alternative, certainly one of the best and most comparable. But it costs close to $1000 – at the time of writing this article – so you would have to cough some extra cash for it. Should you buy it? Yes. You won’t find a better more balanced gaming laptop at this price point. The MSI GV62 8RD-275 is a good package. It sports a good design, plenty of ports, great display, high-end features and best of all, it’s affordable. We easily recommend it as our Editor’s Choice for budget entry-level gaming laptops Frequently Asked Questions What is the MSI GV62 8RD-275 weight? How much does the MSI GV62 8RD-275 weigh and how does it compare to other gaming laptops? Gaming laptops are great thanks to their powerful graphics cards, gorgeous displays, great audio and overall performance making them the go-to entertainment devices in a portable package. However, because of the features involved, they can be heavy and bulky to carry around. That’s a problem more especially if you’re a student commuting to school (with your laptop) or employed heading to work. The MSI GV62 8RD-275 weighs 8.6 pounds and measures 15.1 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches which stamps it as a heavyweight. Like I mentioned above in the design section, it is much lighter than the Acer Predator 15, one of the gaming laptops in our best gaming laptops 2019. But I’d like to go further and compare it to some of the other best gaming laptops on that list. MSI GV62 8RD-275 Razer Blade 15 81HH0037US Alienware Area 51m Asus ROG Zephyrus S Acer Predator Helios 300 Screen size 15.6-inch 15.6-inch 17.3-inch 17.3-inch 15.6-inch GPU GTX 1050 GTX 1060 Max-Q RTX 2070 RTX 2080 GTX 1660Ti Weight 4.8 pounds 4.48 pounds 18 pounds 6 pounds 5.07 pounds As seen on the table above, it’s easy to see that MSI put some effort into managing its laptop’s weight by making it portable. Thankfully, at 4.8 pounds, the MSI GV62 8RD-275 is at par with most of the best gaming laptops in its category. The Asus ROG Zephyrus S is slightly heavier at 6 pounds (17.3-inch) and the Acer Predator Helios 300 is almost similar at 5.07 pounds. On the whole, we appreciate MSI for making this laptop a comfortable weight to lug around. Fortunately, the same material and build quality is used on another of our favorite gaming laptops, the MSI GV62 8RD-200. As a result, it maintains its stylish design and gaming allure while still also weighs in a similar manageable 4.8 pounds. MSI GV62 8RD-275 15.6" Performance Gaming Laptop... Display: 15.6 inches Full HD eDP IPS Level 45 percent NTSCGraphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050TI 4G GDDR5Processor: Intel Core i5 8300H 2.3 4.0GHz Check Price