Hands-on with MSI's GS30 2M Shadow Notebook and Gaming Dock
MSI is back with yet another piece of gaming hardware, but this time it's something that's yet to be released and is probably quite unlike anything else out there. The MSI GS30 2M Shadow and its Gaming Dock could be the best thing to happen for those who find ever limited space to accommodate their computing equipment and yet still retain some form of upgradeability. Coming to you really soon, dive in to find out what's it capable of!
The towering monolith that is the GS30 and its dock.
It's nothing new for something to hook up to another thing and grow more powerful as a result. If the Transformers (not the Micheal Bay ones, the original G1 versions) have taught us anything, it's that bigger almost always equals to better. The Constructicons were cool alone, but join all five of them together and you got Devastator which is like the epitome of coolness.
Somebody at MSI has obviously grown up watching Transformers, which in an abstract way, is what the GS30 2M Shadow and docking station is. It's a lightweight notebook that combines with a docking station to deliver desktop quality performance. While we've seen Sony tinkering with the docking design to expand their notebook's capabilities with their Power Media dock on the VAIO Z, MSI is probably one of the earliest proponents of this concept as we've seen their working prototypes from several past trade shows such as the MSI Luxium from Computex 2007. More recently in 2012, we've again seen it in the form of the MSI GUS using Thunderbolt, but that too didn't make any headway in the retail segment.
The gaming dock that accompanies the MSI GS 30 2M Shadow actually has a lot more in common with the old MSI Luxium product and we're glad that it's finally shaping up to be a product that will eventually ship in January 2015. One thing to note, the set that we received for our hands-on trials isn't the finished product, so the specs and performance potential is subject to change.
The first part of the package is the GS30 2M Shadow notebook and we'll begin with an overview of it:-
The MSI GS30 2M Shadow notebook may not be top of the line, but its built for function instead of power.
The MSI GS30 2M Shadow notebook comes with Windows 8.1 pre-installed, an Intel HM87 chipset and an Intel Core i7 (our unit came with an Intel Core i7-4870HQ operating at 2.50GHz with a 6MB cache). Its maximum RAM capacity is 16GB (ours came with 8GB DDR3-1600), with visuals handled by the CPU's integrated Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200. The display is 13.3 inches across (matte anti-glare), has a resolution support of up to 2560 x 1440 pixels with a webcam (HD type, recording capability of 30FPS at 720p) built in.
Storage capacity will be handled by two M.2 SSDs linked in MSI's Super Raid configuration, up to 512GB (ours came with 256GB in total). For connectivity, the MSI GS30 2M Shadow comes with Gigabit LAN and Wireless 802.11ac supplied by Intel, as well as Bluetooth 4.0. It has a backlit keyboard, a clickpad, comes with two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI (1.4b) connector, audio in/out ports (one of each) as well as a card reader slot that reads SD (XC/HC) and MMC memory cards. Powering it all is a built-in 4-cell Li-ion battery, with energy consumption rated at 47.36Wh. Finally, the unit's dimensions are 320 x 227.3 x 19.8mm and it weighs a measly 1.2KG. Its physical characteristics easily qualify it as an UItrabook, so that's good news if you're wondering if those figures are decent.
The notebook's 13.3-inch display is reasonably good and displays colors well although, it's thin top cover makes it wobble easily. There's a bit of flex to it too but it's not too bad if you're using it on a stable surface. Although typing was fine on the keyboard, the display tends to wobble at the slightest touch. This might be addressed in the final production model but as it stands, if you're the type of person who hammers keys home, prepare for a shaky display.
13.3 inches might seem small but the display itself is pretty good. There's some flex to handling the display, but we hope it gets fixed in the final retail model.
The backlighted keyboard is pretty much what you get out of any good notebook now but unlike some models in MSI's lineup (particularly the MSI GT72 2QE Dominator Pro), the colors are not customizable. The standard white is all you get. Owing to its compact size, it's also missing a Numpad which is acceptable for a 13.3-inch class notebok. Ignoring that, typing on the chiclet keys is still responsive, with zero issues, despite the size.
Looking down from the top, you can't really tell the keyboard's backlighted, unless you look closely under the Function keys on top. It's still visible in the dark though.
There are no demarcated buttons on the trackpad as the entire unit is a clickpad, Depending on your views, you might like or hate this, but this is pretty much what you'll get on most modern notebooks.
Unlike some notebooks, the MSI GS30 2M Shadow doesn't have any ports at the back. The only connector there is the custom PCI Express based port that links the notebook to the gaming dock.
The back's pretty plain save for the vents and the connector.
An up close look at the connector port. It's usually protected by a plastic cover, but we've raised it for this close-up shot.
The left side is rather spartan too, though not as much as the back was. It has the audio jacks as well as a lone USB 3.0 port.
The audio jacks and the lone USB 3.0 port.
The right side has more going on. There's another USB 3.0 port here, an Ethernet port as well as the HDMI port and card reader slot. The notebook's charging port is also on this side.
The right side is the side with the most ports.
Without being told that there's a second part to the MSI GS30 2M Shadow, you wouldn't actually know that it's not a standalone product. The quality and build of the notebook is good enough on its own that it could be marketed as a standalone product if MSI chooses to do so. While there are currently no plans to sell the notebook without the gaming dock, such details might be subjected to change when the actual retail direction is firmed up later so we'll be sure to update you when we get word of it.
That's all there is to it for the notebook portion. Hit the next page as we take a closer look of the gaming dock and its internals, followed by preliminary performance figures!
The Gaming Dock
The MSI GS30 2M Shadow's dock doesn't look anything out of the ordinary. In fact, if you didn't know better, you'd simply think that it's a big boom box. It's big, it's black,it's bulky and it's boxy. Fits the description of a speaker perfectly doesn't it? Fortunately, the front-end is really a speaker system so you have a ready audio solution with this dock, but inside, it's almost like a mini PC.
Head on, it looks like a huge speaker and you'd never expect that it has the guts of a PC inside it.
Turn it to the left side however and you get access to a handful of video output ports. You get three DisplayPorts, a HDMI port and DVI-I output - clearly, you can tell that those ports are coming from a graphics card within the Gaming Dock. Below that, you'll find the dock's PSU and its power plug and swtich.
The DisplayPorts with the lone HDMI port sandwiched in between. Why the DisplayPorts aren't arranged in a row is anybody's guess.
On the right side, there's another handful of connectivity ports, as well as the docking plate handle and the power switch. With the Gaming Dock, you get a couple more audio jacks, another Ethernet port as well as four more USB 3.0 ports. True to its name, the dock is supposed to sit at home (or work if you must), and have all the required connections hooked up to it (monitor, speakers, input devices and whatever else you need). When you're back home with the GS30 Shadow, just slide the notebook in place on top of the dock and it will be secured in place, ready for some gaming action. Also noticeable from the photo below is the exhaust fan to blow out the excess heat.
The handle you see on the top controls the docking plate where you place the notebook. This way you don't need to manually shove it in or pull it out yourself when you want to dock or remove the notebook and jar the entire setup.
We're not going to show you the back because there's really nothing there. Instead we're going to remove the covers and let you have a peek at the innards of the dock. To access the innards of the dock, we simply removed the screws that held the speaker portion of the dock together. There were six screws, two for the left side, two for the right and a final two underneath. Once we got that unscrewed it was just a matter of unhooking the LED lights and speakers from their connectors. The result is the picture below:-
Everything's nicely bundled up and tied so despite the cramped space, everything looks neat and orderly. Can you spot the key components that make up the gaming dock?
You can see how everything fits together. The graphics card (in this case it's a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980) is hooked near the top (from the perspective of the above layout). On the lower left side is the SFX PSU unit and the lower right has the HDD caddy. Yes, the dock has space to mount extra storage space that's accessible when you dock your GS30 Shadow! The caddy will take in a conventional 3.5-inch HDD, but take note that the MSI GS30 2M Shadow and Gaming Dock package will not come equipped with a HDD in the dock. As you can see, there's hardly any custom components used in the dock besides the PCB to make the the whole package work and interface with the GS30 Shadow notebook. The key components that make it up can be bought off-the-shelf and replaced if required in the future.
This is a close up view of the space between the PSU and the graphics card. An ATX PSU won't fit in there given the small confines.
The opposite view. The HDD caddy is on the right and the GeForce GTX 980 on the left while the fan's at the back. It's a bit more spacious on this side and that's a good thing where ventilation is concerned.
We were curious whether the MSI GS30 2M Shadow's dock truly could use any graphics card its users wanted so we dug up our AMD Radeon R9 290X and got to work on finding out. There's only one screw holding the card in place and once its out, you can just slide the card out of its slot.
Here's a view of the dock's interior without a graphics card. As it uses a standard PCIe x16 3.0 slot, anything that can fit that slot will be usable.
The pair of PCIe graphics power connections provided.
Since a pair of split PCIe power connectors are provided (6+2 pins), it bodes well for different power connector configurations such as on the ASUS Radeon R9 290X (top) and the MSI GeForce GTX 980 (bottom).
We didn't have any problems with the R9 290X swapped in place of the GeForce GTX 980. We had to install Radeon drivers, but that's about it.
So if you were wondering, yes, MSI's Gaming Dock really does use off-the-shelf parts and our little experiment to swap out the provided graphics card worked fine.
While we initially had some preliminary benchmarks up for the GS30 2M Shadow, MSI has since requested them to be taken down because of an embargo. We respect MSI's wishes and have since removed the benchmarks. As the final part of the content is under embargo, we've decided to bring over our conclusion to this page., which you can read below.
Jack of all trades
The MSI GS30 2M Shadow is a pretty sleek and slick portable machine. In its notebook form, it's a light and versatile piece of hardware that's easily used for light computing needs like web browsing or processing office documents/presentations. Given its Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 GPU built into the CPU, it's actually even capable of handling very light gaming if you must indulge in some (even if the graphics quality is set to low/normal settings). The size and weight of the notebook makes it easy to carry around and its long lasting battery means you can use it for quite a while before you run out of juice and need to recharge it. Even so, we felt its power consumption figures could be improved, and we hope if does by the time the final production unit hits retail to make it an even more long lasting machine.
When docked, the MSI GS30 2M Shadow is a beast, especially with the included NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 graphics card powering it. We love the fact that you're basically paying one price for two different machines and the dock offers great customization options to suit anybody. It even has speakers built-in so you've one less item to worry about if you've limited desk space. The dock is relatively easy to open and swap parts around, which makes it handy if you're constantly upgrading your hardware. Today, you can game with its GeForce GTX 980, but tomorrow, you could stick in a next generation AMD/NVIDIA GPU. While it's obviously not geared to the hardcore (the limited space makes SLI and liquid cooling setups impossible), it's a great desktop solution for those with space constraints and would like to maximize their desk space and investments.
Despite all the good stuff it has going for it, the MSI GS30 2M Shadow and its accompanying Gaming Dock has a few quirks. While the unit we had for trial is an engineering model, things might (and probably will) change between this version and the final production model, but as of now, you cannot dock the system in and play on the notebook's monitor. You need a separate monitor to play when docked, which seems like a bit of an oversight since the notebook itself already has one built in. Like we said, this might be fixed in the final version but it might not and we thought we'd just point that out. Also, positioning of the dock could be tricky, but you'll need to spend a bit of time to find an optimal spot to place the monitor and the dock, else the speakers from the dock would be blaring at a direction not suitable for your everyday use.
We can't say for sure without a final review model but based on the model we have, the MSI GS30 2M Shadow is a pretty impressive piece of hardware. We like the versatility and choice given to its users and so far, it fulfills both the roles it set out to do (a lightweight portable notebook and a desktop gaming machine) pretty well. So if you're looking for something that could cater to both business (or school or anything that doesn't require massive amounts of power really) and gaming needs, the MSI GS30 2M Shadow definitely deserves a consideration.
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