MSI GF75 Thin 10SC Specifications

• Processor: Intel Core i5-10300H, Comet Lake-H
• Memory: 8GBgb RAM @ 1600Mhz, single channel, DDR4 SDRAM , expandable upto 64GB
• Storage : 512 NVMe
• Graphics: GeForce GTX™ 1060 GPU with 4GB GDDR6 SDRAM
• Display : 17.3″ FHD (1920*1080), IPS-level TN display,144Hz , 45% NTSC
• Keyboard: Steelseries RED Backlit Keyboard
• I/O Port: 1x Type-C USB 3.2 Gen1, 3x Type-A USB3.2 Gen1, 1x RJ45, 1x (4K @ 30Hz) HDMI
• Battery: 51 WHrs
• Webcam: Yes
• 2.2 kg
• Operating System: Windows 10 Home

Design and Build quality

The lid is the first thing one notice in a laptop, the brushed metal finish of the MSI laptop along with their unique logo of a red dragon on a red shield has an appealing stance. Most of the parts are made of metal and the machine has a solid feel and presence though at 2.2kg, it is bit on heavier side to be carried around at ease. It follows angular design approach. The lid top edges are slightly angled. Considering this is a large 17-inch laptop, the GF75 thin, still manages well on its dimensions and weight distribution.

The bottom side has a very sci-fi style air ventilation cutouts. It gives a glimpse of the copper pipes and heat sinks under the hood for thermal controls. The screws are easily accessible to give access to the inside. The rubber footings are firm and give stability to the machine. The speaker grills are also placed down here.

On the right side, we get a lock, headphone jack, mic input, Type-A USB3.2 Gen1, one Type C USB 3.2 port, Ethernet port.

Towards the left, you get power input, HDMI port and two more Type-A USB3.2 Gen1 ports and a battery status LED.

Moving to the back you get two large exhaust vents at both ends. In addition to these two, there are also two more one each at the sides of the laptop.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Being a 17″ laptop, you get a wider keyboard deck but I feel MSI could have put the deck area to better use. The power button is aligned to the centre of the top edge of the deck. The idea of MSI seem to be to pull the keyboard closer to the user, which leaves a large unutilized area on the top. The trackpad though is not centered and is aligned towards the left. The keyboard is not bad, they have included NumberPad with half-sized keys. The Arrow keys are just crammed into the rest of the keyboard. I kept pressing the up keys many times instead of the intended Shift key.

There are an array of function keys that include an Fn key to shut off the webcam, shift to eco mode, etc. I was bit disappointed with the Trackpad, would have preferred a larger pad considering the size of the laptop and also aligned to the centre and too close to the edges as well. The two buttons at the bottom of the pad are too small for comfortable use. Nevertheless, the pad itself is responsive enough.

Display of MSI GF75 Thin

MSI states their display as “IPS-level”, a monicker which basically implies it is not IPS but IPS grade TN panel. To give due credit to them, the panel is unlike most TN panels I have seen. They are good. MSI GF75 Thin 10SC is equipped with a Full HD 144Hz panel. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 127 ppi. The viewing angles are adequate. The contrast ratio is good. The brightness works out to around 270 nits on average. Its display covers only 50% of the sRGB.

Biometrics and Webcam

There are no biometrics at work here. The display houses a 720p webcam at the top. There is a Fn key shortcut to disable the webcam when not in use.

Performance of MSI GF75

The machine I got here is powered by Intel i5 10th gen {Core i5-10300H), with 8GB of RAM and combined with GTX 1650 GPU. You can also find options with Core i5-10500H and also push further with Core i7-10750H. The laptop I received is a respectable config for budget gaming and content creation work. I mean for the price it is available now, it performance ratio works in favour of the machine. For those who like to know the synthetic benchmark scores, you can thank me later. I got the CrystalMark test, PC Mark 10 test, 3D Mark test and VRMark test results.

Moving to the real-life use scenario, I am pretty impressed with what I could do with the machine. I did a couple of test video editing, photoshop work and it was a handy machine for those needs. For budget gamers, this could again cheer them.

Battery life of MSI GF75 10SC

There is a 51Whr battery. In my video loop test, running a 1080p video at 50% volume, it exhausted 100% battery to 0% in around 3 hours 45 mins.

Verdict of MSI GF75 10SC

The MSI GF75 10SC is a good laptop option for budget gamers who are looking at a 17″ laptop without having to dig deep into the bank balance.

Pros

• Good sturdy build quality
• Decent display
• Good peformance for budget gamers and content creators
• Value for money
• Good thermal control
• Good weight ratio for a 17″ laptop

Cons

• No biometrics
• Small trackpad
• Only 50% of the sRGB color gamut
• Mediocre battery life
• No SD card reader

HP Envy 15 ep0123tx Specifications:

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-10750H (2.6 GHz base frequency, up to 5 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 12 MB L3 cache, 6 cores)
• Graphics adapter: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti with Max-Q design (6 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
• Memory:  16 GB DDR4-2933 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB)
• Display: 39.6 cm (15.6″) diagonal, FHD (1920 x 1080), IPS, micro-edge, anti-glare, 300 nits, 72% NTSC
• Storage:  1 TB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
• Networking: Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5 combo
• Battery: 6-cell, 83 Wh Li-ion polymer cell
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10
• Camera: HP Wide Vision HD camera, IR Thermal sensor
• Audio: Audio by Bang & Olufsen; Dual speakers; HP Audio Boost 2.0
• Size: 35.79 x 23.68 x 1.84 cm
• Weight:  2.14 kg
• Ports: 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2, USB-C (Thunderbolt + DP + Power Delivery), SD card reader, HDMI, Headphone / mic combo

What’s in the box?

The laptop and a 83Wh power adapter and some paper manuals.

Design and Build Quality of HP Envy 15

My very first laptop I owned is an HP, so I been following them for quite a long period. When it comes to design, they are a bit restrained but they mean business. You will not find yourself out of place carrying an HP machine. They can blend well.

The device sports a clean design with aluminium chassis. The silver-grey tone comes out well for a classic look. When I weighed it, the scale tipped at 1.997 kg. It looks well chiselled with aggressive lines and corners. It gives a comforting good build vibe. There is the HP logo on the top lid, the lid itself is easier to lift with a single finger, which I have struggled with on many laptops.

The back hinge has ENVY branding subtly etched with a clean line drawn horizontally for aesthetics.

The backside is angled at three sides at the edges. The speakers are housed at the angled edges on the bottom sides. The dual speakers are tuned by Bang & Olufsen. There is a large vent for the airflow. There are two long rubber footers to enable space beneath for air circulation and also avoid scratches at the bottom.

The bezels are thin and the black colour bezels strike a good contrast with the silver-grey body tone. The top bezels house a webcam, there is no physical shutter in the bezel area but the privacy shutter can be enabled via a dedicated button on the keyboard. Nevertheless, it is a physical shutter and not software that disables the camera, you can actually see a plastic veil that closes the camera when you click the button.

Ports

Talking about the ports, on the left side you got a power jack, USB Type A port, HDMI 2.0a, two USB Type C ports (Thunderbolt 3) and a SD card reader.

The right side offers a Type A port and an audio and mic combo. There is an air vent too here.

Display of HP Envy 15

• 15.6-inch IPS panel, 300 nits brightness, 72% NTSC
• 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution
• No touchscreen control

The variant I got here has a full-HD IPS panel, though the series also offers a full-blown 4K OLED panel. The display offers an anti-glare coating, which I prefer over reflective panels. You won’t have to worry about any light source behind you to distract your viewing. The 300 nits brightness proved to be sufficient for my daily use. The viewing angles are good, I worked on it for some days writing articles, watching movies and it catered well to my requirements.

Speakers

When you open the lid, you see a grille design on either side of the keyboard and most likely you would assume it would be speaker grille. I did but it is not. The actual speakers are at the bottom like I mentioned earlier. This grille design flanking the keyboard gives a false impression. I am not sure what was the purpose for this may be aesthetics but I would have preferred a cleaner look. Coming to the actual speaker, it’s a dual speaker tuned by Bang & Olufsen. There is a Bang & Olufsen audio control that gives you a 10 band equalizer along with many presets, noise cancellation feature and other general controls. The speaker output has a very good clarity and sharpness, though lacks a bit of bass which you can control by dabbling on the equalizer to your liking.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Being a large 15.6 inch display laptop, there is a lot of room for accommodating a good keyboard. HP has done exactly that. Though, I had to get used to many of the special function keys baked into the keyboard right from the camera shutter key to the fingerprint sensor and power button. I like the font HP uses on their keyboard. The keys are well spaced and are comfortable to use without jumping at the wrong key. The travel length is pretty good too. There is a white backlight for the keys which can be activated by the F4 fn key. It also has two levels of brightness.

The touchpad is large enough for use. It supports Windows gestures. I am a mouse guy but you can get away with the touchpad if you are not carrying it or fine with this.

Biometrics

The HP Envy 15 supports Windows Hello Fingerprint login but not Windows Hello face. The fingerprint scanner as I mentioned earlier is tucked in the last row of the keyboard. I personally prefer the scanner in the touchpad but you can get used to this once you start using it daily. The scanner is very accurate and reliable.

Performance of HP Envy 15 ep0123tx

The buck stops at the performance. So let’s find out what HP Envy 15 delivers. Under the hood, the variant I got is powered by an 10th-gen Intel Core i7-10750H CPU clocked at 2.6GHz. This is combined with a 16GB 2933MHz RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and GTX 1660Ti GPU. The 10750H CPU maxes at 2933MHz RAM and that is on cards here. It’s a dual-channel RAM. There is always an option to further boost the RAM, in case you want to.

For most of us, this configuration would be good enough to sail through most use cases. As a content creator, I could even work on some of my premier pro video edits. Though if you are buying it for regular video edits and 4K, I would suggest you upgrade to 32GB RAM, if not for 4K 16GB should be good enough. This should be good at almost everything, unless you are a hardcore gamer, if that is your priority use case, you should really be considering a full-blown gaming laptop. It does not mean this machine cannot handle gaming, it can play comfortably well. I had no issues playing PUBG with graphics set to High. It tend to warm up a bit.

In the synthetic benchmark scores, PC Mark 10 delivered 4793 overall score.

Battery life of HP Envy 15 ep0123tx

The HP Envy 15 boast an 83Wh battery inside. The company claims 16 hours of battery life, which I initially rubbed off as a tall claim. Usually, I find the test results on lab conditions behave differently in real use cases. But I was pleasantly surprised, the laptop did indeed delivery a good battery life if not the 16 hours but it did manage really well. The battery test is a difficult thing to calculate on laptops since each one use case is very different, the way we put the hardware to use. But rest assured, this laptop gives better battery life than most others in its league.

Verdict:

If you want to mix work and play, wear your suit and carry it for work meetings, later loosen the tie and play games on it – this is a great machine for it.

Pros of HP Envy 15 ep0123tx

• Neat design
• Great battery life
• Dependable performance
• Good display with anti-glare
• physical shutter for webcam

Cons of HP Envy 15 ep0123tx

• No face login

iBall CompBook Merit G9 Key Features 

• Merit G9 weighs 1.1 KG (without the HDD)  and the dimensions are 30 cm (W) X 20.3 cm (D) X 2.5 cm (H)
• The display is 11.6- inch and features a  HD  display of 1366*768 resolution. 
• The Merit G9 is powered by Intel® Celeron® Processor N3350, clocked at  2.4GHz speed and has 2GB DDR3 RAM
• Storage: The Merit G9 has 32GB In-built Storage with a micro SD Slot, Expandable up to 128GB. The Laptop also has a slot to connect HDD/SSD, though the user has to buy separately the storage drives. It supports storage devices upto 1TB.
• The Merit G9 comes with pre-installed Windows 10. The  iBall CompBook Merit G9 supports Intelligent power saving feature and comes with built-inCortana – the digital personal assistant and built-inAnti–Virus Defender that protects the PC from unwanted viruses and malwares.
• The iBall CompBook Merit G9 has a 5000mAh(38Wh) battery pack. The company claims a battery life of 6 hours.
• On the connectivity side, there is  an array of connectivity options such as Wireless connectivity and Bluetooth. It facilitates an HDMI Ver.1.4a port and two distinct USB ports of 2.0 and 3.0.

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