![]() ![]() Unfortunately, the pad does have one fatal flaw: it's on a gaming laptop. It doesn't even stumble over Windows' gesture system - when a trackpad does just about everything right, there's not much to talk about. The pad's buttons sink in with a satisfying click and its large matte surface feels smooth under a lazy finger. Thankfully, the Dragon takes yet another tip from the original GT70, retaining all the laudable qualities of its predecessor's superb mouser. Users accustomed to tapping Win+D with their left pinky will have to retrain themselves - this keyboard's only Windows key lives on its starboard side.Ĭonsidering how central the mouse is to the desktop computing experience, it's shocking how many laptops hit the market with downright terrible trackpads. We normally applaud the absence of a left-handed Windows key on a gaming rig (all the better to avoid accidental quits with), but proper desktop utilization of Windows 8 often means using hotkeys. Oddly, the keyboard's most significant fault comes from the computer's operating system, not its hardware build. Anyone not in that minority, however, will be hard-pressed to complain. Still, competitive gamers who demand full anti-ghosting will need to look elsewhere - like most gaming laptops, the GT70 can only bear between six and eight simultaneous key presses. It's still a far cry from the mechanical setups many desktop gamers are accustomed to, but for a portable rig it's more than satisfying. There's nothing new here, and that's fine - this SteelSeries arrangement is still one of the better island-style keyboards we've seen on a gaming machine, offering light keycaps that depress with a soft, but audible click. The GT70's chiclet keyboard glows with a rainbow of LED lights, softly illuminating the keycaps with a subtle dash of color. Maybe MSI figured that NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 780M wouldn't need the extra help. The previous model's fan-accelerating "cooler boost" mode is here as well, but its one-touch overclocking "Turbo" mode has been perplexingly replaced by a media button. This layout, too, is mostly identical to the standard GT70's quick buttons, offering screen and brightness controls, a WiFi toggle and a shortcut to a system control manager offering many of the same functions. ![]() A Mini DisplayPort stands out as the only change, replacing the original's eSATA socket.Ĭrowding the edge of the laptop's hinge are a touch-sensitive control bar and a physical power button. The laptop's rear rounds out its connectivity options with an AC plug, VGA and an HDMI port. Peer along the frame's edges and you'll notice it mirrors the original GT70 exactly: three USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader and four audio jacks for line-in, line-out, a microphone and headphones on the left and a pair of lesser USB 2.0 ports and an optical drive on the right. Visually, little else has changed since the previous generation. This says, "I am a hardcore gaming machine." Let's dive in and see if MSI's encore deserves a standing ovation.%Gallery-189467% Look and feel NVIDIA's latest mobile GPU is here too, not to mention notable OS upgrades, port tweaks and a mystical new motif. It's actually the second GT70 to adopt the Dragon moniker, but the first to pack Intel's fourth-generation Core processors. Meet the GT70 Dragon Edition: a Haswell-toting, 17-inch gaming laptop with all the trappings of its predecessor. ![]() It was a darn good machine, so it's no surprise that MSI is hoping for a repeat performance. Like all machines of its type, it was huge, oversized and ridiculously heavy - but it trumped many of the category's biggest faults by being superbly crafted, surprisingly long-lasting and by boasting the bleeding edge of tech: an Ivy Bridge CPU. One of the strongest gaming laptops of 2012 had to be the MSI GT70. Intel: Haswell will boost battery life by 50 percent First Haswell gaming laptop revealed: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 with GTX780M graphics ![]()
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