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  • gunnys - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    The current lack of 4K 17.3" gaming laptops is depressing. We have faster hardware but low res displays.
  • DanNeely - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    As noted in the article itself, MSI is currently limiting the 17" 4k option to their even higher end and chunkier GT76 series.
  • gunnys - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    I missed that, thanks for the heads up. But I also meant in general, lack of 4K sucks. I spend way more time not gaming than gaming, and would appreciate higher pixel density in general tasks. Personally I'd be more pleased with 4K at even just 60 Hz. A 120 Hz or 144 Hz panel would be useful just a few hours a month in gaming.

    And the whole situation makes even less sense when I'm seeing plenty of 15.6" 4K laptops.

    I've heard the new Razer Blade Pro will only ship with 4K in it's upcoming Quadro RTX version. It appears manufacturers are reserving 4K for the highest tier only. In that case.... I'll hold off on buying. I don't need a Quadro or a $4000 laptop... just more pixel density. An RTX 2080 or Quadro isn't needed to drive Windows, Office, and Youtube at 2160p.

    A decent 17.3" 4K panel wasn't a huge upgrade cost just a year or two ago.
  • DanNeely - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    as an ever more niche product line 17" laptops tend to lag badly in any components (like screens) that can't be shared with more plebeian 15" laptops. Volumes of high end 13 laptops are higher than 15" and 15" is higher than 17"; with the result that most of the higher end screen options started at the smallest size where there was more volume to be sold and then worked their way to smaller volume parts only slowly.

    When I get my next laptop in a year or two I'm hoping to be able to find something with 1440p/144hz at 15". 4k's massive overkill, drives up power consumption. 1440p is good enough for general use and is at least somewhat plausible to game at above 60hz on the occasions I do that instead of just surfing the web.
  • quiksilvr - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    I would say not having G-SYNC is the bigger issue.
  • tshoobs - Wednesday, July 17, 2019 - link

    I agree that it is sad to still see so many gaming laptops in this class using 1080p - that is really not enough pixel density for a 17.3" screen.

    For general use, 4k resolution in this screen size still generates a lot of need for scaling which in Windows is as good as it has ever been but still flawed.

    I'd love to see a 1440p panel however, I think that would be perfect for the 17.3" gaming laptop. 1080p is very long in the tooth.
  • ingwe - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    Given that it is a 144 Hz IPS display with great color accuracy, I think it is still a display to be happy with.
  • weilin - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    I'd personally prefer QHD (2560x1440) over UHD. Especially for screens smaller than 24". It seems like the best compromise on resolution and performance.
  • quantumshadow44 - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    Im perfectly fine with 4k on 15" dell m4800.
    100% srgb/Adobergb
  • pbollwerk - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    My current laptop (Alienware 13) has the "near"-4k OLED, and while it looks gorgeous, I don't like the performance hit I get when gaming, and text is unreadable. Maybe 4k is better on a 17", but my next gaming laptop won't be 4k. For gaming, it's not worth it for me.
    For other tasks, like video/photo editing, I can understand. But this is a gaming laptop.
    Having said that, 1080 is too low resolution for modern laptops.
  • MattL - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link

    As it turns out I just upgraded from an OLED 1440p Alienware 13" laptop to this exact ge75 i9 9880h 2080 laptop.

    I was concerned about going from 13" 1440p (on that beautiful OLED screen) to 17" and 1080p.

    I can say absolutely it's not a problem. 17" at 1080p is perfectly fine. Basically it's almost the same pixel density as my 34" Ultra Wide 3440x1440p (120hz IPS) display which is pretty high res itself (the max you'd want for gaming).

    4k gaming would be horrible.... you'd get no FPS. getting closer to 144hz (at least 80-100+ FPS) is far more important.

    On the best games even this top notch 2080 can struggle to get 100 fps at 1080p in some cases if you have your settings set high....

    1080p is exactly the appropriate resolution for a modern gaming laptop.
  • Zanor - Wednesday, July 17, 2019 - link

    It's a laptop very focused on gaming. Gamers don't want 60hz.
  • DanNeely - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    "Second, this keyboard has a slightly strange layout, with the Windows Key being on the right side of the keyboard along with a duplicate backslash key."

    Half of this is apparently due to MSI using an international mechanical layout with an extra keycap rather than a different piece of hardware for the US model. The second half which has always baffled me is that they put a pipe on the extra key instead of a right click key; which although increasingly rare would map back towards the original 104 key layout.
  • cgeorgescu - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link

    FN and Win keys can be swapped (physically and in BIOS), then the somehow strangely-placed keys can be re-mapped with that Steelseries software.
    On mine (an older MSI GS), I have Del instead of Pause and AltGR instead of that second |\ right of the spacebar.

    Now unrelated to keys: all MSI laptops can be bought in wildly customised configuration, there are tons of small shops (online) who sell these with any combination of SSDs, memory, etc.
  • eva02langley - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    280W power supply!!!!?

    How much does that thing cost by its own, 150$!!!???

    Anyway, I am waiting for my Zen 2 APU laptop with Navi cores.
  • ads295 - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    Agreed. I think it may be possible to have 1080p eSports gaming for 3-4 hours on battery with an APU.
  • DanNeely - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    probably. I couldn't find MSIs model as a replacement, but the equivalent ASUS model is $149 direct.
  • Vitor - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    Holy sheet, those display numbers are incredible. Basically a gaming notebook that can be used for professional edition.
  • Duncan Macdonald - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    Given the position of the air intakes - this is not suitable for laptop use. If used on a lap much of the airflow will be blocked and there will be nasty temperatures near some sensitive bits. This device is a lightweight Desktop Replacement - not a laptop.
    In my opinion if you want a portable gaming system (especially with a high end GPU like the 2080) then you should get a system with good cooling which implies a thicker chassis with better airflow, larger heatsinks and fans and a higher weight.
    Two things that "laptop" reviews should do are show the bottom temperatures after an hour of heavy use and also see if the cooling system can stand up to being used on a lap without cooking the laptop or the user.
  • nevcairiel - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link

    Is it really that common to actually use a laptop in your lap directly? That has always been exceedingly uncomfortable for me, no matter if gaming or working. Would always grab a table or perhaps one of those laptop lap stands that gives it more height and a flat surface to keep it's vents free
  • Opencg - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    I dont trust any of these hybrids. Gaming laptop with what appears to be high end silicon but the clocks and tdp are very gimp.

    Expect a gimped power system, obviously gimped clocks, gimped ec throttle conditions, gimped vbios throttle limits, poor cooling system cause everyone wants to go thin.

    At the end of the day expect all the performance of a 5 year old desktop for way more money.

    If you really want something that gives you the performance of the silicon you buy look at clevo.
  • Opencg - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link

    Also expect random issues due to everything I listed where your laptop regularly drops to 1/4 its normal framerate while it throttles.
  • Tom001 - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link

    I agree. I found old games to be very snappy and exelent rates on these so called gaming laptops. @£17 K or USD 3900 you can build a massive 3 in one or even a better budget build PC for a fraction of these gaming laptops with full future / longterm upgrade options. It just makes sense when you then will be able to aquire a proper gaming top quality screen (Which have become quite affordable lately) as its the screen we will be concentrating on all of the time. With a budget build a gamer can accomplish fenominal performance with a decent low priced board and accompaning top end CPU, super fast ssd hard drives (their pricing / cost drop by the day) and a medium GPU Card. Better buy a mid range laptop for work with excellent battery life and then shop around for your budget gaming rig. Amazing specials are on offer every now and again Newegg and Amazon. I'd rather settle for the best affordable monitor HDMI and a proper budget build as I can always connect the laptop screen as a second screen with all of the speed and functionality. Work does come first and then gaming. I guess lol :)
  • Orange_Swan - Sunday, July 14, 2019 - link

    which is why I'm going for the laptop + eGPU, for my next computer, probably something like a razor blade or a MacBook Pro
  • erple2 - Saturday, August 24, 2019 - link

    Gaming on a MacBook Pro is .. well, it's awful. It's not as good as on windows for the few games that are supported, and that assume you find a Mac game in the first place.
  • 0ldman79 - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link

    Question, when partitioning an SSD like this, does that keep the drive rewrites in that partition or does it still physically spread them out as needed?

    In other words will a 100GB partition that is used often wear out part of the drive faster than just using the entire drive as one partition?
  • PeachNCream - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link

    Partitioning doesn't adversely confine writing data to a specific portion of the SSD's physical storage area. You can split up your drive in the most nonsense way you want and still reap the benefits of wear leveling that happen behind-the-scenes and beneath any file system/partitioning you define.
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