MSI Raider 17" 16:10 QHD+ 240Hz Gaming Laptop - (Intel Core i9-14900HX, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Windows 11 Home) - Core Black

Yes, it's expensive. Yes it's worth it! This is the second laptop i've bought recently. The first as the Asus G14, which to be fair was a lovely machine. Though it has a number of issues that meant i returned it. After shopping around i settled on this one for several reasons. Firstly, for it's price this spec is pretty much the best bang for your buck. I would have liked to have gone Razer, but you cant really get this spec unless your willing to for out another 500+. Secondly, I was interested in going back to a larger screen on the laptop. Since i will be using this for both work and play a larger screen will be useful. Especially since i was previously using a 14" laptop. Finally, i wanted and need a num pad in my work. I've been using it the last few days and frankly it's blown me away with how powerful this thing it is. It's a beast in every sense of the word! Gaming wise i've thrown a couple of games at it that have struggled on my previousl laptops, COD, Borderlands, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spooder-man, Ghost of Tsushima, and others. All have played with around 100-140fps. Higher if i dropped down from ultra to high. As another reviewer mention less than 60fps on starfield I tried it out. For me I ran it on high and dropped shadows and stuff to medium, and was getting 90-100 fps. I locked it out at 90 and never saw it drop. The other thing to note here is that the temps are insanely good for a laptop. browsing the web and doing some light admin stuff my temps idle around 53c! In gaming they climb to around 80c, with the occassions short spike to 90c or so. However these spikes infrequen with the average temp being around 60-70c! Not a fair comparison, but my previous G14 (14in screen) would idle aroud 70 while working, and spike to 95+ quite freequently when gaming! The screen im not really sure about, the blurb says IPS-Like, which is confusing as something either is or isnt IPS. That said the screen is glorious and both work and gaming are a joy on it. One of the big advantages of this size of laptop is that it has a LOT of ports! 3 USB-C all of them can out put video. Only one of them has dower delivery though. So while you can charge through USB C, the placement is, for me, not ideal. Given this has a USB-C on the rear of the laptop, i think that would have been better for the power delivery one. You also have a full sized HDMI slot, so you can in theory (i dont have a way to test this, but its mentioned a lot on youtube) can have 4 monitors! 3 external and the laptop screen. I have run a 2 external screens and they've worked like a charm. 2 USB 3 ports, and a full sized SD card slot. This however is a bit meh, firstly the card just slips in, no click lock. It also juts out to far for my liking. However the transfer speed is frankly terrible, it peaked at around 65mb/s but average around 40-45. Honestly you'd be better using an external adapter connected to a USB-C port. I tried that and average around 100mb/s! The wifi on this is amazing. It's using a Intel KillerWifi a frankly i dont think ive ever seen better. I'm used to WiFi being a cheap MediTek POC. This one is amazing and really shows it's own when using GeforceNow, which on my old laptop (with a MediTek adapter) would constantly give me network degredation warning. I'd have to restart my sessions every hour or so. Had a session last night that lasted for 6h with no warning or restarting. It also has a full gigabit ethernet for wired connection. Again a perk of this being a huge beast of a machine! Also the speakers are really good, like the best ive heard on a laptop Now for a few peeves. They arent really negatives, but rather just aspects i dont like. Firstly the RGB. Even as a 'gamer' i dont really like RGB, especially when its as in your face as this is. So you have a light strip on the front of the machine, and the logo on the lid, that both have full RGB stuff going on. On the one hand i like the RGB strip light cause you could make it look like knight rider, which would be cool.....for maybe half an hour. Also bear in mind that the RGB will drain your battery faster! The steel series keyboard is okay, not great. It's a bit 'mushy' for my liking, I have two keyboards that i use for my laptops. A black widow for when im at the desk, and a Logitech mechanical mini when im out and about. Both are more satisfying to use that the built in keyboard. However as i said it's 'okay' for use in a pinch. Same with the trackpad, though TBH im not a fan of track pads and use a Logitech Anywhere on the go, and a MX3s at the desk Now for some negatives: Firstly, the USB-C on the right hand side of the chassis would be better on the back or the left. The num-pad is NOT full sized, not even the same size as the keyboard, which takes a lot of getting used to. This im guessing is due to them wanting the speakers where they are. Plastic every where. So yeah, one of the trade off's im guessing they choose was to make parts of the laptop from plastic rather than the metal, and it shows. In those areas it frankly looks cheap and tacky. Which i dont understand since we're taliking little strips here. Finally, the weight. Honestly i dont really mind the weight so much. But i can see it being a n issue for a lot of people.

Got this as a replacement to an alienware X14 (thumbs down). I love this laptop. The only critisism is the MSI software, it's a bit naff but that's a small price to pay for a great machine. Does everything very well. Run hot..ish when pushing it but nothing that requires an external cooler like the alienware. Would also say the battery is decent, not fully monitored it but pretty sure I get nearing 2 hours on heavy gaming.

Fans are extremely loud and they start when you move the mouse, graphic card is a scam, you can only play in low resolution games from 1990 . Also Amazon is in league with them for promoting and keeping your money hostage for 60 days after the return

The laptop is fast to start and quick for simulation and visualisation work. The main problem of this laptop is it's power supply which is at the back. I think the engineering design of the power supply, and the thick wiring linked to the heavy charger needs rethinking. The power supply cannot cope with the thick wiring attached to it and any slight movement of the wiring or the charger causes the laptop to say, remove the power supply and insert again. The laptop quality, screen brightness and functionality are good.

When you using it on max the fans getting a bit loud but it's a gaming laptop so that quite normal! £1800 for a power house like this its amazing price...! Using it for 1 week now in some heavy gaming(main League of Legends),239 FPS all time in high setting Nothing bad to say about the laptop so far:)

Runs great on ultra setting & looks amazing

My first MSI - I usually have HP computers. It’s well built, appears robust, has a pin sharp screen that is far better than any other laptop Ive had, and it’s faster than a fast thing being chased by a cheetah down a slide covered in butter…

Screen was damage.