MSI Creator 17 A10SF-270

The latest MSI Creator 17 is a perfect example of a new category of creator notebook that falls between hard core gaming rigs and high-powered workstations. This model is the beefed-up version of the older Creator 15 and, just like its predecessor, it caters to the relatively new category of digital multimedia creators. Overall, this covers a wide range of users from social media influencers to graphic designers, amateur film makers and music producers. In terms of its design, the MSI Creator 17 might feel balanced and solid in hand but there is no getting around the cheap silver plastic finishes on the deck and underside. The pinprick texture pattern above the keyboard adds texture and feature to the otherwise almost featureless plastic deck.

It is worth mentioning that the lattice patterns used for the vents on the sides and the rear, and also on the air intakes on the underside do look good. Despite having a smooth operation, the hinges do look unsophisticated and cheap covered in moulded plastic. On the other hand, the backlit keyboard has conspicuously large labelling using an exceptionally heavy font. While the full-size arrow keys and the number pad are truly appreciated, the way the arrow keys overlap the number keys, might lead to endless mistyping. In addition, the oversized trackpad tends to be aligned with the middle of the combined keyboard/number pad which may result in near constant accidental brushes from both palms and fingers, even with the sensitivity turned down.

As for its performance, this notebook has been incorporated with the Intel Core i7-10875H which is one of the most popular high-power CPUs, prized for its stability. Meanwhile, it is also supported in the creation of visual media by Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2070 Super, the near-top mobile variant of its latest ray tracing RTX graphic chips. This combination paired with a whopping 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, definitely makes up for a formidable power plant for any kind of heavy lifting from HD video editing to multitrack audio mixing. The only truly innovative aspect of this product has to be the ground-breaking screen technology which uses mini-LED screen illumination. Instead of backlighting the panel with a handful of conventional LED bulbs, the True Pixel system from MSI uses 240 mini-LED bulbs for this device. Well, the result is that backlighting is far more even and brighter with nearly 1000:1 contrast and, most important of all, consistently provides close to 100% RGB colour palette. It is worth noting that this wide colour gamut is crucial for the creative arts and the brightness allows for confidently working outdoors in sunlight. In terms of its battery, the MSI Creator 17 carries an 80Whr battery which achieves a battery life of 2 hours and 33 mins on standard settings. This model is definitely a great creative workspace but it does have its own high and low points to be considered.