MSI Pulse GL76 11UEK Notebook Review and Test: 120W vs Dying Light 2

MSI teamed up with the renowned Maarten Verhoeven to create a unique new notebook. The MSI Pulse GL76 11UEK laptop sports a stylish design, plenty of hardware, and is capable of putting up a serious fight. It is suitable for both work and enjoyment of top-of-the-line video games.

Design

The computer is distinguished by an upright design without a huge amount of embellishment. There are chopped up lines around the keyboard, textured graphics on the lid, and cut-outs for ventilation. For added impact, the addition of an RGB backlight for the keyboard makes for a stylish and eye-catching notebook.

Black plastic with a matte finish is used for the chassis. The cover includes two parts: a main part and a supporting part. The base material is metal, with the exception of a small plastic insert at the hinges of the display. The bezel is available in silver colour and has a metallic look. The keypad is further embellished by 8 original décor elements.

The design

The notebook weighs 2.6 kg, not including the power supply, which adds 350 grams. The thickness is about 2.8 cm and the diagonal is 17 inches. The display can be tilted 180 degrees. The touchpad measures 10×60 cm. The touchpad has clear contours for easy use.

The full-size keyboard includes an ANSI layout as well as a selection of hot keys. The latter provide the ability to adjust the sound and brightness of the display, multimedia controls, microphone settings and more. There’s also a key that allows you to activate forced cooling mode.

On the left side of the laptop there are USB 2.0, USB 3.2 and for connecting the power supply. On the right side you can find a set: USB 3.2, USB 3.2 Type-C, HDMI, 3.5mm as well as Ethernet port.

Display and webcam

The stylish new laptop is equipped with a 17-inch display with Full HD resolution. The pixel density is 129ppi. The screen includes an IPS panel with a frequency of 144 Hz (1% sRGB, 42% AdobeRGB, 44% DCI-P3). The colour temperature is 6800K and the contrast is 1234:1.

The laptop gets the traditional 30 fps webcam with HD resolution. In adequately configured lighting, the picture is of decent quality. If the lighting is mediocre, the picture is similar – there is noise and square scattering.

Internal equipment

Speaking of hardware, the laptop has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop graphics card. Intel Core i7-11800H is responsible for the functioning. There is also an Intel AX210NGW networking device. As for storage, the laptop is equipped with a 1TB Kingston NVMe SSD.

The device has a Cooler Boost 5 cooling system. Its design allows the heat to be dissipated from the GDDR by means of a separate heat sink made of aluminium. The latter, in turn, has its own heat pipe made of copper. The battery capacity is 53 mAh, which provides for 30 minutes of gaming and 2.45 hours of word processing. At the same time, there is room inside the notebook for a larger capacity battery.