MSI Creator 15 Review

Checking out the MSI Creator 15 laptop

Questions? Not all test results make it into the video to avoid clutter, so just ask if anything is unclear!

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Spec Summary:
MSI Creator 15
CPU - Intel Core i7-10750H (6 cores, 12 threads)
GPU - Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q (60W)
Display - 15.6" 1920x1080p 60Hz IPS TOUCH
Memory - 16GB DDR4 2666MHz
Storage - 1x 512GB NVMe SSD
Other - WiFi 6, White Backlit Keyboard

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
2:00 - Design, Materials, Build Quality
3:02 - Keyboard, Touchpad
3:53 - Connections
4:42 - Display Performance
6:40 - CPU Performance
7:08 - Gaming Performance
7:47 - Battery Life
8:33 - Thermals and Noise, Profile Recommendations
9:51 - Internals, Maintenance, Upgrades
10:24 - Speakers, Webcam
11:581 - Conclusion

Disclosure:
- This product was provided by MSI for the purpose of making this review. As per my own guidelines, they don't get any say about anything in this video or any of my other reviews. It's not sponsored by them, they also did not get to preview this video beforehand, or any other nonsense like that. If my video says "review" that means it reflects my own views, nothing more, nothing less.
- Amazon links I provide are (typically) affiliate links. Using these does not cost you anything extra at all. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means they do provide me with a small commission when you decide to buy a product at no extra cost to you.

#MSI #Creator15 #Laptop

[Bromoteknada]

I don't get it. This is supposed to be a laptop for creators and you didn't test it for creator-related tasks? (after effects, rendering etc.)

[feshchakful]

I am waiting for Creator for a year! Thanks a lot.

[diegoperezvaldes]

What a great review, I appreciate not having bought the Prestige 15 and waiting for the Creator series. A hug from Chile

[ronnie]

This little beast have a great power to editing and gaming properly .

[klaudiamojzisova]

I ordered it few days ago, finally a notebook with things I need for school and with touchscreen I couldn’t find anything better, so far I had Lenovo yoga for 6ish years? And I was not giving up touchscreen for gpu 😂 in happy they made this one like this and also quite affordable and also thank you for this review made me glad I decided for this one 😁

[adilakhtar]

I wish this laptop with AMD Ryzen 4000 series ❤️

[irondragon]

Thank you for your review. As always very informative!

[CalifornianWayfarer]

Seeing as this is a creator laptop, and your review is very recent which means the 4K is very much in the market, it would have been nice to see a review of the MSI Creator 15 A10SFS-287 15.6" UHD 4K Intel Core i7-10875H GeForce RTX 2070 Super 32GB DDR4 1TB NVMe SSD TB3 Win10PRO VR Ready (or another 4K variant of this laptop). But thank you for your hard work, as barely anyone has reviewed this model line.

[NLDMesa]

Great review! Very thorough, especially in providing battery life with different use cases. You just got a new subscriber.

[sylvainhimmo]

Thank you so much for this video! Really informative! IFinally a touchscreen laptop with good enough discrete GPU that's lower than $3500 USD (on sale at $1599). Unfortunately, this laptop runs too loud, lacking USB-A and too heavy to carry around. The upcoming MSI E15 (touchscreen) seems really attractive (on tigerlake and thunderbolt 4) and might be the perfect laptop finally. Be safe!

[lumdermaku]

Nice video.
A couple of stuff that would've been worth mentioning:
The keyboard layout this year is awful, it straight up sucks. Moving the fn key on the right side and halving right ctrl's and fn's width is a wrong move. Also, there's no need for an extra / key near the fn key.

The screen is annoyingly glossy and almost unusable in bright environments (f.e: an office). A matte screen protector would help a lot.

The fans are also annoyingly loud, even at idle and during light tasks (unless you switch to the silent profile but that one throttles the cpu&gpu heavily). Msi (just like in GS66) raised the fans' minimum speed to 2500rpm (only when the cpu temp is at 30ºC), and as a result, unless you switch to the dumb performance throttling profiles, the fans will always spin, and the annoying part is that all 3 spin at around 2800-3100 rpm depending on the cpu temp. You can partialy improve it by switching to the "advanced" fan profile (while still keeping the highest performance) and setting the Gpu fan's first dot (from the left) to 0%. This will make the gpu fans stop until the cpu hits ~65ºC. During this time, because only the smaller cpu fan spins, it generates considerably less noise. During your light - mid tasks, the laptop will now be way less noisier. You can also set the cpu fan's first dot to 0% so that all fans will be off, but cpu fan's starting temp is at ~51ºC and as soon as it hits 51ºC, it will turn on and start spinning at ~3000 rpm. Because the cpu with all fans off will often fluctuate its temps between upper 40s and low 50s ºC, you'll often hear the smaller single cpu fan turn on, off, on, off... which is very annoying. Because the single smaller fan produces less noise, i think that it is a better idea to leave it spin all the time, but you have the chance to change that.

Oh and there's definitely something wrong that is making the laptop draw that much power during those lighter battery tests. On the way you tested, hitting only around 8 hours of use means that the power draw of the laptop is ~12.8W (99.99/7.8 hours or so). Consuming ~12-13W in a laptop with these types of conponents is not normal, especially for a laptop with such a big battery. ~ 7W to 8W would be totally acceptable.

[fallinginthedp]

Touchscreen laptops with discrete GPU: Surface Book and... <crickets> This MSI is a welcome addition.

[MrMafiafix]

thank you for another informative video. keep it up, we appreciate it.

[BeresVonSaladir]

There are three things I look for in a laptop: a strong cpu, a discreet gpu and a touchscreen. This seems perfect for me. I have been using the Asus s550c for ages. As a teacher, I often have to add something to my presentation on the fly, from a standing position, something not easy to do without a touchscreen.

[zz]

Hello,
Nice review. One question, though,
Can you use stylus pens with this model, or is it finger-write only?

[feshchakful]

Netflix Battery Life test is the same as in your earlier video of Creator 17 in 08.25.2020. Did you have Creator 15 in August?

[rikimiki]

i think you confused speakers with audio DAC quality. the ad says hi-res audio 24/192 which has nothing to do with the internal speaker quality but with the audio jack output

[camielboekelaar]

Looks like a great laptop to me. I put it on my list of laptops to keep an eye on. Next to the 6 core HP Envy 15 and XPS15 9500. For a creator on the go, that likes charging with USB and watching some movies/series without any noise from the fans, what would you choose if money would't matter?

[gogobram]

My A10UET arrived yesterday. It has a touch screen and an RTX30 series GPU. 32GB of ram, and an i7 with 8 cpu cores, and an SSD of course. Nevertheless, I am kind of disappointed to be honest. - Battery life is shorter than expected, the fans are really noisy, and the keyboard layout is weird. They reshuffled some keys which are important for my job as a software developer. (e.g. they moved the backslash to the right of the space-bar, and they moved the µ-key to where the return-key used to be. The home/end buttons can only be used with the FN-key, which is moved next to the arrow keys now.) On first usage, sometimes the keystrokes lag behind while I type. Seems to be better today. But those things just shouldn't happen with a ~2400 EUR laptop, should they ? - Wouldn't buy again.

[mikomerca]

It has a simple design yet it has a lot of features. Performance at mid-range and I kind a like this laptop. I just hope that we can customize our laptop to the way we like it!
#MSI #Creator15 #Laptop