I've had my GE66 Raider for a few days now and have been loving it. The long and short of this review is: The product is pretty much perfect and delivers everything advertised, with the main hang-up being the price.
Pros:
- Most beautiful laptop I have ever seen, especially at night. If exterior design is important to you, and you're a fan of bright neon lights (like I am!), I don't think there's a better laptop on the market. Just look at the picture! Captivating colors in front and all over the keyboard, perfect for late-night gaming and useage. The silver backplate with the metallic dragon shield is super cool, too, giving this laptop a spectacular look all-around.
- Aside from fan issues (noted below), this laptop runs games at high settings with a spectacular framerate. Even at max graphical settings, the benchmark test in Civilization VI (which simulates a HUGE game to test your hardware) never dips below 80 FPS, while early game you'll actually max out your frames. Not that this is the game where you'll most want those extra frames... but it's the one I play most, anyway.
- Just super duper quick all around. With the SSD plus 32 GB(!) of RAM, everything runs fast and flawlessly. I have yet to experience any kind of slowdown whatsoever due to RAM usage, which I'm pretty sure will be the case for anyone with such a high amount. I've never had a laptop so quick and seamless at all times like this.
- 1 TB of space on the SSD is the perfect amount for a laptop. Remember that a lot of that space gets eaten up by the OS, which is why I personally find 512 to be way too low. My previous laptop was 512, and it didn't take long at all to fill it up (and I don't even install a whole lot of games).
- Lots of different ports for folks who need 'em. Personally I find the SD card slot useful for transferring the screenshots and videos from my Nintendo Switch (you'll need a MicroSD adapter to do that).
Cons:
- Despite purchasing it, I feel this laptop is priced a bit too high. There's a GE75 Raider model also by MSI with all the same specs for the same price, except it has a 300 Hz screen instead of 240. I still chose this one because I preferred the 15.6" screen size and the other one was sold out on Best Buy's website (pretty much ever since it was listed), but there are certainly better "bangs for your buck" out there. This was the main reason I removed a star.
- In regards to the front LED, which is the defining feature of the laptop's design, there is an internal white/miscolored piece near the touchpad that obfuscates the lighting in that area. It's minimal, but once you notice it your eyes will be drawn to it every time, which unfortunately takes away from the beauty of it.
- The fans can get loud when games eat up a lot of memory. This can be reduced by turning down graphical settings, but if you're paying for that RTX 2070 SUPER, don't you want to put it to use?
- Sometimes audio can be on the quieter side. I've noticed this especially in Discord calls with certain soft-speaking users, who I could hear fine without maxing out my audio on my previous laptop. However, as I've done few Discord calls so far and haven't made too much of a concentrated effort yet to adjust the audio settings, I can't say for certain whether this is unsolvable or not (but certainly not through checking all the "obvious" settings).
So altogether, if you're willing to shell out $2,199.99 plus tax for this model, you'll most likely be very happy with what it has to offer. Just do your research first and be certain that it's the model you REALLY want. Personally, for me, I feel that it was, but shop around and find out what's right for you. As far as the laptop delivering on what's advertised, it absolutely does.