MSI GT783 Review: Gaming Dominance

The MSI GT783 is a customizable gaming laptop sold by laptop resellers such as XoticPC (the company that was kind enough to supply us with this review unit). If you're new to the realm of custom built gaming laptops, the first thing you'll need to know is that there are many resellers and hardware options for you to choose from. In this review we'll cover the MSI GT783 gaming laptop and go over the specifics based on how our review unit is customized.

BUILD & DESIGN
The first thing you're bound to notice about the GT783 is how utterly attractive the design is. The combination of the bright and colorful keyboard backlighting, beautiful FHD display, rounded edges, glossy accents and dark finish will definitely give you the feel of "gaming dominance." Even the lid looks slick, what with the silver MSI logo lighting up and all. There is one definite drawback to the design, however: the brushed finish collects dust and fingerprints far too easily. If you have a microfiber cloth handy, this shouldn't be a huge problem. 

The build quality itself is extremely solid; we were very impressed. The notebook is built on a hard aluminum chassis; even the outer plastic parts on the bottom are rock solid. Not a single place anywhere around or on the keyboard budged when we pressed down to test for "soft spots." The components in the display cover could have been build a little tougher as the edges of it bend inward just a bit, but we feel that it's not cause for concern. Overall, the build is above average (as it should be at this price tag). 

The GT783 can be upgraded easily simply by removing several screws and sliding the bottom panel down. You can choose to upgrade two of the storage drives and memory modules from the massive bottom panel. If you remove a few more screws, you can also upgrade the processor and graphics card from this area as well. The notebook can hold up to 32GB DDR3-1333MHz dual-channel RAM (4x8GB).

Ports and Features
The port selection is very expansive. It has a total of five USB ports; two of which are SuperSpeed 3.0. The 7-in-1 memory card reader is compatible with SD, SDHC, SDXC, XD, MS, MMC, and MS-Pro. The selection includes VGA for hooking it up to an external monitor, HDMI, and eSATA. Separate headphone, mic, line-in and line-out jacks are also included, as is the norm for most high-end gaming laptops. Our review unit doesn't have a Blu-Ray/DVD/CD writer/reader, but users can add one. 

Front: Activity lights	Back: lock slot, d/c power, Gigabit Ethernet, VGA, eSATA, HDMI, exhaust vent
Left: Exhaust vent, USB 3.0 x2, 7-in-1 memory card reader, USB 2.0, headphones/mic/line-in/line-out jacks	Right: USB 2.0 x2