MSI FX620DX-056US 15.6IN Intel Core I5-2410M 4GB 500GB GT540M DVDRW Win 7 Home Premium Notebook

Comment:
This is one of the bargain laptops with the new sandy bridge chipset on the market when I purchased. The screen is nice and bright, but pretty standard these days and can't really be compared with a PC monitor where the backlight is much stronger. The resolution 720p is a good for the size. You would feel the strain of looking at the LCD if you're a frequent desktop user.The notebook is fast, for most tasks I find it on par with my PC, but when playing games I need to turn down details to low or medium and sometimes even to 1280 to increase the framerates (L4d2) This is again, how laptops are. The discrete graphics card still cannot keep up with a desktop graphics card some 1.5 years old (HD4890) The life time on the battery is just slightly above average due to the sandy bridge architecture, nothing to write home about.The sound is gorgeous from the built-in speakers and the HD webcame is a nice touch. The SD card slot is placed in an awkward spot but good thing I don't have to use it very often.Software-wise, "s-bar", an utility that controls the shortcut keys is the most retarded software I've seen on a laptop. What's even more retarded is that there's no physical eject button for the DVD drive, so you have to leave s-bar software on in order to use the eject. S-bar leaves an ugly star ioon at the top center area of the desktop. The other thing I don't like about this laptop is its keyboard. It feels quite different than any of the keyboard I've typed on and I find myself missing a lot of keystroke at first. It took a lot of getting used to. Right now I can type decently on it, but the key travel / press required is more than I'd like. There's a lot of space for dust to collect besides the keys so that's another down. However, there s absolutely no flex in the keyboard when you type on it, which is a rare sight for any laptop, proving its craftsmanship and rigidity.In general I am happy with the laptop at this price. It's a solidly-built laptop at this price range. I just hope MSI could've put more thought into the user interface.