MSI GV62 7RC

What is the MSI GV62 7RC?

The MSI GV62 7RC is a gaming laptop that costs only £829. That’s half the price of many more conventional gaming notebooks, and it certainly makes it a tempting proposition if you want portable playtime without having to spend bags of cash.

However, the lower price does mean compromise – in the form of a new Nvidia chip designed specifically for more modest gaming devices.

MSI GV62 7RC – Design and build

The MSI doesn’t break any new ground in the design department, but it does look good. The exterior is made from a brushed grey metal and the lid sports the familiar MSI Dragon Gaming logo.

The keyboard is illuminated with a red backlight, and the trackpad buttons are fringed in the same colour – as are the icons above the power and fan speed buttons, and the air vents at the rear.

A grey-and-red colour scheme hardly pushes the envelope, but it looks better than the Acer Nitro 5.

The MSI looks smart, and its 2.2kg weight is 500g lighter than the Acer. This is enough of a difference to be noticeable when you’re carrying the machine from place to place.

So it’s significantly lighter than its key rival, and the MSI also offers greater versatility. The entire base panel pulls off to reveal access to the memory slots, storage, cooling hardware and battery – quite the opposite of Acer’s tiny component compartments. The MSI machine has a USB 3.1 Type-C port, a card reader and a DisplayPort output; the latter was missing from the Nitro 5.

The MSI does falter in some areas, though. Its body is 29mm thick, and it extends to 35mm once you include its rubber feet.

Build quality isn’t great, either. The plastic base panel can be pushed off easily, enough to touch the components and cooling gear. The plastic around the keyboard feels weak, and the desktop wobbles and distorts when pressure is applied to the rear of the panel.

The poor build quality isn’t a terminal problem – it just means you’d be wise to carry the device in a protective sleeve when travelling. The Acer, too, was afflicted by similar concerns.

The MSI is lighter and more attractive than the Acer, and its internal access and port selection are better too. Build quality isn’t outstanding and the device is thicker than the Acer, but on balance I prefer the GV62’s design – and it’s certainly good for an £829 gaming notebook.

MSI GV62 7RC – Keyboard and trackpad

There’s nothing new about the keyboard on this MSI laptop. It’s the usual Scrabble-tile unit and, as ever, it’s provided by SteelSeries.

The buttons are large and comfortable: they push down with a consistent and soft action, and they offer a little more travel than the keys on the Acer. They’re quick and quiet, which makes them great for hammering out documents.

The comfortable, consistent action and soft metal beneath the keyboard make the MSI good for typing and for less demanding games, but serious players and keen eSports competitors will need something more substantial, with a firmer base and a more crisp typing action.

In addition, the MSI’s layout isn’t great either, with a single-height Return key and cursor buttons that aren’t separated. The trackpad’s two buttons are too soft – an issue that hampered the Acer too. Serious gamers will want to deploy a USB mouse.

MSI GV62 7RC – Screen and sound quality

The MSI’s screen is a Full HD panel devoid of any fancy syncing technology or a high refresh rate. It’s entirely standard for a screen in a modest machine.

It’s a TN panel, though, which means various differences when stacked up against the IPS screen in the Acer. TN screens don’t tend to have viewing angles that can compete with IPS, for instance, and colour reproduction on such screens is poorer too. They benefit from faster response times, however, which are good for gaming.

The screen technology is a bit of a mixed bag, then – and, unfortunately, so is the quality. On the plus side, colours are surprisingly good. The average Delta E of 0.37 is excellent, and the measured colour temperature of 6,967K is closer to the 6,500K ideal than the Acer managed.

The screen renders an excellent 97.8% of the sRGB colour gamut. Uniformity levels are fine: the MSI’s screen lost around 12% of its brightness, while the Acer lost about 20% in the same test. The TN screen delivered great response times, with no sign of slow-down or stuttering during any test.

However, every colour on this screen is undermined by the dreadful contrast. The brightness level of 230 nits is low, but the black level of 0.73 nits is far too high – and those combine for a poor contrast ratio of 315:1.

As a result, it will be tricky to tell different shades apart, and it also means that colours will lack subtlety and depth. The poor black level will make black shades appear as underwhelming greys, and it will squash darker tones together.

The poor contrast and high black level will impact gaming and movies, with colours that look underwhelming and dark areas that don’t look as good as they could.

The MSI’s various screen modes didn’t help matters, with little to choose between the standard, movie and gaming options.

The poor contrast on this screen means games lack punch and depth, but at least their colours are accurate – something  the Acer couldn’t manage. Neither screen is particularly good, but at least both are fine for gaming.

The speakers aren’t anything to shout about. They’re not particularly loud, there’s barely any bass, and the top-end is tinny – although it’s clear rather than muddy, at least. I’d be inclined to always use a headset.

MSI GV62 7RC – Performance

The MSI is an affordable gaming laptop built around the Nvidia GeForce MX150. Despite the different nomenclature, it’s from the Pascal range used in other gaming notebooks – including the GTX 1050 inside the Acer.

The MX150 is named differently because this low-end chipset is designed for casual gaming and eSports rather than high-end, Triple-A titles. That means a cut-down specification. It has 384 stream processors rather than the 640 included in the GTX 1050, and its 2GB of GDDR5 memory is half the allocation in the Acer Nitro 5.

It does win in clock speed, at least: its 1468MHz base clock is almost 100MHz higher than the GTX 1050.

The cut-down core is designed for casual games and eSports titles, and the MX150 had no problem with either. It played DOTA 2 and League of Legends at each game’s top graphics settings, with average frame rates beyond 60fps. I can handle Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, too.

That’s great, but the MX150 is less adept at playing high-end games. It couldn’t get beyond 25fps in Tomb Raider or Shadow of Mordor when run at High and Ultra settings.

Instead, to get top-end titles running at 1080p you’ll have to dial back the graphics. I only got Tomb Raider running with a 35fps frame rate when I used its Low graphics present, and I hit 40fps in Shadow of Mordor by running at Medium settings.

This is one area where the Acer’s GTX 1050 is a step ahead. That machine ran Tomb Raider at 45fps and hit 43fps in Shadow of Mordor – and its 3DMark: Fire Strike Ultra score of 964 points is much quicker than the 545 points extracted from the MSI.

The MSI’s modest graphics chip is paired with a Core i5 processor – the same i5-7300HQ included in the Acer. It runs at 2.5GHz and it has four cores, but no Hyper-Threading. Both machines also have 8GB of memory, albeit in a disappointing single-channel configuration.

The two machines are close performance-wise, although the Acer’s better GPU saw it sneak ahead in benchmarks. The MSI scored 3489 and 8647 in the Geekbench tests, for instance – but the Acer was a few hundred points ahead in both tests.

Those scores are no surprise, and they’re also unlikely to make much difference in the real world. The Core i5 chip won’t bottleneck games, and it has enough speed and cores to handle general-purpose computing and modest multi-tasking.

The Toshiba XG3 SSD is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s read pace of 2,095MB/sec is great, and several times better than the Acer drive, but its write pace of 575MB/sec is more mediocre – so at least loading and boot times should be good. It isn’t huge, either: you’ll soon feel the pinch from the 128GB drive if you’re installing games.

The modest components never presented thermal problems. The CPU and GPU peaked at fine temperatures of 63°C and 80°C, and peak noise levels were consistent and quiet. In this respect, the MSI is similar to the Acer – no surprise considering the hardware inside both machines.

The MSI has a 41Wh battery, which is only middling, and it lasted for 2hrs 41mins in the Powermark test – almost an hour behind the Acer. You won’t get more than 90 minutes of gaming from this machine before having to plug in.

Why buy the MSI GV62 7RC?

The MSI isn’t a powerful portable, but it’s certainly persuasive.

The MX150 graphics chip has enough power to handle eSports games, casual titles and older favourites, and it’s paired with a fine Core i5 processor that’ll be capable in video editing workloads. The SSD offers fast read speeds, the keyboard is reasonable, and the laptop is lighter and better-looking than its nearest rival.

Of course, there are compromises. The MSI’s screen offers poor contrast, the battery is mediocre, and the MX150 chip is easily outgunned by the GTX 1050 inside the more expensive Acer.

Those issues are expected, though, and none of them are deal-breakers. This isn’t the best gaming notebook on the market, but it’s one of the best-value offerings I’ve seen. If you want a laptop for eSports and less demanding games, and your budget won’t stretch beyond £1000, this is a solid alternative.

Verdict

The MSI’s lightweight, attractive design, sufficient power and ability to handle eSports titles and modest games make it a solid choice as a bargain gaming laptop.

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