MSI GE60 Review: Mainstream Mobile Maxwell
by Jarred Walton on July 17, 2014 5:00 AM ESTMSI GE60 LCD: Surprisingly Good
I'll be honest: before actually seeing the GE60 in person, I wasn't expecting too much from the display. It's not that MSI has a reputation for using terrible LCD panels in their laptops, but the GT70 as one example is still sporting a TN panel even on the latest version. Thus, I was more than a little surprised to find that "lesser" GE60 using a Samsung PLS display, and while the out-of-box color accuracy could still be improved quite a bit, post-calibration the display performs exceptionally well. And even if you're not a stickler for accurate colors, the improved viewing angles offered by PLS/IPS/AHVA/etc. panels make using the laptop much more viable in cramped quarters (e.g. on a plane).
Full results for the display testing are in Notebook Bench, as well as in the galleries below; the charts mostly reflect the highlight right now (as we haven't tested very many laptops with the new software/hardware). But let's start with the core characteristics: white level, black level, and contrast.
The white level of 370 cd/m2 is a good starting point, and with a black level of 0.3472 nits at max brightness we end up with a contrast ratio of 1064:1. That's not the best result that we've ever seen from a laptop, but it is quite good – even more so considering the display has an anti-glare coating (glossy displays tend to have a bit higher contrast). Dropping the brightness to 54% gives us a 200 nits white level with a 1016:1 contrast, so it's a bit lower but still good. The problem is the native white point is around 7650K, which is far from the "ideal" 6504K, so there's a definite blue tint to the colors. That brings us to the full uncalibrated results:
Grayscale results are good up until about 40%, at which point the errors start to become visible. By 50% the Delta E has increased to over 5, and by 75% dE is nearly 10. That's really not a very good result, though I've certainly seen worse (e.g. MSI's GT70 LCD had errors above 12 before calibration). Results in the other charts tell a similar story. While the average dE may only be in the range of 4.5 or so, there are many spikes into the high single digits – mostly in the reds, oranges, and yellows, but shades of green a blue also show some significant errors.
Post-calibration is a different story; the gamma, RGB balance, and color accuracy improve dramatically, to the point where there are very few errors even reaching 2.0. If you have the proper tools to calibrate the display, the GE60 can definitely suffice for professional work. The color gamut is also pretty close to the sRGB standard (it's 68.7% of AdobeRGB compared to a 72% target for sRGB), so outside of users who need high color depth it will work well.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
The "Mainstream" results are high enough that bumping to 1080p isn't a problem at the settings we use, but then we wouldn't have anything to compare performance against as it's a non-standard setting. If we run one "non-standard" setting, it opens the door to all sorts of other possibilities. Maybe we should use the GFE recommended settings (or AMD's recommended settings) as another item to include?In fact, I'll go ahead and run those and update the Gaming page in a bit with results (as well as details on the precise settings used by GFE). If nothing else, it will be an interesting experiment. :-)
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
Page three is updated with 1080p GFE results, if you're interested.nathanddrews - Friday, July 18, 2014 - link
Thanks for the update, it's very enlightening. A review of GeForce Experience vs Gaming Evolved would be very cool. I know that up until v2.0 or 1.8, GFE automatically targeted 40-60fps with no option to prefer quality (30fps) or performance (60fps) like it does now.https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/525176/is...
http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience/faq
Hopefully they update the applications for 120Hz or 144Hz users... or maybe have it target your monitor's refresh rate by default instead? Speaking of which, where are the variable refresh 4K 120Hz monitors? ;-)
DanNeely - Friday, July 18, 2014 - link
First we'd need gpus to implement displayport 1.3 to have the outbound bandwidth. Then until we get another generation of 2x as fast decoder/ldc panel controllers we'll be back to the looks like 2 monitors over MST setup we enjoyed with the first generation of 4k60 panels.xenol - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
If I may make a suggestion, please add thermals to laptop reviews. Not just how hot the components get, but how hot each area gets. My primary concern with these thin gaming laptops is that not only would the run really hot inside, but they'll create pockets of hot spots where I don't want them.For example, I had a Dell XPS 15z. Not quite a gaming laptop mind you, but if I fired up a game, the left side of the keyboard would get uncomfortably warm to the point where I had to get a 84-key keyboard so I could play something comfortably.
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
My digital thermometer stopped working properly a while back so I haven't been able to provide numbers. I can order a new one but considering we haven't included surface temperatures for years it didn't seem necessary.JarredWalton - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
I was able to use a kitchen thermometer from my wife to do some testing. :-) Page 5 has surface temps now if you're interested.LeapingGnome - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
Thank you Jarred. I think surface temps are very important since it is a laptop that many people use in their laps. I appreciate you including them.xenol - a good site is notebookcheck dot net, they do a lot of laptop reviews and always include surface temps from 18 areas of the laptop. Their temps for this MSI look to be 3-4 degrees higher than Jarred saw.
shtldr - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
I have the laptop. It has solid CPU, GPU and display. I actually thought the display was some exceptionally good TN.I bought an SSD together with it to replace the HDD... only to find out that opening the laptop voids your warranty!!!
Coming from an Acer laptop which had no such c(r)ap, this was a huge letdown.
JarredWalton - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
I've heard (but can't personally verify) that such stickers can't actually be enforced by law, but it's definitely annoying when they try to prevent end users from upgrading things like the RAM and storage. You could always email/call MSI and ask them for confirmation that you can upgrade the RAM/storage first and see what they say -- get it in writing, though! :-)