First announced at CES 2010, MSI's GE700 has now been officially let out of the bag. Billed as an entertainment gaming machine, its Intel Core i5 processor combined with a DirectX 11 supporting ATI Radeon HD GPU and cinema class audio are promised to give the "ultimate experience in multimedia entertainment".
The latest gaming laptop to be launched by MSI brings together power and energy efficiency with its Intel Core i5 processor at 2.66GHz on Intel's HM55 chipset which incorporates Turbo Boost technology to offer a possible 3.2GHz of processing power. The company's ECO engine offers a number of preset power management profiles (such as Video Game, Film, Presentation, Word Processing and Turbo Battery) that help balance system performance and the desire to get the most from the 6- or 9-cell battery.
DirectX 11 support and 3D are brought to the GE700's 17.3 inch 1680 x 1050 LCD display courtesy of an ATI Radeon HD 5730 GPU with its own 1Gb DDR3 memory and GPU Boost technology offers a graphics performance boost at the touch of a button. Cinema Pro activation switches the 16.3 x 10.5 x 1.4 inch, 7lbs (with 6-cell battery) gaming laptop to Movie Mode, offering richer screen detail and cinematic audio thanks to SRS Premium Sound-certified stereo high definition cinema class speakers with subwoofer.
Storing all that high definition 3D movie and gaming entertainment on a system run by Windows 7 Home Premium edition shouldn't pose too much of a problem with optional dual SATA capabilities offering a maximum storage capacity of 1Tb. The belly of the beast can be fed up to 4Gb DDR3 RAM. There's 802.11b/g/n and optional Bluetooth to take care of wireless connectivity and three USB 2.0 ports for wired.
The included 720p high definition webcam delivers video at 30 frames per second in widescreen format which means that if there's more than one person in the shot, there shouldn't be a need to scrum down to be included.
Nice design touches include a strip of luminous touch-sensitive hotkeys above the keyboard area, an application of color film print black and silver for the cover and keying area and a number keypad.
There's no word on US price or availability at this time, when such information is available it will no doubt appear on MSI's US website.
