Design

In a market where most of today’s gaming notebooks ship with LED lighting, flames, racing stripes, and other gaudy tack-ons, the understated design of the GX630 is downright refreshing.

The top of the GX630’s chassis is based around a brushed aluminum frame that contributes to the system’s light weight. Plastic is only used for the vital parts like the underside of the system and on select parts of the lid, where aluminum could get scratched easily. The red trim is also decked out in plastic.

The black aluminum will collect fingerprints rather easily, but this is pretty common among notebooks today: pretty much everyone is opting for glossy finishes.

The frame of the GX630 feels remarkably solid for an $800 notebook. Honestly we expected compromises here, but it’s pretty apparent that MSI didn’t skimp in this regard: the GX630 sports the same basic frame that MSI uses on their pricier gaming notebooks. The system has very little flex and is remarkably solid considering its light weight.

The lid on the GX630 is also very well built. It features a latch-less design, simply lift the lid to open the notebook. The hinges on the lid are quite firm – the lid doesn’t budge one millimeter unless you pull on it. Considering the number of times we’ve bumped lids on laptops while walking with it open, this is quite reassuring. At the same time though, the lid isn’t so firm that opening and closing the notebook repeatedly can become a workout. MSI has found that perfect balance between maximizing durability while preserving usability.

Again, considering the $800 price tag and specs of this system, we were expecting to get a cheaply built, all-plastic notebook with lots of flex, but MSI has actually delivered a system with excellent build quality befitting that of a more expensive system.


An example of this can be found in the quick launch buttons found to the left of the system power button, just above the keyboard. These buttons are all touch-sensitive, merely brush your finger across the button to activate it.

MSI provides touch-sensitive quick launch buttons for turning on/off the integrated wireless, Bluetooth, and the integrated webcam. Blue LEDs are used to indicate when each of these devices is activated. Additional touch-sensitive quick launch buttons are provided for toggling between the GX630’s five power modes (Gaming, Movie, Presentation, Office, and Turbo Battery), enabling or disabling the Turbo function (which automatically OC’s the CPU 300MHz), as well as media playback buttons such as rewind/fast forward, play/pause, stop, etc.

There’s also an additional touch-sensitive button that can be programmed by the user to launch whatever app you’d like.

Ports

The GX630’s minimalist design continues in the port clusters. The back of the GX630 features just two outputs: one VGA and one HDMI output. In addition, the system sports just two dedicated USB ports. A third port actually serves double duty as an eSATA, so you can either use it as a third USB port, or as an eSATA port, but not both. We’d like to see MSI offer a third USB port on the GX630, bringing the grand total of USB devices supported to four. With the proliferation of USB thumb drives and external hard drives, not to mention a dedicated gaming mouse, MP3 player, cell phone, and other accessories, it isn’t hard to run out of USB ports nowadays.

MSI also provides mini-1394, Ethernet, modem, and audio jacks on the left and right sides of the GX630.

Gaming keyboard?

MSI likes to tout the GX630’s keyboard as designed for gamers, with its highlighted WASD keys and numpad, but we actually think the keyboard is one of the weakest links on the GX630.

While we didn’t have any gripes with the left side of the keyboard, the right half was frustrating at times. You see, in addition to directional arrows, MSI also includes a full numpad on the GX630. This numpad is great for use in Excel, but it takes up a large amount of space and therefore many of the keys on the right side of the keyboard are small.

In the images above you can see what we’re talking about. See how the comma key is full-sized, but the period key isn’t? You can also see this with the L key and semicolon. The right shift key is also tiny.

It’s the period key that probably caused the most frustration though. Normally simple tasks like typing sentences and entering .com, .org on the end of web addresses becomes a frustrating endeavor, as your brain has to adjust to the fact that the period key is squished in comparison to the other keys right next to it. Meanwhile, you’ll have to use the function key in order to use the home and end keys for navigation.

We’re also not big fans of the location of the left control key. We feel its position should be swapped with the function key, so it can be used more easily with your pinkie when gaming.

In our opinion, MSI should either ditch the numpad or shrink its size significantly so a full-size keyboard can be implemented. After all, a full-size numpad isn’t nearly as important for day-to-day use as a full-sized period and enter key.