Bloody ell. I've had my GE40 for only a WEEK and NOW the Aspire V7 premium comes out. I very jelly now. Damn you Acer.

But seriously, here's my 50 cents to the matter.

WARNING, THIS GETS LONG! Even without the stuff in the spoiler.

<My take on the GE40>


TL;DR: The MSI GE40 is the spiritual successor to the Compaq V3000, but with hugely upgraded internals.

So, will I recommend the GE40 to someone else? I will, but with clear caveats.

If you're looking for an balanced blend of mobility and power at a great price, and you're ready to accept the compromises that come with it; then by all means, the GE40 is a great choice. If you want a bit more power at the cost of mobility, pick the RE13. Although running stuff at full HD with the RE13's 765 should equal running stuff on 900p with the GE40's 760 90% of the time.

Plus the RE13 ALSO runs almost as hot as the GE40 - so the only thing you're gonna get with the RE13 is a brighter, HD screen (that might suffer from IPS bleed, and is NOT the better one from ChiMei), better more robust construction (that is still, unfortunately, largely plastic) and less battery life (4 hours tops). Another plus is that you get on-site service.

As for the Y410P, NOT having the 900p variant come into Malaysia was the worse decision Lenovo ever made. Otherwise, it's cheap and you get a chance to SLI BUT that's about it. Well, IMHO it's being sold for below 3k for a reason.

As for the V7, as envious as I am, it's an Acer. An ACER! Oh the memories of broken hinges, subpar construction and drawn out warranty claims. It's the sexiest "gaming" ultrabook I know of though, other than the Razer Blade and the Gigabyte Ultrablade (lol at the names)...

... BUT IT'S AN ACER!

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Jul 30 2013, 07:59 PM

Well for one it's thicker... by a bit... but that's not what I really meant. Mobility here is more towards "freedom from the plug" kinda mobility - the GE40 has a substantially better battery life, rite? Like 6-7 hours max with the right settings versus the 4-hours tops the RE13 is rated for. This gives you more leeway to move around with the GE40, hence "mobility".

BUUUUUT, "right settings" would ultimately mean surfing the Internet or something else as light. If you wanna do heavy stuff I guess both them laptops die around the 2 hour mark anyway so my point is moot.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 1 2013, 02:18 AM

If you like the RE13 you can always order an extra battery to compensate for the short battery life - though that will add cost and weight to the package, unfortunately - hence the "mobility" conundrum.

Oh and I hear chirping from the birds that the RE13 MIGHT get the option to spec a 4702MQ in place of the 4700MQ sometime towards the end of August. Speccing the lower TDW 4702 MIGHT improve the battery situation somewhat for the RE13 - though it won't improve by much, say +1 hour or so.

Just stuff to keep in mind.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 1 2013, 03:16 PM

I STILL think that full HD is overkill for anything below 15' with the current graphics processing tech level (and under the same logic, I think that the Retina MBPs are all totally bonkers). But then again, I also think that Android vendors have all lost their minds by stuffing full HD screens into teeny weeny screens.

Buuuuuuuut that's prolly just me.

Also, "supposedly" IPS screens ghost more than TN at this point - which was the main reason Razer stuck with TN for their Blades. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen though.

But one thing's for sure, the RE13's IPS screen should look a BILLION times better than my shitty angles 900p panel lol - even if that shitty panel takes about 6 hours to die off.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 1 2013, 11:01 PM

THIS is why I said it's overkill, and why I said Android manufacturers are nuts. Battery tech and processing efficiency HAS NOT caught up to everything else they're stuffing into these gadgets. Sure, power wise everything is okay (if still not 100% optimal): the hardware can push high (and often, superfluous) resolutions at sufficient speeds. But these are mobile devices - power consumption is yet another factor that they have to balance out.

In the end, at this point in time it's still quite a balancing act of needs and sacrifices. Power (as in processing and graphics) vs Mobility (as it battery life, not size) vs Portability (size), choose one and be prepared to forfeit the other.

Or you could get what is to me the most balanced laptop on earth - which is unfortunately made out of more plastic than a Hollywood actress' face, and has a screen so horrible that my S3 beats its viewing angles and brightness.

But we're moving in the right direction, of course. With Haswell and the Kepler core for PCs and the latest mobile processors and GPUs. Unfortunately, laptop advancement and innovations have taken a backseat now that we're all well into the "Tablet Age". And laptop manufacturers are not helping by not focusing on what should have focused on years ago - making faster, thinner, "proper" laptops (not those Ultrabooks with their puny IGPs) run longer and longer.

I mean they wanted to challenge Tablets in the mobility game with Ultrabooks? It's like trying to challenge the Brazilian team at soccer.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 2 2013, 12:30 AM

Dem. Now I jelly.

Great news BTW PrinceJ!

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 12 2013, 02:53 PM

If it's general use, as long as it comes with a decent GPU (and you have the cash), general screen quality overrides resolution IINM. In the case of the GE40 vs the RE13, Prince J has kindly updated the fact that they are ONLY using the high quality Chi Mei panels so that shoots the GE40's screen to high heaven.

Which is WHY probably MBPs are selling so well, even with last gen innards. Even the non Retina screens are so damn good. Plus the effing battery life and the build. If not for THE PRICE and the outdated innards, I think MBPs (especially the 15 incher) present a near perfect blend between size, mobility and power (especially with a 660 over the stock 650 GPU).

I do understand the need for bulky "GAMING" laptops over the cost savings of a desktop, being the nomad that I am. It's just far far more "portable", no matter how "bulky". Throw it in a bag and you can bring it anywhere.

I prefer smaller, more portable machines personally though, but that's just me.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 13 2013, 05:59 PM

I'm not entirely convinced it's just the 4702MQ that's giving us GE40 users that extra 50% battery life. Keep in mind we're also on a not-quite-so-bright TN screen (which while looks like shiat, should use less power) and we don't have keyboard back lighting (which uses little power but uses power anyway).

So, even with everything optimised, I expect the RE13 to be able to barely reach 4 hours tops.

Also, it seems if you have enough time, you might be able to tweak the 760 up: seems MSI Afterburner can tweak the GPU clock and memory speeds. Not sure if it'll work though.

Buuuuuuuut, like I said, if you need more power, no amount of tweaking can override a faster GPU, unfortunately. And the GE40 will only get hotter after pushing limits (and it's already plenty hot as it is).

Like I said before though, if you can accommodate a 17 incher, the MSI GS70 has the power (4700HQ + 765) AND the mobility (3-4 hours WHILE GAMING it seems) while remaining thinner and only a TAD heavier than even my GE40.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 15 2013, 07:31 PM

I'm looking at HWInfo64 a built in charge meter (which conveniently doubles as a "dis"charge meter when off AC adapter) and I can concur with AE's power consumption figures. Even on balanced mode I'm getting around 12-15W, I just set up a low power profile for light use so hopefully I might see lower numbers.

But, I didn't know the AUO panel was" just" 6bits. No wonder I'm seeing black clipping everywhere.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 17 2013, 12:03 AM

Unfortunately that particular review of the GE40/MSI 1420 is sorta misleading as it's a pre-production sample with a 1366x768 screen and only God knows what other bugs (especially in regards to the throttling and thermal pasting), so it's not entirely representative (especially considering that with a 768p screen, the gaming scores will actually be higher).

But, the throttling aside, the heat and power consumption figures (especially the part where the GE40 sucks MORE power at full load then the 90w adapter can actually handle) are for the most part correct - especially in regards to heat with stock thermal pasting (even more so if you get a very messily pasted one).

Glad to see the W230ST finally being reviewed though. It took them a while for sure, and I kinda like the detailed reviews NBC does. Although it's worth noting that the W230ST on review is ALREADY fitted with the 4702MQ and it STILL only has a 4+ hour battery life, high temps (still lower than the GE40, however) and throttling issues. Hmmmmmm, looks like it's DAT IPS SCREEN draining the power after all - not that anything can be done, it's gorgeous after all.

The MOST interesting part however, is the power consumption figures. It seems that the W230ST sucks more power under load than the GE40: 131w vs 113w - not particularly surprising considering it has DAT IPS SCREEN and the 765. However, this ALSO means that, sans battery, the W230ST/RE13 can theoretically overload its 120w AC adapter, just like how I totalled my Coolermaster NA90 universal adapter by running the GE40 on load with the battery out.

The chances are considerably lower, however, considering there's only an 11w "overdraw" on the W230ST's 120w adapter vs the GE40's 23w "overdraw" on its 90w adapter. 11w should be well within the safe operating margin of the W230ST's adapter, but you never know.

Now we need a PROPER review of the GS70 and see how it stacks up. While it's CRAZY THIN, it has that awesome looking twin fan setup so heat might be manageable. I also wonder how the FHD TN screen and battery life stacks up against the competition.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 20 2013, 03:48 PM

My lappy is one inch thick, 2kg, lasts 6 hours on battery and plays BF3 on ultra - which is about as close as I could get to a gaming ultrabook at this point in time. Which is okay for me, but sometimes I regret not getting a thicker, more powerful beast because I actually already have a netbook for mobile work (which has a dying 1 hour battery, so I'm actually more tethered to a plug with the tiny netbook lol).

But I do understand the Desktop Replacement mentality. Most power in something that you can close up and carry around (even if it's the size of a fully packed suitcase).

Unfortunately some people need the battery life for work, the portability to move around easily, the power to game AND don't have the disposable income to get TWO specialized laptops. Hence the need for weird in-betweeners like the GE40, the GS70 and the RE13 - each with it's own set of compromises.

If you're reading that up on Garage Sales, we're still not sure if it's the new GE40 SKUs or if somebody typo-ed. Because there's a lot of other weird additions to the specs like Intel WIFI, Killer Ethernet and Steel Series Keyboard (which is plain wuuut?).

But it's nice to see a more affordable version of the GE40 with 4GB of RAM on offer, considering that most games are x86 by default and can't use more than 4GBs anyway even with the LLA bit enabled. What's BAD is that the SSD + HDD version is NOT being offered, even on the flagship variant.

Also nice to know I got mine with 16GB RAM at the price they're asking for the 8GB one now... No free SteelSeries stuff however, so that's a loss.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 21 2013, 03:17 AM

Well, actually you only need to get 2 sticks of DDR3, not DDR3L. Only the GS70 and GT70 comes with DDR3L as standard IINM, but the GE40 CAN run DDR3L if needed.

But yeah, the current 8GB in 2x4GB config seems to stem from the fact that some sites have bashed the old SKU for not running dual channel on stock. It's a considerable problem for those wanting to upgrade though.

The Steelseries headphone and mouse are good value freebies though, even if personally I think a bluetooth/wireless mouse is a much better fit for a "gaming ultrabook".

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 21 2013, 10:35 AM

I never run with Turbo Boost on period. Makes for a happier and cooler left hand palm generally. I keep TB tied to the "Performance" profile for "emergency" situations, but to this day I haven't had to use it at all.

Performance hit? Well, sure, but there's only a barely perceptible difference for most of the stuff I do and the games I play with. The system will throttle with too much heat anyway lol, and I can't be bothered to set up multipliers with ThrottleStop YET.

But then I'm the kind of gamer who's happy with an average of 20-30fps (as long as it looks nice) so YMMV.

@marquis: Sure! Why not.

We DO have the recommendations thread but nothing focusing on truly "mobile" game-able laptops below 15'.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Aug 21 2013, 03:15 PM