Thin 15" gaming laptop, no ODD?

[joeelmex]

My vote will be the GE-60 from MSI. Comes in at 5.5 pounds, 2 year warranty, a Nvidia 660, Msta slot, and you can it in matte or glossy.

[raygundan]

HP makes another swing and a miss with the dv4t-- it hits most of the right marks, but falls short on screen resolution.

For those who can live with 1366x768, though, check it out. 14", 650m, below 5lbs, and relatively inexpensive. If *all* I wanted it for was mobile gaming, this would be perfect-- but I need a screen with enough resolution to work on, too.

[raygundan]

My vote will be the GE-60 from MSI. Comes in at 5.5 pounds, 2 year warranty, a Nvidia 660, Msta slot, and you can it in matte or glossy.

A CHALLENGER APPEARS!

It's got an optical drive, but somehow they've managed to get a 660m in there without breaking my six-pound limit! Thank you, sir, for a fantastic find.

[Yawgm0th]

GE60 is a decent balance of performance, size, and cost, but it is definitely not what I'd call thin. At its thickest it's almost 1.5in, which is a very noticeable difference compared to an ultrabook or something like the Sony S series.

The low-res options showing up are driving me nuts. There are several ultrabooks or near-ultrabooks with 640M and 650Ms and 1366x768 screens. It's just crazy.

[Karamazovmm]

I dont like the ge60, it reminds me of my ex625, the case design is just too similar, with the difference being the keyboard tray (probably thankfully since it had a lot of flex in it) and the lid being colored.

Since I dont have one and I probably wont hold one to see if the chassis is still terrible, take this with a huge grain of salt

[raygundan]

GE60 is a decent balance of performance, size, and cost, but it is definitely not what I'd call thin. At its thickest it's almost 1.5in, which is a very noticeable difference compared to an ultrabook or something like the Sony S series.

The low-res options showing up are driving me nuts. There are several ultrabooks or near-ultrabooks with 640M and 650Ms and 1366x768 screens. It's just crazy.

Good catch. Thicker than it looks! That's encroaching on NP9150 territory-- but at least it hits the weight target.

[raygundan]

The low-res options showing up are driving me nuts.

Yeah, what's that about? 1366x768? "Hey, let's build a laptop nobody can do any actual work on."

[ZaZ]

So few people that Apple's willing to bet the farm on it, and feel they can charge $2500 for it.

Then why can't you buy a 15" gaming notebook PC with no optical drive?

[kanuk]

My vote will be the GE-60 from MSI. Comes in at 5.5 pounds, 2 year warranty, a Nvidia 660, Msta slot, and you can it in matte or glossy.

The GE60 is nice on paper but it's so ugly!

[pqueiro]

Then why can't you buy a 15" gaming notebook PC with no optical drive?

Apple doesn't think about the Retina MBP as a gaming machine. In that sense, you're right, you can't because no one sees that niche as a viable market. I think the twist here is that Apple sees a change in lifestyle that leads away from ODD's at much bigger laptop sizes than other manufacturers; while HP, Sony, Dell et al are stuck with the conviction that people who want large screens also want ODDs, Apple is betting that ODDs have gone the way of the dodo while large screens haven't.