MSI GT660,MSI GT660,MSI GT660

MSI is out to prove that powerful gaming chops doesn't necessarily mean a large and barely Sony VGP-BPS9/S Battery portable notebook. The flashy GT660 is heavy, yes, but not so big that users won't be able to carry it in a normal laptop bag. Plus, the flashy lights outside and the Core i7 CPU inside means you won't embarrass yourself at a LAN party. You won't get the full HD experience here, but the GT660's excellent display and juiced Nvidia graphics make this $1,849 system worth a serious look.

Design
Aesthetically, there's a lot going on with the GT660. Almost too Dell GD761 Battery much. Unlike the GT725 and GT627, which lacked the audacious flair of most gaming notebooks, it seems like MSI pulled together as many cool-looking elements as they could while still keeping the GT660 below two grand. So it's got some funky cuts along the edges and a Sony VGP-BPS13A/B Battery glossy, beveled lid complete with glowing MSI logo.

Under the hood you start to notice how busy the GT600 looks. There's a mix of matte and glossy--though the latter dominates--and the piano black of the display bezel and top of the deck fades into a glossy slate color, which then turns into a textured honeycomb pattern on the palm rest surrounding the touchpad.

Two speakers ringed in red sit on the left and right of the upper deck, and between them is a control deck outlined in red and chrome with touch-sensitive LEDs. Though MSI claims this element evokes a Knight Rider aesthetic, it reminded us more of Aquaman's underwear. A light tap activates each function, including enabling or disabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or the Windows key, and switching between power modes. There's even a button users can program to launch an oft-used app. A shield-shaped power button sits in the center. Though we found this strip very useful, it picked up fingerprints.

No gaming notebook would be complete without glowing LED accents. The GT660 sports thin bands of orange LEDs as part of the lid design along the lower edges of the lid, and wrapped around the edge corners at the bottom of the deck. We don't like that the color doesn't quite match the red accents splashed across the keyboard and top edge, but we it was cool that we could turn the LED accents completely on or off by tapping the icon on the far right of the control deck. With the MSI LED Manager utility, you can turn each area off and on individually or all of them completely. Users can also set the LEDs to "breathe," which results in a gentle fade in and out, or to pulse along with the audio coming from your speakers. This latter feature was a lot of fun when we began playing loud, drum-driven music. Overall, it's not as comprehensive as on Alienware systems, but it's a nice touch.

This 16-inch system is portable in theory, but its 7.4-pound weight will likely keep it sitting on your desk most of the time. Still, at 15.6 x 10.6 x 2.2 inches, the system is nearly 3 pounds lighter than the Toshiba Qosmio X505, and unlike that 18-inch system will still fit in most regular size notebook messengers or backpacks.

Keyboard and Touchpad
A pool of glossy plastic surrounds the matte, chiclet-style keys on the GT660, was a little distracting under bright lights. Since the keys aren't backlit, you won't be able to game as easily with the lights dimmed as, say, the X505. Still, we appreciate the red accents on the keys most games default to for movement--WASD, 8462, and arrows--making them easier to find.

Though the keyboard is full size and the keys are springy, we found ourselves making more typing errors than we normally do. Something about the spacing is slightly off.

MSI made some placement and size choices that we're used to seeing on netbooks, but not full-size laptops. The right Shift key is a little undersized and shifted to the left to accommodate the arrows. Plus, there's an extra backslash key between the Alt key on the left and the space bar. This made executing keyboard shortcuts harder because the Alt keyisn't where our fingers expect it, plus it's smaller than

normal. There's plenty of room on the deck, even with the full number pad on the right, as MSI left at least an inch of deck around the keyboard, so we're not sure why the layout has these little issues.

The touchpad is pretty big--3.2 x 1.9 inches--but it could be even larger if the designers had used more of the available space. The slightly rough touch surface and mouse button has a thick chrome outline that flows down into a chevron shape.

Under the single mouse button are status indicators for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Battery, Sleep, and the hard drive are appreciated. Plus, our fingers kept naturally gravitating to the bottom edge of the notebook where the mouse buttons usually sit. On this system they're higher, which took some getting used to.