As in, I have seen a $300 laptop have hinges that are superior in over-all design when compared to the hinges/design in a $2500 macbook. I think that is one of the last things over-all that could make the difference between both machines. As said earlier, they are essentially the same, but you get a few more "useless" features on the MSI for that extra $100, till you see it has dual mSATA and the SATAIII HDD bay, along with support for raid arrays.