These affordable gaming laptops combine brand new ”Tiger Lake-H” CPUs and GeForce RTX 3050 GPUs.
Read more about MSI’s budget gaming laptops right here!
MSI Pulse GL66:
Katana GF76:
Sword 17:
Disclaimer: If you use our link for purchase, we may receive a commission.
PCMag.com is your ultimate destination for tech reviews and news.
Like us on Facebook:
Follow us on Twitter:
Gawk at our photos on Instagram:
Get our latest tips and tricks on Pinterest:
– Hi, I’m Matthew Buzzi from PCMag And I’m here with Cliff from
MSI who’s going to show us Not one, but two gaming laptops In the budget/entry-level price range. A lot of people shop in that range, The premium laptops are,
of course fun, sleek, thin But not everyone has that budget. A lot of gamers are looking for a deal. Cliff, what do you have for us today Between the GL and the GF series? – Yeah, so, you know, previously MSI We really haven’t shown too
much love to those users Because we have been kind
of reusing all the chassis On the entry-level budget. In this generation, we
just say forget about it. We’re going to come out a
brand new design across all Of our entry-level. The one
in front of me right here, This one is our brand new GL post. As you can see in here,
we do have a little bit Of engraving design on this one. Obviously, with the MSI dragon emblem. This one, we kind of shyed
away from the red and black. The red and black, it’s a little
bit old school for gamers. So over, in the other side
we can have a thin bezel And we do have other designs,
like kind of a gamer designs On the keyboard size on the top And the side alongside with
the mouse pad every year. The keyboard in here is a single sole RGB. So you’re still getting RGB
in a entry-level design. So for this one, we go all the
way up to the 11 Gen Core i7. It have options from
3050, 3050 Ti, and 3060s. Panel-wise, we have a full HD 144 hertz And a QHD at 165 Hertz. – Good options. Good scale.
What’s the starting price point for this So we can kind of put some
context on those components. – So this one will start
off somewhere around Like the $1,099 all the
way to like roughly about $1,500 depending on the configurations. Yeah. – So it’s the, it’s the entry level, But not full-on budget. It’s cheaper. – More like an entry mainstream devices. – Towards mid range, but yeah. Okay. – Because like this is still using A metal design chassis
and stuff like that. It’s a little bit, they
have a good premium feeling But also all the essential
features that you needed For a gaming laptop. – Entry-level concept with some more Mid-range features and
style. Correct then? – Yeah. – That sounds appealing to a good section Of our readers, I would say.
You mentioned the design, You touched on the components, Some of those new, just
announced components from NVIDIA As well. Anything else about the design? What are you talking about In terms of ports, battery
life, any features like that? – Yeah, definitely. So if you can see over
in this side, we have This is the power, two USB-A
and then over on the other side We do have HDMI full-sized ethernet jack. USB-C and then also
all the audio and USB-A And then also the design on the bottom. I don’t know if you can really see clearly It has a lot of air vent in here So it will be very easy
to keep the unit cool
Because cooling is one of
the major solving features Of MSI for the past years. – Sure. That’s pretty cool. You can see into the heat pipes And everything down there too. – Yep. – Interesting. Yeah, I agree, The lack of red and black, I think I think the black and light blue is a Is a good way to go a little more modern. I don’t think it’s going to offend anyone. I’ll put it that way. – Yeah. – So yeah, that’s,
that’s the sort of middle Of the, middle of the pack kind of option. And if you are looking For an even more
entry-level option, the true The true budget gamer, we also
have this other alternative. So tell us more about the GF option here. – Yeah. So in front of me,
this one is a GF Katana Previous generations,
we call it the GF Thin. So as you can see, this is
a very sleek clean design That we try to go after on our GF chassis. We still have an engraved
dragon logo in here, It’s not too flashy per se. And over in here, we
also have a thin bezel. Keyboard in here is a single
color red on the black unit. And then, you know, everything else The keyboards and everything
is still keeping it very clean, And it feels really good, Just like the rest of our gaming laptops. Also the same thing,
just like our GF chassis, We do have a lot of
air vent on the bottom, So it keeping the unit cool.
Graphic-wise, this one runs
1650 all the way to 3060s. So 1650, 3050, 3050 Ti, and also 3060s. Panel-wise, this one is
only coming with 144 hertz Because we, this is a budget unit. And I know I’ve been saying,
”Hey some people might not like The red and black.” So in
this generation, we also come Out a different versions,
which is called the GF Sword. So the one in front of me right here, This one is a white version,
so it looks exactly the same. You still have the dragon logo engraved, And the keyboard is blue. So,
we have a blue keyboard on The white version and a red
keyboard on the black version, Depending, you know, what
kind of color scheme you like Both of them is pretty much
within the same price range. – Very cool. I know I just commented on the
red and black, and then you You pulled out a red and black laptop, So I’m glad that there was an alternative For anyone who agrees with me. I think the white looks
really, it looks really nice. I think it kind of belies
the, the budget sort Of price point of it.
It looks, it looks nice. – Yeah. Usually like the budget
versions of laptops, Like, you only have a black
and red so we want to give, You know, really show some love To the budget gamers out
there, let them have a choice. – I think that’s a good call. So you mentioned the components
and it does scale a bit. What is the starting price For this? Obviously in a budget laptop, That is pretty much the
key, the key question. What am I getting bang for buck-wise? – Yeah. So we, we try
to start it off as $899
All the way to maybe $1,399
depending on the graphic cards And the components inside.
Obviously we try to push it Down a little bit more down the
road, because right now most Of the component costs out
there have increased quite a bit For the past years. So once
those costs start going down, We will definitely adjust it. – Did, did something
happen in the past year Or so that made the price
go up? I must’ve missed it. – Yeah. – Okay yeah, that, so that,
that, that makes sense. And I think, I think that’s all unless you Have another cool feature to talk about, About these laptops. I don’t know, If you can tell us what you’d expect For battery life, for these systems Or if there’s any other
gaming focused features. I think the components
and the component options And the screen refresh rate,
as you said, sort of speaks For itself, obvious options
for a budget laptop. – Yeah. So like, you know All of this, they still,
you know, even as budget, We still try to keep it pretty
much really thin and light. So they are, all of them are
less than 25 millimeters thick. And then it’s only roughly about 2.1, 2.2 kilograms in weight. So it’s you know very, it’s
still very nice to travel with. And then as I say, we do have before, We have dragon, MSI dragon centers, Which become MSI centers
in there, you can fine tune You know, all the
configuration, stuff like that Because we find that most of
the budget laptop end users They aren’t really that tech savvy. So we have really clean
UI options for them to Take all the advantage of all
the features of the laptop.
– Very cool. When will these launch? When
are these available in the US? – This will be available right now. The embargo selling day is on the 17th. – Beautiful. Thank you so much for showing these to us. Of course, we are looking forward To getting our hands on
them for a full review But I hope this preview
whet your appetite for them. Thank you so much, Cliff.
And thank you everybody For watching. Again, check
in in the future for a full Review of these on PCMag.com.
