Review MSI Megabook GX600 Notebook

The case of the MSI Megabook GX 600 is completely made of black plastics. Except of the bottom side, all parts have a high-gloss surface. The decent shiny white MSI logo at the back side of the lid attracts attention. Despite being designed for computer games, this notebook does not need striking ornaments. So, it looks more reputable and due the high -gloss black finish very elegant. Therefore, you can take it to school, work, or university without being recognized as gaming freak at once.

The plastic case is relatively resistant against pressure. The workmanship appears to be solid. In this aspect this notebook is neither positively nor negatively outstanding. If you press against the palm rest area, the case slightly creaks. The area between the red rectangles visibly gives under light pressure. The quality of the lid is typical for this notebook category. It gives already under light pressure and protects the sensible LCD only a little bit. Therefore, you should take special care that other objects, e.g., books, do not push against the lid if you transport the notebook.

The high-gloss surface is sensible to dirt of all kind. Even smallest particles, like dust, and also fingerprints, are immediately visible. If you transport this notebook a lot, the first few scratches are just a matter of time. To summarize, you should take special care of this notebook and frequently clean the surfaces.

The lid closes tightly. The two hinges appear to be small , nearly too small for a display of this size. It's easy to adapt the opening angle, whereas nothing creaks or jars. But, there is a slight see-saw afterwards.

Unfortunately the transport hook is completely made of plastics. You should take special care of the hooks in the display frame, which can easily break.

Overall the interface equipment of the Megabook GX 600 is very good. Most of them are at the front, the left, and the right side. None are at the back. The back side is entirely occupied by the battery and the vent holes.

Most of the left side is occupied by the DVD drive. Immediately behind it there are two USB ports, a LAN, a modem interface, and a Kensington lock. In our opinion the location of the audio ports is not ideal. They are at the front side of the notebook. Also a 4-in-1 card reader is available at the front side.

At the right side there are among others another two USB ports, an eSATA, a HDMI, and a FireWire interface, an analogue VGA out, an Express 54 card slot and the power connector.

The upper part of the display frame contains a 1.3 mega pixels web cam and a microphone. So, video chats with friends are possible. Furthermore, the GX 600 is equipped with Bluetooth by default.
Despite their location is partly not ideal, there are quite a lot of interfaces available - more than usual for this price category.
While USB 2.0, FireWire, and Express card slot are already standard today, interfaces like eSATA and HDMI make this notebook fit for the future.

If you attach a big LCD TV to the modern HDMI support, the fun and joy even increases. It allows playing games and watching films in an incredible size. Unfortunately the reviewed notebook did not have a Blu-Ray drive. This would have made the profit from the HDMI port complete.

There are a couple of options regarding data communication. The GX 600 is equipped with a modem and a LAN interface (Realtek RTL8168B/8111B),  WLAN (Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN), and Bluetooth.

The built-in WSXGA display (1680x1050 Pixel) of the reviewed MSI Megabook GX 600 stands out of the crowd. In contrast to other manufacturers, which equip most of their notebooks with glossy displays, MSI equipped the GX600 with a non-glare display. Those who do not like or cannot use a reflecting display  will appreciate that there aren't any disturbing reflections.

However, the illumination was unfortunately very inhomogeneous. We measured the maximum brightness of 181.7 cd/m² in the middle of the screen and the minimum of only 126.8 cd/m² in the upper left area. This is about one third less. The brightness of the lower parts is all right, but the brightness heavily diminishes to the top and, so, the illumination is only 69.8%. If you display a solid white background it gets apparent that the upper areas are a little darker.

A 320 GB SATA hard disk with 5400 rpm by Western Digital, in more detail the Scorpio model, ensures that there is sufficient capacity for storing all kind of data. This is a relatively fast hard disk, so there are hardly any delays whenever a hard disk access is required.

The HDTune results are excellent too. Considering it is a 5400 rpm hard disk, the transfer rates and the access times are very good. And also the Burst rate of 98,2 MB/s is above average.

Now we will look at games in practice. Doom 3 runs with ultra setting absolutely smoothly.  We measured an average of 87.9 fps without turbo and 88.8 fps with turbo.

FEAR ran more or less smoothly with a resolution of 1024x768 and maximum details, whereas we measured 28 fps.

Loudness

If you prefer silent notebooks, you won't like the Megabook GX600 much. Indepentent of the load, the fan was always clearly audible. This is a characteristic which is already known since the introduction of the GX 700 model. The noise level in idle mode was 34.3 dB(A), which is just acceptable. If you watch a DVD, the noise increases to 37.2 dB(A).

If you play a 3D game, you'll again recognize that the GX600 is very similar to the GX700 in this aspect. The reviewed notebook slowly increased the revolution speed of the fan step by step. After some minutes the noise level was 46.5 dB(A), which is only 0.8 dB(A) less than the 17 inch model. But, competitor notebooks proved that also notebooks of this price category can be quieter.

Temperature

Compared to the GX 700 the GX600 is very good regarding temperature increase. The measured temperatures are clearly lower. The top side heats up to about 36.6°C under load, which is more than 2 °C  less than the maximum of the 17 inch model. The difference is even bigger at the bottom side. We measured a maximum of 40.3°C at the left bottom side. The GX 700 had a maximum temperature of 52 °C at the bottom side. These are more than 10°C more.

To summarize, the Megabook GX600 is only a little bit quieter, but much colder than the bigger GX700 model. The main reason might be the up-to-date CPU, a Penryn CPU. In contrast, the reviewed Megabook GX700 was equipped with a Merom CPU.