MSI GT Series GT72 Dominator Pro-211 17.3-Inch Laptop (Aluminum Black)

Real Specs of the unit:Intel Core i7-4720HQ (2.6GHz, 6MB Cache) ---> this is the only difference and it's a higher power CPU than advertised. FIX IT AMAZON!16GB DDR3L 1600 MHz1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive, 128GB M.2 Solid-State Drive17.3-inch Full HD eDP Anti-glare Screen; NVIDIA Geforce GTX980M with 8GB GDDR5 VRAMBD Burner; Windows 8.1A. PERFORMANCESo far the following games have been tested on my unit:- FAR CRY 4,- ALIEN ISOLATION,- WITCHER 2,- KERBEL SPACE PROGRAM,- TOMB RAIDER,- CS:GO.I ran all the games at MAXIMUM settings with native resolution (1080p). All the games ran 60fps and above with the exception of Witcher 2. In Witcher 2, with all the settings MAXED out and all the SPECIAL FEATURES enabled, you will get some fps drops in particular areas where light is intensive. However, it is playable. If you are fine with turning down bloom and blur effects, the fps drops should dissipate. The GTX 980m with 8gb GPU and i7 4720HQ CPU are very powerful and will use lots of battery life when gaming at such settings, therefore you will need to keep the unit plugged in at all times. Also, the fans can get pretty loud so you should be aware of two things. First, you need to have a headset to null out the fan sounds when gaming. Secondly, you need a flat area, preferably wood or metal, that can provide the decent lift for proper air flow to occur. The cooling system is incredible but does require that smooth flat surface as the back is filled with holes for air to come in and out of. [ :) ] Boot up time is incredible. It seldom takes more than 10 seconds to boot. The writing speeds are also fairly quick on the 1tb harddrive. (around 150mb/s) Overall, the PERFORMANCE on this unit blew my mind away. Laptop gaming at Desktop quality.B. HARDWAREI personally love that this laptop has an optical drive pre-installed on the side of the laptop. Lots of new gaming computers are choosing to remove it, but I personally like a laptop that has it. There are 6 USB ports, which come in very handy. The JACK ports for audio are high quality and the sound of the system, when used in companion with the software they provide, named SOUND BLAST CINEMA, is quite astonishing. You will have to manually set the setting for headphone usage in the sound blast cinema, otherwise the sound will be muffed. The screen is very crisp, vivid and clear but could be even better for a $2300 unit. There are more advanced screens that can be incorporated into Laptops. The weight of the unit is not as heavy as I expected for a 17.3 inch laptop. I manage to pick it up and move it around with ease. As far as the keyboard goes, what more can I say rather than the fact that it is a steel series. It is amazing and beautiful to use and to look at. It comes with pre-installed software to customize all of it. However, I do not like the silver buttons on this laptop. They are the turn on button, GPU switch button, and 3 other buttons. They look out of place for such a nice looking unit. They should be rounded, and incorporated into the flat surface of the laptop so it blends better. (personal preference). The feel of the laptop is sturdy and the high quality materials prevails. It is truly well thought out, well designed, and well built.C. Windows 8.1 IssuesThis is why I gave this unit 4 stars. Many of the win 8.1 apps will not start as they are combating issues with win 7 programs that I have installed. This causes overall functionality of the laptop to drop. I cannot use calendar, mail, agenda, and many other apps that should open with ease. I suspect that many of the issues will be fixed when win 10 comes out, and since you will have a free upgrade from 8.1 to 10, I will wait and see.D. Other issues I ran into- The battery profile tends to reset itself. It will not stay on the default I put it on.- You have to use the gaming center software (i think its called dragon something..) to enable the state of the laptop power usage. In there you have the setting for low, medium, and high performance. This becomes a pain in the arse when you want to switch between integrated and dedicated GPU, as a boot restart is required every time. (read below under battery enhancement to see why)- Some track pad features must also be enabled to be used properly. I still need to figure out how to do it. I might call MSI.- If you are like me, and will install START IS BACK, win 8.1 will try to creep in on the right side of the screen at random intervals. If I cannot find a way to disable that, then I think that's another compatibility issue to look out for.- Battery life is short. Very short. But there is a way to fix that if you are using it for multimedia watching, such as Whose line is it anyway (love that show) and want at least 4 hours out of it.Battery Enhancement:** To achieve 4 hours of media, use the integrate graphics card (Intel HD Graphics) by pressing on the GPU switch button on the laptop (second silver button, counting top to bottom). Then, create a plan that is similar to the power saving plan, but go into the advance settings of the plan and turn cpu maximum management to 90% (youtube it if you do not know what I mean). This will cap the usage of the unit's power to 90%, which is plenty, and will save you lots of battery life. Next, go into the dragon gaming software and change the power usage to low (I still it's called ECO something or green something). And there you go. Now you have a laptop that will last at least 4 hours for watching you tube, Netflix, DVDs, blu-ray, browsing the web, or using any of the productivity software such as word, excel and power point.E. OVERALL THOUGHTSThis is a machine that will run your games at incredible settings and incredible speeds (at least for the next 3 years). Gaming at 1080p with 60fps and MAXIMUM settings is beautiful, and when you attach that with sound blast cinema surround sound quality, you might shed a few tears throughout your game plays. Win 8.1 does have some compatibility issues if you use win 7 programs. I did not like that, but since I do not use many of the win 8.1 apps, it is alright to wait until Win 10 comes out. The look of this laptop and build quality are impressive and downright beautiful. I can confidently say that I am a happy customer, and with that in mind, I recommend this product to you as well.Thank you and Happy Gaming!

First and foremost, this has to be one of the best mobile computers I've ever owned. I do want to point out that my shipped out with IPS for the display and also a 4720 instead of a 4710 so Amazon needs to update the specs listing. The computer is also very easy to upgrade as I added RAM and another SSD just to hold games.Pros:Updated CPU to 4720IPS displayCan easily switch GPU to integrated or the GTX 980M (Integrated GPU gets you a battery life of about 4 to 5 hours)Keyboard is easily customized for color / light displayGaming is smooth on modern gamesCooling / VentilationCPU makes working so much easier as it handle all the things that I run on itGPU upgradeable functionWIndows 10 upgrade ready (will not do it though for a few years)Best laptop speakers I've heard in quite some timeDyna Audio software makes music and games sound amazingMSI Logos light up on coverBoots up in less than ten seconds (BIOS loads up in 3.1 seconds)Cons:Trackpad is horrible as there are no borders to let you know where it ends (gesture is off automatically so enable it for scrolling and other features)Third party software pre-installed (easy fix; got rid of all apps and software that I will not ever use)Other notes:There is a void sticker on the bottom vent if you wanted to check out the hardware on your laptop claiming that you will void the warranty should you remove or tamper with it. This is a problem was it is on top of one of the screws. I called MSI and verified this. It is okay to mess with the sticker and it will not void your warranty if you are adding memory or RAM. However, if you remove what is already installed then you will void your warranty.The recovery OS is on the 1 TB hard drive so make sure if you want to replace it with an SSD that you make your recovery disks first.If you want to upgrade to a m.2 SSD I bought and installed Kingston Digital 240GB SSDNow M.2 SATA (6Gbps) Compact Form Factor SSD 3.5-Inch SM2280S3/240GB through Amazon.If you want to grade your RAM I bought and installed Kingston Technology 8GB 1600MHz DDR3L (PC3-12800) 1.35V Non-ECC CL11 SODIMM Intel Laptop Memory KVR16LS11/8 through Amazon.Update: 9June2015I might have to change my reviews on this laptop. For starters, after a week's use, the laptop will boot or restart into a black screen. The last time this happened was on June 8th. I called up MSI and they think that it might because I was on battery mode trying to boot up with two USB devices plugged in (wireless keyboard / mouse combo and my external HD). The only item I have plugged in now is my wireless keyboard / mouse combo and so far today I haven't had a black screen hang. MSI also recommended that I update the BIOS and update the drivers from their website. I've contacted Amazon customer service and they have been very helpful on their part where they are willing to exchange for the same item or a different item while I keep using this one and offer to ship the exchanged item at the same shipping seed (for me it was 1 day shipping). I am hoping that I will not have to return this device due to screen problem, but I will wait a few more days to see if I have any issues and will update this post then. Hopefully, it was just needed to update the BIOS and drivers. However, I should not have any problems from the beginning like this. It is not Amazon's fault, but rather MSI.Update: 16June2015As mentioned before, I was having a boot problem during shutdown / startup where the screen would remain black and updating the drivers / BIOS / firmware did not work whatsoever. I ended up having to return the laptop back to Amazon. The great thing about Amazon's customer service is that they shipped me a replacement on the 12th of June via next day shipping for no charge. So far, I've only experienced the hanging issue with this laptop once and I think it is because Windows Explorer decide to hang and freeze the laptop. I hope that I wont have anymore issues and if I do, I will permanently replacing this laptop and just go with the Asus ROG model which only has the 4GB version of the GTX 980M. Thank you Amazon for the customer service; you're awesome!