Review: MSI WE62 7RJ Workstation Laptop

If a few years ago someone had told you that someday you’ll be able to carry a workstation around in your backpack like a regular laptop, you probably wouldn’t have believed him. Workstations have been associated with serious looks and bulky hardware, but that’s long in the past. For today we take a look at a snazzy workstation laptop, the MSI WE62 7RJ, a powerful workstation laptop that you can take anywhere you go.

Tech Specs

With an Intel i7-7700HQ processor and a Quadro M2200, the MSI WE62 is indeed a powerhouse. It also adds 32GB of DDR4 RAM to the mix, and a combination of a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD to take care of all your storage needs. Not to mention that the laptop is quite easy on the eyes too. It’s portable and sleek with a cutting edge design, with the bright green MSI Workstation logo on the lid. On the left side of the laptop you’ll find two USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port along with a MiniDP port, a USB Type-C port and audio jacks, while the right side houses the DVD-RW drive, a USB 2.0 port and the SD Card reader. Considering this is a workstation laptop, I find the lack of a Thunderbolt port to be a little disappointing.

It features the same angular look as the MSI gaming laptops, with a brushed metal finish. Surrounding the logo are two indented curves that add to the aesthetics of the laptop. Lifting the lid greets you with a broad-bezel(ed) FHD display and the customary RGB backlit keyboard designed by SteelSeries. This is more or less exactly similar to what you find in the MSI gaming laptops. It feels quite comfortable to use, the keys are well spaced and big enough, and it’s a full-size keyboard so there’s a numeric keypad too. The touchpad is quite responsive and comfortable to use as well.

Performance and Benchmarks

Now, technically you can run games on the MSI WE62, but do not expect to be able to play your latest favourite titles on the highest settings. Being a Quadro GPU, the M2200 is better designed to handle tasks like 3D graphics and CAD work. So we’ll keep our benchmarks limited to that. And needless to say, the laptop offers impressive performance, as is indicated by the Specviewperf 12 numbers. You can take a look at the chart below for a better idea.

Specviewperf is a benchmarking suite that includes CAD, CAM, geological scans and medical MRI. The tests involve rendering and rotating models 3D models in popular applications like Maya, Catia, Solidworks etc. The Solidworks segment returned 85.3 FPS, while Siemens NX had 58 FPS. Showcase gave us 33.1 FPS, Medical segment had 20.2 FPS, and the lowest was in Energy, 4.3 FPS. The rest of the tests were pretty smooth, with Catia giving 72.8 FPS, Creo 68.5 FPS and Maya being 47 FPS. Performance wise, the M2200 is somewhere between M2000M and the M3000M, even approaching the M3000M in certain cases.

The display provided in the laptop is a full HD IPS panel, which works great. The only issue with it is that some may feel that it’s not bright enough. That wouldn’t have been a problem in the case of a gaming laptop where one can make do with lower brightness, but since it’s a workstation where you need to be able to see the details on the screen properly, it’s a negative point. You can tweak the color settings using the MSI True Color application has presets for work, gaming, movies and more. It also allows you to set things up manually, which is quite handy.

Talking about the battery life, the MSI WE62’s performance is a little average. On full battery, the laptop lasted about 3 hours of normal usage (browsing, music and video playback) which is quite amazing considering the level of portability and performance, but workstation laptops in general are moving upwards when it comes to their batteries. But on the plus side, we didn’t see the laptop heat up too much even under peak loads. While trying to run a few games, we did see the temps crossing 70C, but that’s besides the point. I highly doubt anyone who gets this laptop is going to use it for hardcore gaming sessions.

The MSI WE62 7RJ is a sexy looking device that packs quite a punch. You may want to keep those RGB backlights on the lower side of crazy for a more professional feel, but it’s nice to have the option. We would’ve loved to see the laptop including a 4K display and a thunderbolt port, but hopefully these will be present in the future models. But even as such, the device offers impressive performance, and has a great balance between portability, power and build quality.

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