UPDATED: Now I've had a couple of weeks' quality time with this laptop I can update my remarks!
SO, WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?
I've played PC games now for 16 years and, in that time, owned three gaming desktops (heavily upgrading one) and three gaming laptops (two Toshiba Qosmios and a Samsung G7). I've steadily invested more and more into the hobby, and the £2500 asked for this beast is a far cry from the £600 it cost me to build my first desktop or even the much lower price tickets of my two Toshiba Qosmios and most recent Samsung 700G7C.
But I'd like to think I know my gaming hardware, and I'd like to think I'm in some sort of authority when I say that the GT72 Dominator Pro G (whew!) is worth every penny more that I've paid for it.
ON THE OUTSIDE:
Things look great from the outset - rather than the in-your-face, garish offerings of some of the other gaming brands on the market, the MSI is in an understated black case with a brushed effect. The Gaming Dragon shield, though taking pride of place on the lid, is still small and subtle, even when it rather nicely lights up in white when the laptop is on.
In fact, this aside, the only other hint that you're dealing with a gaming rig is the red air vents at the back, and even these are understated and nowhere near as ostentatious as those found on something like the Asus ROG.
The chassis is rounded out with plenty of ports - no fewer than 6 USB 3.0s (four left, two right) feature for starters. The obligatory headphone and mic sockets are welcomely joined by S/PDIF in and out ports (a rarity these days it would seem) while the rear plays host to no fewer than 2 DisplayPorts, HDMI and Ethernet. A word of warning on the HDMI port: upgrading to Windows 10 nerfs its ability to output sound, something that future drivers will hopefully fix.
There's also the in-built Bluray drive on the right hand side where you'd expect it.
The back ALSO plays host to the AC adapter socket, and this is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it massively minimises a bugbear we've had with so many other gaming laptops, namely the constant snag and eventual deformation of the pin and moulding. On the other, trying to put the Dominator back onto a table from your lap invariably sees the cabling get caught under the laptop chassis since the socket is positioned dead centre - popping it left or right whilst still at the back might have been a better shout. I'm hoping to invest in a clip or similar to keep the cable in position to stop this happening.
There's one other thing to be borne in mind: the battery. You'll never find it, since the Dominator Pro's is internal and cannot be removed. The internal vs removable battery debate is a well worn one from the days of the first iPhone, but given that this is a gaming rig and the battery tends to stay put in case of any power outages, you can see the decision, and it has meant that whatever battery MSI are using inside, its weight is far more evenly distributed.
Indeed, on that note, the whole caboodle is, while by no means light, still surprisingly portable AND thin considering all the hardware running under the hood. The official Hermes backpack is a perfect companion both to this and the rest of the gear you'll want to lug around with it. The Dominator Pro G will easily fit into a courier bag or backpack and is portable enough between rooms without you developing a hernia.
KEYBOARD:
Probably one of the biggest potential hurdles to the buyer is going to be the Dominator Pro's keyboard, especially considering the GT80's full on mechanical shenanigans and the fact that this is a US offering (even though you can, of course, enable UK mapping when setting up Windows). Accordingly, this means your \ key isn't where you expect, the tilde key encroaches into the space you'd expect '1' to occupy and the enter key is split into two. Other oddities of course include no marked £ sign and the @ and " keys swapped around in terms of labelling. I've also, now I've set the keyboard to UK mode, yet to find the hash key.
So it takes a UK user a little getting used to, although I'm getting there with the exception of the \ key, which is causing some hilarious results when I try to type in directory paths. I'm hoping a little more practise will sort this out, as the keyboard is otherwise lovely: very quiet to type on with a decent pitch between the keys. Even more crucially, there's no bevelling on the keys because each one is set individually into the keyboard. Hair, dead skin and food crumbs are going to have a much harder time coming to rest under the keys on this laptop, but MSI also do a keyguard which can sit discreetly over the top of the keys: it gets my recommendation as an extra.
Then, of course, there's the fact the whole thing lights up. Nothing new, of course, except that the keyboard is split into three separate sectors - the first runs roughly up to the column that 4, R, F and V are found in, while the middle sector takes care of the keys up to =, ], ' and /. The 3rd and final sector looks after all the cursor keys and the full numberpad, albeit with smaller factor buttons which are actually nicer to use and easier to switch between with single fingers.
Keyboard lighting is managed by an in-built app, and up to 4 'layers' can be set at a time and switched between with a hard key on the left of the chassis. Not only can individual colorations be set for each profile, but things like custom macros and so on set up for use both in games and in Windows. Colours can be set to wave across the keyboard, pulse or even respond to sound, and you can even set a nice, unearthly looking pulsating glow while the laptop sleeps.
The usual grouping of functions onto keys with a function shift is present here, and generally this keyboard gets it right with a few exceptions: there are no dedicated volume controls, these instead being dual bound to the cursor keys. There are also, sadly, no media controls of any sort, requiring you to hop back into whatever application is blasting out your tunes, although most like Spotify now allow you to use your phone as a remote, so none of this is, in itself, too bad. The one though that baffles us most is that home and end are bound to the same keys are page up and page down, and yet it's the former functions that require the shift key to be held - not especially helpful when trying to quickly navigate to the beginnings and ends of typed lines. It's a minor criticism, and one that software can surely iron out, but one nonetheless.
Before we forget, the keyboard is also supplemented by a generous trackpad. While my preference is for an external mouse, this trackpad is definitely better than most I've used, although bear in mind that there's no bevel between it and the rest of the chassis - gamers whose hands tend to plonk themselves down may want to disable the trackpad. The left and right mouse buttons are generously sized if a little lacking in quality feel.
SCREEN:
17.3", 1920x1080 - the Dominator Pro's screen is as you'd expect from a gaming laptop, and it natively pulls 60Hz in Windows. This is a minor shame given that we're used to the lofty heights of 120 from offering's such as Samsung's, though a huge feather in the MSI's cap is a matte rather than glossy screen which makes gaming in bright light a lot more bearable. Plus, that's forgetting the inbuilt G-Sync, which optimises the screen refresh in games to minimise tearing. As it's a brand new tech the jury is still out on how effective it really is, but it's there for bragging rights if nothing else, and there's certainly noticeably less tearing on this than our previous model, although there's never really any indication to the user that the technology is on and working. There's also MSI's 'true colour' app, which can optimise the screen dependent on usage and generally works really rather well. So far the screen has proven itself to be really rather capable when you remember that it's bolted onto the top of the whole affair and has to be able to fold down to boot. Things look crisp, bright and easy on the eye, and even in dark scenes such as those we're used to in Kerbal Space Program, we were able to see what was what, unlike our previous glossy screen.
SPEAKERS:
Too many gaming laptops have naff-sounding speaker setups, but the MSI's wisely-outsourced Dynaudio speakers are a real treat. We still can't figure out on our model since the Windows 10 upgrade whether they're just stereo, 2.1 or 7.1. Before the upgrade Windows 8 was able to at least make it *sound* like there were 7 dedicated speakers (or at least play test tones to mimic them) but this seems to have been lost post update. Some sort of subwoofer is most assuredly present, but whatever the case, these are an exceptional set of speakers that you'll routinely have to run at 50 or below to stop your eardrums exploding. Bass is incredibly well defined without buzzing out all the other sounds, and mids and trebles are clear without making the insides of your skull hurt. Top job here.
UNDER THE HOOD:
Now we get to the really serious stuff - the Dominator Pro is packing a GTX 980M, pretty much the latest card knocking about at the moment. It doesn't end there, though, since the included MSI Afterburner software can eke another 135MHz out of the card's base 1GHz clock speed. Likewise the card's colossal 8GB of RAM, capable of pulling 2.5GHz, can be asked to go to 3.5 (although trying this resulted in pretty much instantaneous lockup of Windows). Even under load whatever it is that's cooling the card is doing an exceptional job, with temperatures above 65ºC a rarity even when the GPU is fully overclocked. Even better, to avoid any lockouts, MSI offer an app for phones that allows remote overclocking and, most importantly, gives you a readable interface in the event that you overdo it.
Then there's the MSI's trump card - an in-built cooler beyond the stock fans and heatsinks very much in the vain of the sort you'd buy to sit the laptop on. This can be toggled with another hard key on the keyboard, and fires up a set of fans that can shed 10ºC off the card in a minute and drop it as low as 28ºC with good ventilation. It's loud at 75dB, no doubts there (a typical conversation clocks in at about 60dB), though previous owners of big, bad desktops will be more used to the noise and really dedicated gamers who want every last drop of the laptop's performance will find solace in an empty house and a good pair of headphones. It's a fantastic feature even when used in short bursts and is sure to prolong the life of this laptop.
In terms of gaming, there's simply nothing this beast can't handle at the moment - pick a game, turn everything up to full and let rip, I could pull out so many examples. A double GPU setup was originally in my crosshairs, but this has quashed any regrets I may have had about not plumping for a GT80.
Of course, all of this is no good if not paired up with decent RAM and a good CPU. I ended up settling for the MSI because it's one of the few I could find with a 5th gen Core i7 and 32GB of RAM. Together, these really come into their own, and so far I've been able to run a good test with Kerbal Space Program modded to the absolute hilt. This guzzled 14GB of RAM, though the processor didn't even break a sweat when asked to deal with the physics of outer space. Again, whatever's cooling the beast does a good and quiet job of it, though the built in cooler no doubt also plays its part in keeping RAM and CPU in top shape.
Combined, these three components also give rise to one of the MSI's best features which I hadn't even discovered in my initial review: casting. A dedicated keyboard button is linked to your software of choice (XSplit being the default) and streaming and creating videos is literally as easy as hitting the button, with webcam, microphone and XSplit all cued up for you. I've now made it a regular thing to fire up a game, put on the headset and hit record, simply narrating what I do and loading it onto YouTube, and this laptop has helped me easily discover a whole new avenue of gaming I didn't really engage with before. On that note, the in-built webcam does a perfectly decent job of rendering a corner-sized version of myself in 1080p at 30fps.
Last but not least, the final, major under-the-hood components involve storage. A rather mean-seeming 1TB mechanical hard drive exists for archiving and whatnot, whilst the system proper runs off of four, 256GB solid state drives in RAID0 configuration. For the uninitiated, files are fragmented into four pieces and distributed across the drives, the idea being that a file can be more quickly brought to you by four drives rather than one hunting for a (likely fragmented) copy. Think of cutting all your photos into quarters and sticking them in 4 albums, each managed by a different person: there's absolutely no doubt that it's insanely fast: Windows is up and about in under 15 seconds and there's no point even trying to grab a can of drink whilst your favourite game loads up. Even notoriously slow beasts like The Sims 3 and the aforementioned Kerbal Space Program snap to it.
There is, of course, one major drawback - if any single drive in the RAID fails, ALL of the data is lost (or, in the case of the analogy I gave earlier, it can't be reassembled to the full picture). Worse, I learned (far too late) that Windows is similarly fragmented across the drives which is what makes it so quick. Mess with the RAID settings at your peril or have a Windows Media Creation Tool and a second machine to hand to rewind the carnage. The trouble is that splitting the drives off on their own just isn't an option, since 256GB isn't all that much these days.
In fact, added together, 2TB isn't a lot either, even with Cloud storage and digital downloads and, more importantly, that aforementioned affinity for creating gaming videos. It almost seems weird that a mechanical drive is included at all, and I've found myself wishing more than once that the dead heat and weight of the mech drive was shed for some slightly larger SSDs. When the warranty is up I'll definitely be carving the machine open to, at the very least, replace the mech drive with another SSD - the idea of having a laptop whose only moving parts are the optical drive is an enormously attractive prospect.
CONCLUDING REMARKS:
But I absolutely love this laptop. It leaves, in my view, anything else out there standing whilst presenting itself in a reasonable package that you can still pop into a bag and move from place to place.
There's also the small matter of it being resold via HID Evolution in California.
If you're a UK buyer, please do not let this put you off.
Some complications did mean mine arrived a couple of days late, but I was given several dutiful phonecalls from California that respected the time difference and lots of assistance via email after the aforementioned accidental nuking of Windows from the RAID. HID Evolution's techs were more than happy to arrange callbacks with me and were nothing but polite, friendly and helpful. They really have been a superb company to deal with, and the fact they're selling you this machine is the icing on the cake.
TL;DR review? Buy this laptop. You'll smile a lot afterwards.
| Brand | MSI |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 42.8 x 29.39 x 4.8 cm; 3.81 Kilograms |
| Item model number | GT72 2QD Dominator G 1445-HID1 |
| Manufacturer | MSI COMPUTER |
| Color | Black |
| Standing screen display size | 17.3 Inches |
| Screen Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Resolution | 1080p Full HD |
| Processor Brand | Intel |
| Processor Type | Core i7 |
| Processor Speed | 2.7 GHz |
| Processor Count | 4 |
| RAM Size | 16 GB |
| Memory Technology | DDR3L |
| Computer Memory Type | DDR3 SDRAM |
| Maximum Memory Supported | 32 GB |
| Memory Clock Speed | 1600 MHz |
| Hard Drive Size | 1000 GB |
| Hard Disk Description | SATA |
| Hard Drive Interface | Serial ATA-600 |
| Hard Disk Rotational Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Additional Drives | DVD+/-RW |
| Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M |
| Graphics Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Graphics Card Description | NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 970M 192bit w/ 3.0GB GDDR5 |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 3 GB |
| Connectivity Type | Bluetooth |
| Wireless Type | 802.11bgn |
| Wattage | 230 watts |
| Optical Drive Type | DVD+-RW |
| Power Source | AC |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Operating System | Windows 8 |
| Battery Description | Battery_type_lithium_ion |
| Lithium Battery Packaging | Batteries contained in equipment |
| Number Of Lithium Ion Cells | 9 |
| Item Weight | 3.81 kg |
