MSI is a brave company. While seemingly every
laptop manufacturer in the world is trying desperately to shave their products
down to the absolute bare minimum, this Taiwanese component giant has decided
to do the opposite. Instead of launching yet another stylish, skinny,
underpowered model, the new GT80 is by far the most outrageously,
unapologetically, delightfully massive one we've seen in years. It's loud, expensive,
packed to the gills with high-end hardware, and has gamers squarely in its
sights.
The MSI GT80 Titan SLI is so unusual that even
the "gaming laptops" category, which consists pretty much exclusively
of oversized models, doesn't even begin to do it justice. This is not the kind
of machine you buy to carry around every day to get work done with and also
slip in a little casual gaming on the side - it's for those who can afford to
spend very close to Rs. 3,00,000 just for fun.
Look and feel
The MSI GT80 feels like a throwback from the 1990s, not just because it's
massive but also because of its styling. While still portable at 4.5kg, there's
no way anyone could carry this thing around like a regular laptop. It measures
456 x 330 x 49mm, which is roughly equivalent to the volume of six 13-inch
MacBook Airs.
The body is mostly plastic, but there are
metal elements such as the lid, which has a brushed texture. Aesthetic appeal
is highly subjective, so you'll either love or hate the aggressive angles and
red plastic accents.
There's no clasp or even magnet for the lid,
but the hinge feels solid. On flipping the GT80 open, you'll see one of its
most noteworthy features - a full sized mechanical keyboard. Yes, while nearly
every other laptop available today has an island-style keyboard with barely a
millimetre or two of travel, MSI has gone in the exact opposite direction.
The keyboard is accommodated right at the edge
of the laptop, so the trackpad is pushed to the right. This is an ergonomic
disaster for left-handed users, but chances are you'll be using the bundled
gaming mouse anyway. The trackpad can be turned into a touch-sensitive number
pad by tapping the Num Lock icon in its upper left corner, which is a brilliant
piece of thinking.
The unusual layout leaves a lot of room for
beefy hardware and the cooling mechanisms they require - most of that is housed
in the body behind the keyboard and trackpad. This blank space is finished with
more brushed metal, but there's an etched MSI dragon logo if you look closely.
There are no access panels and even the battery isn't removable, but the bottom
seems as though it can be unscrewed with minimal effort.
You'll find three USB 3.0 ports on the left,
one of which will let devices charge when in standby. Just next to them are an
S/PDIF audio output and individual 3.5mm sockets for headphones and a mic.
There's also an SDXC card slot and Blu-Ray writer. On the back, there's a
Gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI output, two Mini DisplayPort outputs and the power
inlet. There are two more USB 3.0 ports on the right for good measure. This
should be more than enough for most power users, though Thunderbolt would have
fit in nicely.
For all other purposes though, it's hard to
imagine how or why you should buy this product over a desktop PC. You can get a
more powerful machine with a larger monitor and more flexibility for far less
money. If you have this much to spend, you could build an incredibly powerful
gaming desktop with all the bells and whistles - and you'd be a lot more
comfortable using it.
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