Pros: 9600m GT was and is still an alright graphics card. I actually just found out that it's still worth over $200 on its' own.

Very, very durable laptop. I've had this thing in my backpack (crammed between books) freshman year, dropped it a couple of times sophomore year, accidentally wiped 'bootmgr' twice (but was able to reinstall Windows after saving all of my old files via an enclosure), and I haven't been forced to replace anything so far due to natural wear and tear (not including the processor, which was knocked off my table by my dog of course).

Still plays the games that I want to play. I honestly haven't even tried using it with a cooling fan yet, so I'm sure I could push it even further if I really wanted to.

Looks like a high/end laptop.

Lots of people saying that they don't like the keyboard. I really didn't notice that it was majorly different. They crammed a number pad into it (which I liked) so it's to be expected that it's a little tightly packed. I also think that the buttons feel nice when pressed.

While people have also reported problems with the BT and WLAN modules, I have never had such a problem (and it's been through Vista and 7). As long as you keep up with the driver updates, I doubt there would be such problems.

Most lithium batteries will deplete over time and hold less of a charge as the months/years go by. I've not noticed this with this product. It is also a short battery life for a general laptop, but a pretty normal battery life for a gaming laptop.

Cons: I've seen everyone say that it runs hot, but I can definitely vouch for this. Back in 6th grade (when I purchased it), I had no idea about ventilation, so naturally I spent hours playing CoD:WaW with the laptop on top of my lap, over my bed comforter. More than once, I shut the computer off and got up to find that my thighs were literally red from the amount of heat that thing put off.

While I did say it's durable, the left screen-hinge it busted. There's not really a fix for this, as it's part of the entire plastic frame of the LCD screen. I've heard that this was fairly common with MSI products, but I can't really get angry, seeing as this laptop is over 7 years old now.

The USB ports (all 3, including the FireWire/USB combo port) don't work anymore. Granted, that's after 7 years of plugging in and unplugging stuff, but the solder connections have obviously come loose. That's actually why I had the processor on my table; it was because I had to completely disassemble the entire laptop, only to find that the solder points were too small for me (and my extremely shaky hands). However, the left USB port still works if you put the right amount of pressure on the plug (I find that putting something under the plug itself works well).

Overall Review: Like I said above, I've had this laptop for over 7 years. I honestly just thought this review would be kind of funny, seeing that they don't even manufacture GX630s anymore. This laptop was a really awesome buy for the money back in '08, and seems to rival the speed of general laptops today (ie: Inspirons, other regularly advertised laptops). After reading these reviews, I'm probably going to buy a cooling pad so I can romp this laptop even harder. Anyways, this laptop's been a big part of my childhood and adult life, and continues to give me great performance with some TLC. Also, if this helps anybody ever: if you've ever removed the heatsink and then had problems where the laptop shuts off after 2-5 minutes, you probably discarded this small mesh material that was between the heatsink and the north bridge. That mesh fabric closed the gap between the bridge and sink. I shaved down a penny on both sides (just enough to get rid of the copper-plating), put thermal paste on both sides, and then stuck it where the mesh went. I haven't had a problem since.

Pros: durable, easy to use, good quality for gaming (At the time),

Cons: runs VERY hot. You will need a fan if you plan to do gaming on this laptop. the partitioned drive was inconvenient to me, but I was able to re-format it without too much trouble.

Overall Review: I really loved this laptop. Just recently lost it to issues with not being able to wake it from hibernation mode (Which I have diagnosed as a windows issue - not a hardware issue)

Pros: looks awesome. Worked well for the most part

Cons: wireless has been funky from the beginning. About every other boot the lights would come on but the laptop never actually booted. Also would never ever wake up from sleep mode. Battery died completely after a year and a half but this wasn't significant as I've always needed to carry the charger with me since battery life was very short. As of today it will no longer boot. Completely dead after 2.5 years.

Overall Review: bought this for college because it was a great deal for the computer I was getting. Minor issues were never justification enough to shell out $70 for shipping to rma it before, its a bit old and outdated now. Will likely upgrade to a name brand model.

Pros: Performance, Value, everything you seen in all the other reviews

I had to write a review for this because many of the reviews, although accurate, were made after only a week or 2 of ownership, or worse yet, just on first impressions. Well I have ran this thing real close to non-stop since I purchased it about a year ago. I am a full time student, and Heavy Computer user. I use it in class for notes every day, and it can record audio for a 1.5 hour lecture, and I can take notes on it during that time, with battery left over (one year later).

Continued in "Other Thoughts"

Cons: The keyboards odd layout, the touch pad not under the space bar, and whats up with moving the Function key on me?

Overall Review: There was a few reviews that said its battery life was sub par, I don't find this to be the case for a gaming laptop, it is average. If you want good battery life, then don't buy a gaming laptop. You do need to put it into “Turbo Battery Mode” you achieve this, by pushing the under-clock button on the touch pad. But as far as durability, It gets bounced around in my backpack, and such, without incident. I can not complain, nothing has broke, it has never crashed, the keyboard layout is the worst thing about it, and you will get used to it. Gaming wise, its not bad, GET A COOLER!, this thing in over clocked mode does get hot, and will lag your game out with newer games. With a good cooler under it, it is not a problem. Plays Latest NFS's, Bioshock, ect. @max or close

As far as a budget decent Gamer laptop, i still see nothing that comes close to it on the market. It is not a "Killer" gaming laptop, that will cost ya few K, but it works for me, and will for a few more years to come.

Pros: I guess 9600mGT +the price would be the main reason for most ppl who would buy this laptop, so do I. It works GREAT > <

Beside the screen is very bright.

Cons: Well, nothing is perfect, of course this laptop is not an exception. LOTS of mirror cons.

Like everyone said, WLAN will be disabled after weaking up from sleep mode,only way to solve it is to restart. However, u can manually turn off the WLAN before let it "SLEEP". and turn it back on when u try to use it again > <

Also, the 9600gt driver in this laptop cannot updated by the official ones, just weird. > <

Speakers sounds cheap.

Lots ppl complained the keyboard of this laptop. They said the design is bad ( small arrow keys, small right shift key, etc. ) For me, the design is fine. But the touching feel is bad, I have to buy an extra blue tooth keyboard for this laptop :/

Runs hot....really hot.....especially for those games which demands some cpu power. E.X. After 4 hours of playing prototype, the system would crash, graphic card auto downclock to half speed, turbo mode auto turn off, etc.
So get a cooling pad > <

The build-in WLAN and BLUETOOTH are somewhat c

Overall Review: My bluetooth keyboard contently dc itself if i use the build-in blue tooth adapter, have to get an extra USB bluetooth adapter :(

Anyway, I didnt find any good of this laptop except its cheap price XD....but, cheap is all i looking for. Fair deal overall.

Pros: The laptop is a great example of the bang/buck sweetspot. The price has been adjusted several times to keep it that way.

Cons: 1. nVidia driver updates do not apply to this laptop and will not install. MSI, for their part, has not updated the VGA drivers on their website for this model at all. So you're stuck with 9600GT launch drivers. They're not bad, but they're not great either.

2. Hard drive will cause you trouble.

3. WLAN acts really funny in Windows 7 and will disable itself permanently after sleep mode. You have to restart to get it working again.

4. USB ports are flimsy - one of mine has already broken through normal use. I'm calling MSI about that tomorrow.

5. The fan gets hot and blows warm air onto your mouse hand.

Overall Review: After owning this laptop for more than a year, I will recommend that you purchase a higher-end laptop. This one is getting a little antiquated and isn't as impressive as it once was.

Pros: This laptop is definitely a steal.

Unique design, touch sensitive activation for WLAN, Bluetooth, Webcam, Turbo/Eco modes, FF, RW, Stop, Pause, and a blank "P1" sensor.

I've stress tested this computer with everything I can throw at it.

It runs games pretty well. Common games from free websites work at the highest settings with fps rates of 40-100+. Call of Duty 4 works perfectly, not a single hitch in the gameplay.

The turbo mode is pretty handy, especially if you want to leave lots of programs open while playing a game. Increase the CPU speed to 2.3 GHz.

Free upgrade to Windows 7! Just register the computer at MSI's website.

This computer is unbelievably cool. In a 75 degree F room, you can't even feel the heat from the bottom. The heatsink and fan draw all the heat to the right side of the computer, and conveniently blow it to the side, away from the user.

Computer doesn't get too hot when in turbo mode, but you can feel the heat from the bottom

Cons: Something in the computer can't handle any 64-bit operating system at its full potential. I think it may be either the mobo or cpu, or a combination of the two. They basically give you an extra GB of RAM you're never going to use.

CD/DVD drive is really sensitive, definitely sit this on a solid surface if you're going to watch a movie or download something from a CD/DVD, and, of course, burning CD's/DVD's.

MSI placed the warranty sticker over a screw to get inside the CPU/GPU/RAM compartment, so if you want to upgrade anything and keep the warranty, you're gonna have to dish out more cash to a MSI verified shop. And apparently, mine wasn't even on the laptop. Didn't even know about it till I read up on the MSI forums.

The battery life is a little below average. The average life I've gotten out of this laptop is 90-120 minutes, 60 being the lowest (gaming mode, playing CoD4 at max settings), and 140 minutes being the highest, on a custom battery saving mode.

Overall Review: I bought this laptop to keep me entertained in college, as well as to run research-grade software. If you're shopping for a first laptop, this probably isn't the thing for you, but if you're looking for something that can get the job done for the price you want to pay, go with this computer.

The brushed aluminum is a win/lose situation. It's a gorgeous color and texture, but it attracts fingerprints and dust to no end. It doesn't come with a cleaning cloth, so you should buy your own before it arrives.

Speakers aren't very loud, but they ARE high definition, and you can easily use this computer in place of an HD-DVD player for your Home Entertainment Center. The sound card supports Dolby Digital 7.1 (7 surround-sound speakers)

Pros: the 9600m gt is a nice adition with 512 ddr3 dedicated it runs smooth on games :)

the processor is nice i back amd for speed its faster then most intels cpus

if you want a gaming pc for 700 this is it im maxing out games easy :)

Cons: keyboards weird enter and back space are a little screwy but the keypad is nice plus i use a keyboard and mouse unless im out

Overall Review: 32 bit only recognizes 3 gigs of ram but theirs four ? and 64 is screwy on this i hear and so is windows 7 but thats what i heard do your own homework on that becsue i may have ben misinformed