Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Ordered from the first available batch to replace a 5 1/2 year old gaming laptop. I buy 'em with the goal of making them last... Granted, it is only two weeks in, but I love it. It is hard to feel like you are getting a value when you look at gaming laptops. This one definitely fits the bill for me. When you look at the cost of components, you would be hard pressed to build a desktop as powerful as this laptop much cheaper. And if you are including desktop peripherals that you can technically get away without needing on a laptop (keyboard, monitor), it would be impossible. Likes: - Great keyboard. I really liked my old one, and this is a noticeable improvement. - Amazing Hardware - I have run Witcher 3 on all ultra settings (Nvidia's "optimal") for 2 hours without it thinking twice. - Less bloatware than I expected, most of it was pretty easy to clean up, and I actually like the "Dragon Center", which puts most of them in one neat little package for you to identify, and pick and choose the winners. - Completely functional "Lap" gaming when I keep a $20 cooling pad underneath. Don't feel the heat on my legs at all. (Speaking of the cooling pad, it drops operating temps on both the Card and Chip by about 10 C at load, so I highly recommend.) - Impressively lightweight and thin, it'll be nice not having to explain yourself when you pull it out anywhere other than a LAN party - Solid, Sharp screen, 17" is plenty big since you can actually put it on your lap for gaming. - Runs very quiet (so far) even when fans get up in speed. Dislikes: - Left side where my palm rests gets a little warm under lower load than I would expect, I don't mind it when gaming, but it is noticeable when working -1 point - Speakers are worse than my 5 year old laptop (which were upgraded at the time), but not independently bad, only comparatively. -1 point - Right side USB (2.0) doesn't seem to fit most of my compatible USB devices, but it does work with some, so I can work around it, maybe I'm just an idiot. -2 points - I'd like the track pad to be at the bottom of the face, instead of 3/4" up, but that is a personal preference, and I have already gotten used to shifting my hands slightly to avoid incidental contact, without having to turn it off for regular use. - 1 point - Online test sites cannot accurately figure out the capability of this hardware, and say I cannot even run Shadow of Mordor... Pretty sure I could do it with the 1060 turned off... But that isn't MSI's fault. Overall, for what I feel the current value, along with the potential long term hardware functionality (Intel isn't improving much next gen compared to this processor, and this is about as early in the big jump that is the Pascal architecture as you can get) is, this is a solid five star machine. *** Update: My CPU fan just went haywire. While covered under warranty, the only approved MSI repair is in California. They expect me to package and pay shipping to California in order to get it repaired under warranty, or the tech support said it is okay if I remove the back cover an pierce the "do not tamper or warranty will be voided sticker", buy a fan myself, and replace it. I'd be happy to risk that, in a year or two. No local repair centers are authorized. That is not a satisfactory experience.