MSI PULSE GL66 11UDK
Entry-level ray tracing on a budget
MSI’S BUDGET LAPTOPS are always intriguing. They seem to nail a lot of the essentials that make up a gaming laptop, yet other features are left on the back burner. Of course, performance is the most important factor when it comes to gaming, so maybe we’re being harsh, as there have to be sacrifices at this price. So, without this pre-judgment, how does the Pulse GL66 11UDK shape up?
Like many other MSI machines, the design is very utilitarian. We like this from MSI; it isn’t unique to the company, but you can easily tell it’s an MSI product. Its monochrome color scheme features a black angled chassis with a shield-like lid in shimmering titanium gray, with a black outlined MSI logo sitting proudly in the center. MSI has certainly made the most of the cheaper plastic materials in play here, without making it feel cheap. It isn’t the lightest of laptops, which makes it feel more sturdy than it probably is. This is a double-edged sword, however, as it makes it less practical to carry around, too. The GL66 11UDK also has plenty of radiator vents around the chassis, which is great for ventilation and cooling.
When you open the lid, you’re greeted by a decently sized backlit keyboard, with the bonus of a mini number pad. Such a small addition, but it helps with productivity. The travel in the keys is fairly deep, so typing on this laptop is enjoyable. The keys also feature an MSI font, which not everyone will love, but there you go. We aren’t done with the keyboard yet, so hold your horses. Some
Fn controls include fan speed, battery mode, a webcam button, and even a crosshair icon for those intense FPS battles. All things that aren’t necessary but are nice touches nevertheless. Unfortunately, things go south a little below the keyboard. The trackpad isn’t the largest for a 15-inch laptop, and it’s also not the most accurate, with onehanded highlighting in text documents being trickier than normal.
The 15.6-inch IPS panel is a definite positive, though. With thin bezels around the top and sides, it creates a nice level of immersion when gaming. It’s a full HD panel and although we would love to see a QHD display here, this is in the budget market, so it’s exactly what we’d expect. The colors are nice and crisp, and paired with a refresh rate of 144Hz, it’s a great screen to game on. Even with a fairly thin top bezel, MSI has managed to squeeze in a 720p 30fps webcam. Not the best we have seen on a laptop, but it does the job; the colors are somewhat dull, but a welllit room will help with this.
Heading into the guts of this machine, we have a 53.5Whr battery, which, when tested, isn’t great if you want to use the laptop for productivity purposes. It charges pretty quickly, but runs out within four to five hours on full power mode, and gaming drains it even faster, so we recommend keeping it plugged in when you can. One of the main selling points for this laptop is its new Intel Tiger Lake-H processor, the i7-11800H. This is the core that pulsates through the machine, and when paired with its RTX 3050 Ti, gaming is smooth and enjoyable. You can’t run everything at max settings, but with the right tweaks, you can easily get a 1080p 60fps experience. As the benchmarks show, it just can’t handle it when the sliders are all to the right, but it’s not the end of the world. In a budget gaming laptop, that’s exactly what you would expect. Again, like most laptops in this price range, the speakers aren’t a stand-out feature, and most people will be gaming with headsets anyway, so it’s not the biggest issue.
Unfortunately, as we said at the start of the review, there are just a few things that hold MSI machines back, and this is no different. In terms of gaming, it does exactly what it should. With a mouse, you eradicate all of the trackpad woes, and gaming at solid frame rates (even with ray tracing on) is possible. Pretty impressive for the price, so that gets a big thumbs up. For a laptop, though, it’s missing good battery life, the trackpad is lacking, and portability isn’t great. It’s not a perfect all-around package, but as a cheaper gaming rig, you’ll be happily impressed with this machine.
MSI Pulse GL66 11UDK
STRONG PULSE Decent 1080p gaming; good 144Hz refresh rate; satisfying keyboard.
NEEDS DEFIBRILLATION Not quite future-proof; cheap use of materials; unimpressive battery life; small trackpad.
$1,299, www.msi.com