​MSI GS43VR 7RE Phantom Pro full review

Read more: ​MSI GT72VR 7RE (Dominator Pro) gaming laptop review

Battery Life

The 61Wh battery managed to play our Full HD movie, at moderate brightness and with headphones connected for three and a half hours in Eco mode. That should get you through most movies but you’ll struggle to get through a working day.

In our harder PC Mark battery test it powered through at default power for two hours and 44 minutes. So it’s not completely useless when away from its big 0.7KG power brick.

At 1.8KG it’s still relatively portable and the power is there if you need it. All in all it strikes a reasonable balance between power and portability.

Conclusion

At $2,799 it’s not cheap. The problem (or best thing) about a laptop like this is that it’s all about compromise: it’s nowhere near being an ultraportable in terms of size and battery life but it does offer some respectable gaming grunt - though not nearly as much as its big brothers.

However, we feel the combination of size and power is reasonable if you’re in the market for such a beast. But it’s still a jack of all trades and master of none.