Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I ordered an MSI GS65 Stealth a few weeks before hearing about and getting this laptop, so I'm going to review this laptop by comparing the two. From a hardware/performance perspective, the MAG-15 outdoes the GS65 in almost every way. From an aesthetic and overall build quality perspective, it's a bit more mixed. From a price perspective, the MAG-15 is the obvious winner. Stuff that's the same: Both devices have an i7-9750H, RTX 2070 Max-Q, 32 GB of DDR4, 1 TB of NVMe storage, 15-inch 1920x1080 IPS display, and weigh just under 2 kg. Stuff that's not the same: *Display* The display on the GS65 is superior. It has a 240 Hz refresh rate over the MAG-15's 144 Hz panel. Both are buttery smooth and most people will not notice the difference. The real issue with the MAG-15's panel is a strange backlight bleed between the pixels. It can only be seen with certain solid colors (especially blue), and appears as thin white lines between the individual pixels. Not a massive problem, but definitely detracts from the experience and is disappointing given how good the rest of the machine is. *Keyboard* The keyboard on the GS65 strikes me as pretty typical. It's good and I have no complaints. The keyboard on the MAG-15 is very different. I personally like it, but others may not. It's clicky, has good travel for a laptop keyboard, and is pretty satisfying to type on. I have no recommendation of one over the other. *Trackpad* The trackpad on the GS65 is superior. The texture is more grippy, which you may or may not like. The trackpad on the MAG-15 doesn't feel like it's mounted solidly, so when it's clicked, the entire trackpad shifts ever so slightly. As with the display, not a huge issue, but definitely feels cheap and out of place on this machine. It also feels slightly less accurate than the GS65's trackpad. *Overall Build Quality* The MAG-15 has superior build quality. It's hard to quantify, but it just feels more solid when pulling it out of my bag and handling it. The GS65 isn't poorly built, but it doesn't inspire the same confidence the MAG-15 does. The body of the MAG-15 is almost entirely a magnesium alloy. The GS65 is a mix of aluminum (I think) and plastic on the back edge. *Aesthetics* Both are clean, professional-looking machines that wouldn't look out of place in a board meeting. The GS65 is a little flashier with it's gold trim, whearas the MAG-15 is a solid matte-black, except for the logo (which is slightly crooked on my model). The MAG-15 also comes with no "RTX" stickers and the like; the GS65 does. *Size* Both laptops have practically identical width and thickness. The MAG-15 isn't as deep (distance front to back) as the GS65. Difference is about 1 cm. The power supply for the MAG-15 is larger than that for the GS65 but weighs about the same. *Upgradeability* The MAG-15 is vastly superior here. The motherboard on the GS65 is flipped (ram and storage on the keyboard side), making upgrades much more involved than on most other laptops, including the MAG-15. Think 5 minutes to install an SSD or upgrade the RAM vs 30, along with less risk of damaging something. *Wi-Fi* The MAG-15 is superior. It comes with Wi-Fi 6 (ax); the GS65 still uses the older ac standard. *Battery* The MAG-15 is superior. It comes with a 94 whr battery; the GS65 comes with an 80 whr battery. *I/O* What is different: The GS65 has a mini-displayport port; the MAG-15 does not. The MAG-15 makes up for this though with its Thunderbolt 3 port. The GS65 also has TB3, but it doesn't appear to support driving two displays at once. The TB3 port on the MAG-15 does. The MAG-15 also has an SD card reader; the GS65 does not. The port placement on the MAG-15 is much better than on the GS65. The GS65 has power and all of its video ports on the right-hand side. Power isn't an issue as both laptops have a right-angle connector for this, but most video cables will interfere with mouse use on the GS65 if you're right-handed. The MAG-15 puts power, TB3, HDMI 2.0, and ethernet on the back. *Cooling* The MAG-15 is superior. Running an AIDA 64 stress test on both machines with both set to "performance" mode, the GS65 immediately settles in at 3.1-3.25 GHz on all cores, with 3 of its cores in the upper 90s C and the other three around 80, courtesy of terrible heatpipe placement. The MAG-15 starts out at 3.6 GHz on all cores for about a minute, with all cores between 80 and 90 C, then throttles back to around 3.2-3.3 GHz with all cores at 70-80 C. These results are for the MAG-15 out-of-the-box, but the GS65 repasted with Noctua NH1 and running a -150 mV undervolt. The cooling isn't as impressive as Dave implies in his review, but it's definitely better than the GS65. Not sure how much that's saying though. *Miscellaneous* The rubber feet on the MAG-15 are much grippier than the feet on the GS65. The GS65 slides rather easily; the MAG-15 does not. The MAG-15 also makes very quiet "electronic" noises, for lack of a better term. Not noticeable unless you're in a quiet room. The sound card also seems to be slightly better on the GS65, though not by much. *Price* The MAG-15 cost me $2000 as configured and was tax-free. The GS65 cost $2700 with tax. If you're considering the GS65 and the MAG-15, the pricing and hardware advantages make the MAG-15 the clear winner, unless you: 1) are really picky about your trackpad and/or display, 2) really hate the keyboard on the MAG-15, and/or 3) place great value on the aesthetics of the GS65. Eluktronics team -- if you all read this, please fix the display and trackpad. If they were on par with the GS65, this would almost unconditionally be the best laptop in this class available right now and would easily be worth $500 more than the current asking price. *Updates 27-Sept-2019* Some more thoughts after using for a week: if you turn off the light bar on the front, there are zero lights anywhere on the outside of the machine. If you find blinky LEDs all over everything as annoying as I do, you'll appreciate this. It does require you to open the lid though to confirm it's charging. The Intel and RTX stickers are included separately in the box. The trackpad seems to be mounted solidly on the keyboard side and cantilevered going towards the user. So the user-side floats a bit above the mechanical left/right click buttons underneath. As mentioned above, not a bad experience and something I got somewhat accustomed to, but definitely inferior to the GS65. Display -- I don't really notice the between-pixel backlight bleed in day-to-day use. Battery -- I got about 6.5 hours running a mix of chrome, Python development, a web server, Slack, Outlook, and Spotify, on a mix of the three performance settings. Keyboard -- I think heavy typists (like me) will probably find the keyboard better than light typists. As another reviewer mentioned, sometimes if you press a key lightly, you'll think it registered, but it didn't. Wireless display -- The MAG-15 (and GS65) both support Windows' built-in wireless display functionality. Boot/wake time -- They are atrocious on the MAG-15. I have no idea why, but booting from off takes about 20 seconds, and waking from sleep when you open the lid takes about 10. I tried installing Windows on a different SSD (Samsung 970 EVO), and same thing. I haven't timed the GS65, but it's probably around 3x as fast for boot and almost instant for wake. If you're the kind of person to whip out your laptop, get straight to work for a few minutes, and repeat throughout the day, you'll probably find this annoying. Speaking of Windows re-install -- It was pretty normal. Eluktronics has all of the necessary drivers and utilities easily accessible on their website. (You won't be able to rely on Windows' driver installer to get everything.) Also, the laptop truly does not ship with any bloatware. I usually do a clean Windows install on any new computer I buy to get rid of OEM-installed junk, but did not need to in this case.