When I get my hands on a laptop for a review, it’s usually a powerful system built to handle the latest and most demanding games at their best. This often means that the devices are very expensive and cost several thousand, which puts them in the same price range as many really powerful desktop PCs. For the MSI GF63 Thin, this is far from the case. This unit is affordable, powered by an RTX 4050 and a 12th Gen i5 processor, meaning you’re mostly aiming for 1080p gaming if you’re looking for a fluid and smooth gaming experience. Looking at just this, there isn’t much the GF63 Thin does poorly.
But before we talk about performance, let me take a quick look at the laptop’s build quality. Due to the low price level, you cannot expect to be impressed by the beautiful metals and materials on the whole body. The cabinet is a combination of metal and plastic, and although it doesn’t necessarily feel cheap, it doesn’t feel premium either – as you’d expect from a gaming laptop for under NOK 800. The screen is a 15.6-inch FHD (1080p) panel clocked up to 144Hz, and there’s honestly not much to be disappointed about here. However, I will say that the bezel is quite thick and it feels like there is a lot of empty space around the screen on this laptop, although you can appreciate that the top of the panel is a bit wider to accommodate a webcam. As for the keyboard and trackpad, both are a good size and fit the shape and body of the GF63 Thin.
One of the things I like best about the design of the GF63 Thin is how unobtrusive it is. If it weren’t for the fairly large vents on the side of the case and the brightly backlit keyboard, you’d probably think this is just a productivity laptop, and not something that can run Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection or F1 23. And before I forget it: There’s a good reason why this device is called “Thin”, because it’s only 21.7mm wide and weighs just 1.86kg. I’m a bit unsure about this, because on the one hand it’s incredible that you’ve managed to get an RTX 40 Series GPU into a device that’s supposed to be so thin, but at the same time the GF63 Thin doesn’t feel thin or light when you have it in hands, it actually feels quite bulky and heavy.
As for the hardware under the hood, this laptop also comes with up to 8GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, expandable, as well as half a terabyte of SSD storage. For a laptop built primarily for productivity, this is more than you really need, but for a gaming system, it’s a limitation in many cases. As for the battery size and how it handles in practice, thanks to the 52.4 Whr battery you should be able to get a good seven hours of use on a single charge, and significantly less when playing offline – but this is unlikely unusual for gaming laptops.
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You are probably wondering how this device works in practice? There’s a reason I’ve left this so late, and that’s because the details aren’t that important, despite being a gaming laptop. I’ve said before that the GF63 Thin is primarily built for 1080p gaming, so if you intend to explore anything beyond that, this is not the laptop for you. In terms of frame rates, you’ll be lucky if you play at the most demanding graphics settings, but when you reduce to the lowest settings, you can explore the true extent of the 144Hz limit.
The RTX 4050 does a lot of heavy lifting, but the low storage space, limited RAM and i5 processor means that you don’t get the same freedom in your gaming experience as if you go to the next price range and buy an i7 with an RTX 4060 and so on. Finally, before I move on from this point, I had a few problems in the testing phase launching some games. Sniper Elite 5 worked like clockwork, but Dirt 5 never managed to boot in the first place. Admittedly, this could be due to the storage space being blown up and affecting performance, because after installing Uncharted, Atomic Heart, F1 23, Rollerdrome, Sniper Elite 5 and Dirt 5, the storage space was so overloaded that I couldn’t even complete an update of Atomic Heart.
The bottom line is that this laptop has its limitations, which is understandable considering the price range it’s in. But even though it’s not the answer to laptop gaming, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some areas that I wish it did other notebook PCs could be inspired by. With less powerful hardware, the cooling solution is so efficient that fan noise is kept to a minimum, which is truly impressive. This allows the sound systems to excel, as you don’t need to use headphones when using this laptop.
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As a final point: connectivity. MSI tends to be very good at making laptops with a wide variety of ports, and with the GF63 Thin this is true again. With three USB-A ports, one USB-C, an Ethernet port, a headphone jack and even a microphone jack, you have plenty of options for everything you might need this gaming laptop for.
All in all, there is not much to fault the MSI GF63 Thin as an entry-level device, but at the same time, this laptop does not appear to be a system that will survive the test of time particularly well, as it has clear limitations on the gaming front. If you’re looking for a productivity gadget that can be used to play video games occasionally, this is a good option, but if you plan to play more often, you should look for a more capable system.
2023-08-05 12:00:00
#MSI #GF63 #Thin
