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The MSI GE40-2OC Dragon Eyes has an aluminium lid, with two sets of holes in the shape of ‘Dragon Eyes' cut into the aluminium.
The image above has a light shining directly down on top of the chassis showing the ‘grain' of the surface. It is an attractive looking machine, and very thin. We measured between 22mm to 29mm from front to back, which is certainly impressive.
The rear view highlights the air vents and battery holder, at the rear.
The 6 cell battery slides into place, then locks in position.
Along the left side of the machine is the DC port, an HDMI and VGA port, a LAN port and two USB 3.0 ports. The right hand side of the machine has a Bluray drive, a single USB 2.0 port, a card reader and a headset/audio out and Microphone connector. Considering the small physical size, this standard of connectivity is actually really good.
The MSI GE40-2OC is a solid little laptop and is certainly well built from the outside. The panel opens cleanly enough with moderate force and holds in place, without any movement.
The keyboard is pretty much as good as we have experienced on a 14 inch machine and while there is no numpad, the keys are large and well spaced. There are obviously some compromises to be made at this size, but it deserves a little praise. Sadly, my major issue with the keyboard was the single height return key, which always causes me a problem.
Keyboard flex is noticeable, right across the full width and sadly it isn't backlit either which is disappointing.
We do wish PC manufacturers would take a leaf out of Apple's book. We really do not need stickers all over the machine explaining what is inside it. This might make sense in a retail store environment, but after buying online I would need to remove all of these stickers myself, which can be messy and time consuming.
The trackpad is fairly large and reasonably good to use. The button row underneath is chrome and large enough to use comfortably. I say this with a modicum of reservation as I simply cannot use any trackpad for a long period of time. Underneath the trackpad is a row of icons highlighting wifi, bluetooth, hard drive activity, battery life and caps lock status.
The power button is located top left of the keyboard, next to a centrally positioned speaker strip. The hinges on both sides of the screen are heavy duty and look as if they could withstand a lot of abuse on the move. Reassuring.
Onboard sound is reasonably good, although it lacks bass response and would need external speakers to get the most from it. While the volume level can be pushed high, it never really impressed me. Considering it is a 14 inch laptop however we doubt few people will complain.
Above the panel, in the center of the chassis is the Web Camera, which is high definition and capable of handling 720p resolution at 30 frames per second.
The LCD backlit LED screen isn't too reflective, as shown above. It isn't a pure matte finish, but we like the compromise that MSI have made to ensure that lights behind the user will not intrude too much.
The screen quality is only slightly above average. At full brightness it won't be clearly visible in sunlight and we would have liked a few additional brightness levels. Text clarity is good, and colour reproduction is also strong. Off angle viewing is slightly higher than average, although nothing remarkable.
The image above highlights an issue with the glossy finish of the GE40-2OC. Fingerprints are noticeable everywhere and you will need to have a cleaning cloth on hand to keep this machine looking pristine. I have to admit I found this finish very susceptible to surface related marks and it became irritating after even light use. Perhaps I am too anal with the cleanliness of my systems, but i was constantly battling to keep this machine fingerprint free.
The internal build is immaculate. A large dual heatpipe runs from the GTX760M and meets up with a heatpipe running from the Core i7 4702MQ processor. At the other end a fan forces hot air outside the chassis – in line with the machine. This hefty cooling system will be needed, especially within the confines of a 14 inch chassis … part of the downside of cramming a high end quad core i7 processor together with a discrete Nvidia GTX760M graphics card.
We noticed that MSI had only populated this machine with a single 8GB DIMM module. This is a good move if a user will be upgrading later, but it seems a bit of an oversight as the machine will be running in single channel. I have to admit I was quite surprised to see this.
The 750GB 7,200 RPM mechanical drive is installed away from the motherboard, bottom right in the picture above. The lack of Solid State Drive in this review sample is going to negatively impact overall system performance.
