MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K Review
by Jarred Walton on August 21, 2014 6:00 AM ESTMSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K LCD: HiDPI, Decent Colors
The one great benefit of buying a system with a 3K display right now is that you're guaranteed two things: first, you'll have the option for using higher resolutions if/when those become more useful, but second and more importantly: you get something other than a low quality TN panel. The GS60 display is an IPS panel manufactured by Panasonic, model VVX16T029D00. As I mentioned earlier, it apparently uses an RGBW grid instead of the more desirable RGB stripe, and that does some interesting things to the color accuracy.
Before calibration, the display looks decent overall – not perfect, but not as bad as some displays that I've seen in recent months. Oddly, however, calibrating the display actually made things look more bluish, and the overall results improved in some areas and either stayed the same or in some cases even got worse in others. It's possible that CalMAN simply isn't handling RGBW properly, or more likely RGBW just doesn't allow for truly accurate colors across the entire color gamut. Here are the results of our LCD testing, including pre- and post-calibration scores.
The white level of 317 cd/m2 is a good starting point, and with a black level of 0.349 nits at max brightness we end up with a contrast ratio of 908:1. That's not the best result that we've ever seen from a laptop, but it's not something I'd complain about. Dropping the brightness to 60% gives us a 200 nits white level with a 776:1 contrast, so it's a bit lower but still good. The native white point is also good compared to some of the other recent MSI laptops I've seen; it's lower than expected at around 6000K, but that's at least getting somewhat close to the "ideal" 6504K. Color accuracy is also fairly reasonable, which brings us to the full uncalibrated results:
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Grayscale results are good up until about 45%, at which point the errors start to become visible. From 45% up to 100%, the Delta E is above 3.0, but it stays around 4.0 and never actually hits the 5.0 mark. It's not exceptionally accurate, but that's a better result than some other laptops I've looked at, and the average dE is 3.2. Results in the other charts tell a similar story, with some colors staying below 3.0 while others max out at around 6.0. Overall, the average dE is around 3.5 prior to calibration.
Post-calibration is where things become unusual. The greyscale DeltaE improves dramatically, measuring just 0.4 on average with the only result above 1.0 coming at pure black (not unusual as LCDs generally can't produce perfect black). On the other hand, the DeltaE on the gamma, saturation, and GMB charts only shows minor improvements, with the average dE being around 2.6. Certain colors still show errors of nearly 5.0, and about half of the colors still have a dE above 3.0.
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What that means is that out of the box, the display will be good for most users, but if you demand accurate colors then you'll want to look elsewhere, as even professional calibration tools are unable to completely fix the color accuracy. Given the target market of gamers, however, the color quality and accuracy are not a major concern.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
This system exhausts out both the back and sides, and I suspect it would run much hotter if they omitted the side vents. Thin designs are not cooling friendly, sadly.henkhilti - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Nice notebook review.One small remark.
In your conclusion you compared it to the Lenovo Y50 which links to Amazon.
That is a unit with 4K display for $1500 (not $1300) but please also note that is has a 256GB SSHD (=Hard disk drive + Nand flash cache) not an SSD (scroll down on the amazon page).
It also has a GTX860M instead of a GTX870M (if you compare it to the MSI's or Razer).
limitedaccess - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Something to keep in mind regarding the Y50 4k display is that it is supposedly a TN display that is locked to 48hz. Also the other characteristics are supposedly poor.In general it seems Lenovo's gaming oriented Ideapad series all have rather poor displays. Also to be honest in general for the entire Lenovo notebook line there doesn't seem to be a strong emphasis on display quality.
The configuration he linked to though should be one with a 256gb SSD and not the configuration with a 1tb HD with 8gb nand cache.
nathanddrews - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
The Lenovo Y50 is $1300 with a 4K screen and 256GB SSD.It's a mistake to use Amazon as a source for validating information. Not only do the frequently get their specs wrong, they also blend reviews of similar models together and the pricing can change within hours due to allowing purchases through other vendors.
Newegg, $1249:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Either way, it doesn't matter. Lenovo officially discontinued the 4K option Y50.
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Hold on... where are you getting that Lenovo discontinued the 4K Y50? I can't seem to find anything on that matter. As for the Amazon pricing, it changes regularly, just like Newegg. There's a reasonable chance the model I linked went out of stock between yesterday and now, leaving places that charge more.nathanddrews - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
I just read last week, but when I go to official Y50 UHD website, it says "temporarily unavailable". I'm either totally full of crap or just misread it.http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-seri...
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Yeah, that "temporarily unavailable" is what I saw. I thought it was new enough that maintaining stock was the issue, but who knows -- and a lot of people were complaining about backlight bleed on the 4K panel. If they're using a TN panel, though, that's the first I've heard of any 3K/4K LCD going the TN route; it would make me very sad if that's true.creed3020 - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
The stress testing graphs are missing labels for the duration of time along the x axis. Possible to add this in so we can get an idea of time elapsed in the test against temps?JarredWalton - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
The stress test charts are for one hour -- I had to hand-make the charts in Excel, and the data is actually at ~2.5 second intervals, so I figured it was best to just leave off units. I'll see if I can clarify this in the text.larspehrsson - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Matte or glossy? all other reviews I have read of the 3k version state that it has a glossy display but now Anandtech say that it is matte? Which is it?