Buy MSI G Series GT70 2OD-019US 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black)

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List Price: $2,499.99
Sale Price: $2,379.99
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I'm not gonna get all fancy about this review. I wanted to add this because someone gave it a one star when this deserves nothing lower then a 5. If you want to game, this is your machine. Seriously, SuperRAID, Steelseries keyboard, Killer Network, 24gb ram, 1tb hdd, 4gb NVidia GPU, New Haswell, and MSI...need I say more. Ok maybe, how about Matrix display allowing 3 external screens used all at once. Read my comment to the 1 star review if you want more info. Or, just buy it.

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My intention was to replace the 1 TB HDD that comes with this model with my Vertex 2 solid-state drive that I used in the Alienware I previously had. Hah.

The design of the MSI GT70 requires you to pull off the entire cover if you want to replace the hard drive. Or access RAM. This necessarily involves destroying the sticker that invalidates your warranty. Yes, in order to replace a hard drive or a RAM stick on this laptop, you have to void your warranty.

Second, the laptop didn't seem to play well with my Vertex 2 SSD. It works fine as an external drive in an USB enclosure, but when installed internally, it often wasn't available when Windows booted. When it was available, it kept going offline it disappeared from both File Explorer and Device Manager on a whim, and didn't reactivate until a reboot. I had to order a new SSD, a Samsung 840 Pro, to see if that will work better.

Third, the laptop crashes about 2 out of 3 times when it boots. I'm using the original Windows 8 installation that came installed on the laptop as delivered; the only change I've made was to apply Windows updates. Literally, two out of three times, the laptop will either freeze or blue screen when booting sometimes with MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION, sometimes with CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT. This is with my SSD, or without. I have to keep trying to reboot until it works, and I'm never quite sure it'll run this time.

Fourth, the Page Up and Home key are one key, so you have to press Fn + PgUp to access Home. Likewise, the Page Down and End keys are one key, so you have to press Fn + PgDn to access End. This was a genius choice by some incompetent keyboard designer that needs to be fired. Imagine how this works with text editing. Want to press Ctrl + Home to get to the start of the text? You better get used to Ctrl + Fn + PgUp. Want to press End to get to the end of the line? You better get used to Fn + PgDn.

Fifth, the BIOS on this laptop is intended for Windows 8, and it's hard to install Windows 7 on it. Several BIOS options need to be changed, and then, the Windows 7 installer complains that a DVD driver is missing. I resorted to using the Windows 8 that came installed.