MSI GE62 Apache Pro
The laptop equivalent of a sporty 4WD.
MSI’s GE62 6QF-030AU aims to be an everyman gaming notebook. It’s not too big to carry around, but it’s still big enough that you won’t end up squinting at the screen when using the native 1080p resolution. Performance is good, with a GTX 970M being a nice fit for 1080p gaming, and that in turn helps to keep the price from climbing too high. But rest assured, the GE62 isn’t a weak budget offering.
You get a full keyboard with dedicated 10-key, multicoloured backlighting, multiple video ports, and high-speed connectivity from Killer Networking. Throw in an IPS display, and there’s lots to like—there’s even an M.2 PCIe x4 Gen3 slot with NVMe support. Unfortunately, the M.2 slot was occupied by a mediocre M.2 SATA drive from Toshiba. There’s also no Thunderbolt 3 or G-Sync support, the latter being mutually exclusive with dynamic switchable graphics, which the GE62 supports.
Think of the GE62 as something of an affordable sports car, and you’re not far from the truth. It’s never going to take down a Ferrari or Hellcat, but it’s got plenty of pep. Compared to a 2-year-old gaming laptop, the i7-6700HQ CPU here has only improved performance around 5–15%, but graphics speed is a gigantic leap forward, blasting through games at roughly 2.5 times the performance of the aging GTX 765M. Unfortunately, battery life also takes a hit, ultimately falling short of 3 hours of video playback, though in lighter use (surfing the net, for example), you can hit around 5 hours.
Overall, the GE62 performs admirably, particularly when it comes to gaming — in our extended online test suite, it averaged 114fps at 1080p Medium, and 43fps at 1080p Ultra.
With such a great foundation, the storage configuration still leaves us flummoxed. We haven’t used DVDs or Blu-rays for years, but the GE62 still includes an optical DVD-RW drive — great if you need it; wasted space if you don’t. Supporting NVMe but shipping without an SSD drive — only a 1TB mechanical HDD — is even more perplexing. Give us a 256GB or 512GB 2.5-inch SSD (leaving the M.2 slot open for future expansion), even if it costs extra. Frankly, using a mechanical drive for the OS doesn’t cut it in a modern laptop aimed at performance. Sure, you can upgrade later, but we’d rather get a good SSD from the start.
But despite a few oddities in the storage department, overall there’s plenty to like. The GE62 runs as fast as everything else using the GTX 970M, and it does it in a package that weighs and costs about half as much as the extreme GTX 980 notebooks. There are much faster laptops, and there are thinner and lighter gaming notebooks as well. However, thin plus gaming often equals hot and noisy — the laws of thermodynamics are a harsh mistress — and the GE62 strikes for more of a middle ground.
If you’re looking for a gaming notebook that functions as a jack-of-all-trades, the GE62 Apache Pro hits most of the right notes. Just don’t be surprised when the inevitable update comes along with a new GPU that uses less power and runs faster.