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The MSI CX623 is a great laptop and one which we can easily recommend if you are in the market for a high performance media or business laptop. Gamers will need to look elsewhere however as the nVidia G310M is a rather weak solution for HD gaming. Sure, you can game at lower settings, but the image quality won't be that impressive.
As a media system, the unit excels in all key areas, the screen quality is fantastic with only a slight blue cast showing any signs of weakness. Vibrancy is fantastic and text quality is up there with the best we have seen. The glossy screen can be slightly detracting, but for a media laptop it is a must. Vertical viewing angles can be slightly limited, but this is generally the case with a mid range laptop.
The keyboard and track pad offer a great experience, with the only negative being a certain amount of flex in the middle of the board, especially when pressed down hard. If you are rough with a keyboard we might have a few, long term concerns, but otherwise its responsive and looks great.
The pinstripe finish won't be to everyone's taste, but it certainly helps it stand out within such a crowded market and almost everyone we spoke with seems to think it is an attractive machine.
Internally, the combination of Intel Core i5 processor with Intel HD/nVidia G310M is a great choice, although we were disappointed to see that Cyberlink's Espresso software wouldn't allow the graphics to act in a hardware acceleration role (even with updated software and drivers).
Thankfully, MSI haven't skimped with the choice of harddrive, and the Western Digitial Scorpio Blue delivers excellent performance without generating a racket. You would be hard pressed to hear it, even when writing a lot of data to the platters. Personally, I would still exchange it for an SSD, because once you go to flash storage, it is extremely difficult to go back. Obviously this would add a cost to the overall system so it makes sense for MSI to opt for the 500GB mechanical unit. Sadly, if you upgrade the drive yourself and open the chassis, you invalidate the warranty – an unusual move from MSI and one we have never seen before.
Overall, this is a great media laptop which will please a wide portion of the audience. Just be sure not to purchase it as a dedicated gaming machine as graphics power is not one of the primary strengths.
KitGuru says: A high gloss system with a competitive asking price of £620 inc vat. Well worth a look.
Great looking laptop, not so sure about the keyboard flex, although more laptops seem to have this problem now. it is down to cut price support beams or something?
The pinstripe is cool, liked the close up shot. interesting how they make the pattern with dots.
Good battery life, seems all round very impressive, apart from hardcore gaming.
If they sold this with a better GFX id be all over it.
Excellent, I actually saw this in PCWORLD over here last week, and was t empted, but I wasnt sure about the performance. Hey whats with MSI putting a warranty void over the screw? thats a bad move, how are we meant to upgrade it? send it back to them for an extra cost 🙁 that pissed me off.
310M seems to suck hard. rest of it is good however. but id need something more beefy for my laptop in gaming side.
Not many ports down the sides, id like 3 USBs, 2 on one side and 1 on the other, not most of them on the back, its a pain to get there. a few other ideas I like with the design, but that pinstripe thing would hurt my eyes.
Good review, battery life is impressive considering the power of the CPU. Im not keen on the styling myself, it loks like a toshiba machine I had years ago.
What about the build quality? it looks ok, but are all the parts fitted well?
Not for me, im a sony man through and through
Temps are good and battery life. the pros outweigh the cons, shame about the lackluster gfx performance.
I have had a MSI 3 series laptop for years now and have no intention of replacing it. I only surf and play flash gameson the move. I can recommend them as a laptop they rock.
For 600 quid it seems fairly good although acer do a machine with a better gfx and the same CPU for 650.
I like it, its better than my desktop machine right now 🙁 im poor !
The overall machine looks like it would burn your eyes out in sunlight, so many reflective surfaces. good job getting the pictures taken without burning all the surfaces out! Not my scene really I like alienware.
MSI make great machines, i love their gear.
i bought this laptop yesterday from an ebay saller for 415pounds new i think i made a good deal 😉
I had one last two day … its stupied laptop .. its said it will switch to nidia GPU with it have load gaming and it didnt most time + you can not switch to 1 gb nvidia card manully or by and way ..there is no way to switch manully btween GPU in it .. I which i can sell it with helf price ..its ig lose