iBuyPower Battalion M1771 (MSI GS70) Gaming Notebook Review
by Dustin Sklavos on December 30, 2013 2:45 PM ESTDisplay Quality
I'm happy to be at the point where I can actually be critical of a 1080p matte display on a notebook instead of merely being thankful that it even exists. The Chi Mei TN panel that MSI employs for the iBuyPower Battalion M1771 has a slightly high amount of grain in the coating, but it's actually pretty stellar for a non-IPS display, at least in objective measurement.
Color reproduction is good, but not great. Where the panel excels is in its overall contrast ratio and brightness. Most users should be very happy with the panel in the M1771.
Battery Life
I'm mystified as to why this is the case, but nonetheless: the Battalion M1771's battery life is, in a word, horrible. I can't pin down exactly what the efficiency issue is, but whatever it is, it's absolutely killing running time off of the mains.
Normalize the battery life and it doesn't look as bad, but it's hard to ignore that the M1771 is both using a battery that's probably too small for it and is just plain lousy on running time. This is half the efficiency of the Razer Blade 14, or worse, despite a substantially smaller gulf in overall performance.
Heat and Noise
Despite the thin chassis, the M1771 is actually a pretty good citizen where noise is concerned. Unfortunately, there does seem to be some cost exacted for that.
While the GTX 765M doesn't get especially hot, the i7-4700HQ gets extremely toasty. Haswell runs hot in general and it's pretty evident here. MSI could probably tune the fan profile to be more aggressive on the CPU side, but part of Haswell's problem is the same thing that plagued Ivy Bridge, I suspect: high heat density. The 765M is a healthy sized chip that draws a lot of power, but that also means there's a much larger surface area to dissipate all that heat. Integrating the voltage regulation on the 4700HQ is really only going to amplify the heat density issue. Performance is fine, but those thermals would give anyone pause.
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xTRICKYxx - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Is NVIDIA Optimus disabled? The battery life seems unusually bad.InvderSkoodge - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
I can confirm when I got my Battalion-m1771, that the Nvidia card was set to run everything, it is indicated by the power button glowing white when the Nvidia card is not being used, and red/orange when it is.I also wondered why battery was so bad when I got mine, but I fixed the problem, and yesterday got about 4-5 hours of moderate usage, low screen brightness wifi on.
lukedaly - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
It can be fixed. But either way, for a gaming laptop it stands no chance to ASUS ROG G750JM-DS71. /Luke from http://www.consumertop.com/best-laptop-guide/IMMrLame - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
Yes but you can't really compare a backbreaking 4.2kg asus gaming laptop to a featherweight 2.5kg msi gaming laptop that honestly should have fallen under the ultrabook category with almost high-end gaming specs.skiboysteve - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Xps 15 review in the pipeline?SavingPvtBryan - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Seriously, are they ever going to review the Dell XPS 15?Try-Catch-Me - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
Also the 2013 rMBP. It's been way too long. These two devices seem to be very similar, so I want an in-depth comparison.nportelli - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
I have one and have been playing Batman games and Skyrim at highest detail and it plays great. Mind you I've not played a pc games in years before hand. But size, power and resolution, I have nothing to complain about.jwetmore - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
I've had the MSI version of this notebook for two months and for the most part couldn't be happier.That battery life does seem somewhat short of what I'm able to achieve. Is it possible you were stuck on the 765M while you were doing the battery life calculations? The power button should be amber when on the nVidia chip, and white when on the integrated Intel chip.
On the Intel chip I can get about 4 hours if i lower the brightness a bit and just do light web browsing.
nunomoreira10 - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
The gtx 765m should consume about the same as the i7 yet the cpu is 30º hotter with similar heatsinks.Intel sould also focus on increasing heat transfer efficiency from the cpu to the heatsink, its practically impossible to have the cpu under 80º nowadays, since in reality the heatsink needs to be around 50s