 I want to open this review with a conversation I had with Brandon, one of the camera and editing guys here at Linus Media Group about a year ago. I was commenting on the keyboard on some laptop I was reviewing, and he asked me why no laptop manufacturer uses mechanical keyboards if they're so great, to which I replied, because that would be stupid.... So without further ado, here's my review of the MSI GT80 Titan, the world's first gaming laptop with a Cherry MX Brown keyswitch mechanical gaming keyboard. Oh, and stay tuned, because I'll be reviewing their notebook that can use a desktop graphics card soon, too. These guys are freaking crazy!... Cooler Master's Case Mod World series is your opportunity to show off your modding skills and win great prizes. Entries close February 7th, 2015. Click now to learn more. So let's kick things off with a tour of the outside, shall we? This is a portable computer, but to call it a laptop feels almost a little misleading to me. It weighs over 10 pounds, is nearly 5 centimeters or 2 inches thick when closed, and has the keyboard positioned so close to the user that it literally wouldn't balance on your lap if you wanted the keyboard at a comfortable distance for use. Since we've got it open, I guess we'll continue the tour here, there are four drivers located just under the 18.4-inch 1080p PLS display that, combined with the bottom-mounted subwoofer, make this a relatively loud laptop if you want to crank up the sound in games or movies. Below that is a blank aluminum panel, more on that later, buttons for power, switching graphics adapters, and turning the fans up to full speed. Then below that still is the touchpad and included red LED backlit mechanical keyboard. What a strange thing to behold this is. In terms of performance, well, it's what you'd expect. The keys actually sit the same height off the desk as a standard keyboard. MX Browns strike a great balance between acoustics and tactile feel and are my personal favorite switch, and the inclusion of four metal keycaps is a nice touch. I do have a couple of complaints, however. The lip at the bottom makes the space bar a little less comfortable than a normal keyboard, especially if you don't have a wrist rest with you, although MSI does include one in the retail package. This key doesn't need to be duplicated, I'd rather have another function there, and the touchpad, while usable, is just not a very practical shape, given that it appears to be just a normal touchpad that's rotated 90 degrees. More on why they did this a little bit later. But one other neato thing here is the number lock button on the top left of the pad. The haptic feedback is laggy, and honestly I'd be happier without it, but having the option to type with a number pad at all here is something I did find myself using. Moving on to the sides, on the left is a headphone, microphone, jack, optical audio out, three USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, an optical drive, and a very large vent. On the right is two more USB 3.0 ports and another very large vent. And on the back we find a killer LAN port, HDMI 2.0 out, two mini display port, 1.2 ports, one of those unusually beefy four-pin power connectors, and what? Two more massive vents? I guess this is a good time to open this baby up and talk about the guts. On the bottom, the first two screws we're going to remove are here and here. These allow us to slide the top panel to the right and find the quad M-SATA SSD slots in the GT80. Yes, its stock configuration is four SSDs in RAID 0 for this model. Also up here is easy access to the 2.5 inch hard drive, two of the four DDR3 sodium RAM slots, and the optical drive, making this already on par or better than most gaming laptops in terms of upgradability. Then we remove the rest of the screws and pop the bottom off, revealing the reason this bad boy needs so much cooling. Down here we've got the battery, wireless module, two more RAM slots, the CPU socket that contains a 47-Watt Core i7-4980HQ quad core that turbos up to 4 GHz. We can see why the touchpad was crammed off to the side, because it's the entire thickness of the laptop that that keyboard makes up. And finally, two massive MXM GTX980M 8-gig graphics cards with this crazy long SLI bridge connecting them and lots and lots of heat pipes connecting the CPU and the GPUs to the coolers. And the weirdest thing about all of this is that it actually almost looks like MSI wants you to have easy access to everything, and that's because they do. Along with this notebook, they're launching a program where they will guarantee that for two full mobile GPU generations, they will provide MXM and cooling upgrade kits to GTX980 Titan customers who want to stay on the bleeding edge with next-gen flagship graphics cards, an option that desktop users take for granted, but notebook users rarely get to experience. But let's take a step back from the amazing specifications and never-before-seen innovation and take a moment to talk about the actual experience of using this thing. Gaming is a treat. At 18.4 inches and at the distance that you need to sit to actually use this computer, 1080p is less of an issue than you might think. You don't have to deal with any scaling. And in games, thanks to dynamic super resolution, something you'll have ample power to utilize, you can still get a little bit better image quality out of them even though the panel resolution is what it is. But the touchpad necessitates the use of a mouse when, I mean, aside from gaming, if you want to get any serious work done, and the space the laptop takes up on a desk in order to sit a comfortable distance from it and have room for your mouse, makes this just take up more room than any other laptop that I've ever encountered. So it's basically a portable desktop suitable only for use where you've got a lot of room to stretch out. But it's not like you aren't getting something in exchange for all of that hassle. The keyboard is just plain better than any laptop keyboard ever. Which, I guess, leads us into the conclusion a little bit earlier in the video than we normally would because it's less of a two-sentence summary about who I think this product is intended for, and more of a massive list of the pros and cons of this incredibly unique piece of gaming hardware. So the pros, like I just said, the greatest keyboard on a laptop ever. The performance and the upgrade path, both of which are the best I've ever seen on a laptop ever. The cons, it's heavy, it's bulky. I mean, even the power brick is heavy and bulky. It takes up a lot of space and it is extremely expensive, with the lowest end model starting over $3,000 US dollars. And then the somewhere in between pro and con. Fan noise, cooling performance, and battery life are about what you'd expect for a large, powerful gaming notebook. And the overall fit and finish is still MSI, but not super premium MSI like their GS series laptops with their sexy full metal bodies. So in my mind, rather than comparing it to the other options in the market and saying, yeah, go for it, or no, don't go for it, all I can do is present you guys with this video and let you make your own choice. Because for better or for worse, there is nothing else in existence like this thing. And I've been saving this for the very end because I've been kind of putting it off, but I have to give MSI this. They pulled off this concept in a way that I didn't expect, and sitting using the device convinced me that a mechanical keyboard in a laptop is a lot less stupid than I originally thought it was. So Cliff, you can put that on the box if you want. Guys, like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment if your feelings are more complicated than this. As always, linked in the video description, we have support us links where you can give us a monthly contribution, buy a cool t-shirt like this one, or change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code in it so we get a small kickback whenever you're shopping for laptops or whatever else. Thanks for watching, and as always, don't forget to subscribe.