MSI GT627: Bringing Balance to the Force?

So Close to Greatness

Okay, analogy time. Putting together a notebook is a lot like building a sandwich. You don't want to have too much bread, but you need something to hold everything together. Then you add your meat, cheese, vegetables, and condiments. All things need to be balanced properly, so you don't want too much meat and not enough other stuff, and we certainly don't want to overpower the taste of the meat and cheese with too much mustard or vinegar. If you're trying for a gourmet sandwich, you also want to use top-quality ingredients in all areas, whereas if you just want a typical Subway style sandwich you don't need to be as finicky. Finally, when everything is put together it should look nice - no one wants a sandwich that's falling apart and gloopy. In short, you need to find balance and harmony among the various ingredients.

So what about notebooks? Particularly in the area of gaming notebooks, component selections need to make sense. There's little point in using a top-end processor with an underpowered graphics subsystem if the goal is high frame rates. Similarly, you wouldn't want dual graphics chips connected to a budget processor. Games are also quite large, so unless we are putting together a no-holds-barred laptop we will take the lower price per gigabyte of conventional storage over solid-state drives. The chassis is the bread that holds everything together, and you certainly don't want any mold there. Finally, the system needs to look nice, especially the parts that you will stare at whenever you use the laptop - i.e. the LCD.

In terms of balance, the MSI GT627 does just about everything right. It has a great set of features and performance, at a great price point. The combination of CPU, GPU, hard drive, and memory works extremely well. A few areas could use improvements, but for $1100 we're willing to cut MSI some slack. The closest competition is the Gateway P-7805u, and at $1150 we really need to compare these two laptops.

Both have similar flaws in some areas, like the poor quality LCD. Otherwise, the component list is practically identical. Gateway does come out ahead in several areas, like shipping with 64-bit Vista installed, DDR3 memory, a slightly faster GPU, better battery life, and a higher resolution LCD. On the other hand, MSI wins in terms of size and weight, and performance at the native LCD resolution will basically be a tie. MSI also includes a 15% overclock with their Turbo mode, which is a nice extra. Unfortunately for Gateway, the P-7805u also happens to be backordered.

If we forget about availability for a minute, based on performance and features it would be very close to a tossup, with a slight edge to Gateway. However, those looking for a lighter chassis would prefer the MSI GT627. There's just one problem that keeps us from making that recommendation: the keyboard. Some people might not mind the springiness, but it's a major turnoff for me. It's like finding a bunch of worms crawling around in a loaf of bread - you might be willing to just toss the bad pieces, but you'll probably just trash the entire loaf. The price is almost enough to make me overlook the keyboard, and if you can find a laptop to try out in person that will be your best answer to this quandary. Personally, I could never be happy with the keyboard as it stands. It's likely you can jury rig something to help mitigate the problem, but should users really be required to do that on an $1100 notebook? We don't think so but feel free to disagree.

The MSI GT627 brushes up against greatness, but ultimately it fails to achieve that mark. Let's recap what they need to fix in order to move from being close to receiving an outright recommendation. First is that they have to fix the keyboard, and I'd be happier if the Fn and CTRL keys swapped places. Second, at the very least the LCD should offer a 500:1 contrast ratio. Those two changes would be enough to garner an Editors' Choice award, provided the price doesn't change much - or give us a 1440x900 IPS LCD panel and it would get a Gold Editors' Choice award. Finally, a little bit more durability on some of the plastic pieces would be good; we might have just been unlucky, but we really didn't do anything that should have cracked the plastic on the front bezel (unless catching a flight with a laptop is too extreme).

For now, if you're looking for a notebook like this, we continue to recommend the Gateway P-7805u - assuming you can find it in stock. If you don't mind the springy keyboard, however, you might be intrigued by the MSI GT627-218US laptop (we reviewed the MSI GT627-216US). The 218US ups the ante with a P8600 CPU, Blu-ray reader/DVDRW combo drive, and a WSXGA+ (1680x1050) LCD, all for just $1330. Since we haven't tested the 218US we can't comment on the LCD, but if it offers a better contrast ratio that's enough to warrant a serious look. Still a shame about the keyboard, though.