Unleaded's - MSI MS-1029 Review - Page 16

1029 has version 3

lol, yeah the touchpad is indeed crappy

That's OK, I have a Bluetooth mouse that I really like. It is one called "Think Outside" from CompUSA. It was a bit pricey, like $79. But it is small AND comfortable and has a scroll wheel. I just use rechargeable AAA's and I am good for about a week at a time...

Heh, yeah I use an external mouse as well - a Logitech mx510 (yeah, I cant stand cords). I just wish there was a way to disable the touchpad so that my palm wouldn't keep hitting it during gaming.

I see targa has a diffrent chasiss for the MSI 1029 (wich i think looks much better).... is it posible to get one of those? i already ordered mine ...

Targa chasis is much uglier that the msi one! belive me, I have the targa, and it sucks.
The latest 1029 based targa has some good additions like a built in web-cam, and the mini-pci wlan-bluetooth combo has a ralink chipset for wireless, instead of the inprocomm. Ralink is compatible with linux, and you can download upodated drivers from their web site. inprocomm closed its doors a few months ago, and there will be no more updated drivers ever.. I don't know if msi will switch to a diferent chipset for their mini-pci wlan-bluetooth combo

So has anyone tried disabling the touchpad in the device driver? Does this work and still let you use an external mouse? Also does anyone know what version bluetooth the msi wifi/bluetooth card supports. Does it support the newer 2.0 standard?

Is the touchpad at least usable? That sort of sucks if it's so bad that you can't even use if effectively. My ms-1029 is on order. I'll tend to use it truly as a laptop unless playing games on it and I prefer touchpads over mice unless gaming.

I would say the touchpad is definitely usable. There is no doubt it has some quirks but overall its not bad.

I wonder why they went with 3 instead of 5 for the touchpad if its so bad? I intended to use the touchpad alot. Now with the info I am hesitant to buy the 1029.

I went from a laptop with a synaptics touchpad, to this one, and I can live with it, but to be honest, you feel that it is cheap plastic that you are touching, when you use it... If you don't know what is a synaptics touchpad, then you will not see any diference hehe
I read that version 5 is great (never seen any in action).. dunno why they choose version 3.
the 1029 is still the best notebook you can buy at this time on a price/performance/feature ratio

the major drawbacks for me are (in order):

-The LCD that has a 1280x800 resolution. I have a 22' monitor at 1600x1200 at home, and 1280x800 feels low.
-The fact that you can't run DDR400 CL2.5 memory, at least for now. A new bios version is being tested that MAY resolve this issue.
-The fact that the ATI chipset does not support dualchannel memory architecture.
-The touchpad.... feels cheap.
-The onboard soundchip (Realtek 658) was not implemented to support 3d-audio. The chip itself supports 3d-positional audio, but msi engeniers decided to not implement the feature, so, no eax 1.0 or 2.0 support... this is really annoying, knowing that it is costless to add this feature.. the audio chip is actually underperforming because it was not set up to use all its features.
-there is no serial port, and I use it to configure network devices. I use a usb adapter, but it would be nice to have a built in serial port.
-lan is 10/100, and most laptops now carry a gigabit lan.

as you can see, if all these issues would be fixed, this would be a dream laptop

either than that, this laptop is a must have.

- I played through HL on hardest difficulty level with only using the built in touchpad so it's working just fine for me, there is a lot of settings and optimizations that can be done in the driver.

- Resolution of 1280x800 is perfect for the performance the ATI X700 has to offer. I'm happy that all my games runs well in the native resolution, always! The screen is awesome, one of the strong parts of this notebook. Looks good!

- Gigabit Lan is alittle bit of an overkill, since there is no harddrive that can supply or store data at those speeds anyway.

- Most Turion 64 notebooks runs memory at DDR333 no matter what size. But this notebook runs up to 1.5GB at DDR400!

- Audio specs/ports could have been better, agreed

- Socket 754 has never supported dual memory technology.

I think the touch pad is actually pritty good, yeh its occasionly got a few quirks but all the optimisations and gadgets are cool...
I like the fact that u can tap with 1 finger for left click, tap with 2 for middle and tap with 3 for right click, helps getting around much quicker, and grrrrr8 for scrolling on web sites just tap with 2 fingers then scroll using the whole pad.
I find the only time it becomes a bit of a pain is when ur hands are hot cause if there close to it it will pick them up.
Also i cant see how people can hit there fingers on the touch pad when typing, if you type properly then ur hands are either side of the touch pad, i never hit it.

Think since the laptop has a few quirks and such. That MSI may redo it. Kinda like how they redid the z70 asus laptop? Oh. I was wondering what kind of frame rate you get with HL2 or BF2? With medium or high settings.

What do you mean "quirks"? All laptops generally have "quirks", but usually they are not enough to "redo" the laptop. Including this laptop. Perhaps in the next generation model of this laptop, some of the "quirks" will be ironed out, but more will be put in. I don't think this laptop has any more "quirks" than any other laptop out there.

i just got my 1029 on friday and the 1 thing that really annoys me about this laptop is the keyboard...i think it sucks. besides the keyboard i like the laptop a lot. i have used thinkpads for the last 5 years and i was spoiled by them...but i have to say that the touch pad is actually very good almost on par with my last t41. does anybody know how to remove the keyboard? i want to see if i can remove some of the flex in the corners.

scott

Thats weird. I actually think the keyboard in the laptop in the keyboard is pretty good. I don't really notice any flex at all.

the lower right corner is the worst for me...i find that i have to hit the m and c key more than once when i am typing.

that may actually be a defect? I have absolutely no complaints with my keyboard. And I do quite a bit of typing.

i have lots of problems pressing certain buttons too. some of my arrow keys, left shift, period key, and others that i can't remember. Probably up to 10 differant keys. i've thought of sending it back defect but i figure it doesn't anoy me enough to go without my computer for a week or two, especialy considering i have no backup computer. oh society and it's silly reliance on computers.