The Titan took nine seconds to transfer 4.97GB of files, a rate of 565.5MBps. That’s faster than the average, the Blade Pro and the EVO15-S, but the Triton 700 hit a blazing 848.2MBps.


MSI’s notebook took 45 seconds to pair 65,000 names and addresses in our Excel macro test, just a second behind the average (0:44) and two seconds behind the EVO15-S (0:43).


The Titan took 12 minutes and 12 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, which is longer than the 10:07 average but faster than the EVO15-S.

Display

The 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080, G-Sync display produces vivid colors, though I wish I could turn the brightness up a notch or two. When I watched a trailer for Shazam!, Billy Batson’s red hoodie popped against the gray walls in the office of an orphanage, but some other details were in a bit too much shadow.

However, in outdoor scenes, like when the hero tries (and fails) to fly off of a halfpipe, everything was perfectly bright. When I played Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the dark screen made it tough to see in an orc cave, but I could still make out Talon's red shirt among his brown and gray cape.


The Titan’s screen covers an excellent 161 percent of the sRGB color gamut, handily surpassing the premium gaming average (132 percent) and both the EVO15-S and the Triton 700.

MSI’s display measured an average of 274 nits of brightness. That falls just short of the 278-nit premium gaming average and the Razer Blade Pro, but is more luminous than the EVO15-S and Triton 700.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Titan’s RGB keyboard offers 1.3 millimeters of travel, which is less than we like to see on a gaming laptop (at least 1.5 millimeters, please!), but, perhaps because of the 70 grams of required actuation force, it feels clicky and comfortable. On the 10fastfingers.com, I hit 115 words per minute, which is on the high end for me, though with an ever-so-slightly increased error rate of three percent.


The 4.1 x 2.3-inch touchpad is a bit too plasticky for my taste, but it’s good enough for browsing the web and other simple tasks. It doesn't use Windows precision drivers (MSI opted for Synaptics), and while Windows gestures, like tapping three fingers to summon Cortana or swiping three fingers up to show all of my open windows, did work, they sometimes required a few frustrating tries.

Audio

The speakers on the Titan are comfortably loud, easily filling a small conference room as I jammed out to The Darkness’ “I Believe In a Thing Called Love.” The guitars, drums and vocals were all clear and distinctive, and while the bass wasn’t strong, I could still make it out. My music experience improved after I went into the Nahimic software and turned on surround sound, though I didn’t find the other features useful for music.

When I played Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the music was a bit quiet, but orcs grunting and breathing as they chased Talion and the clashing of weapons produced sharp, clear sounds.