MSI GE 72 7RE Apache Pro

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IF THIS WAS THE NEW MACBOOK PRO, there wouldn’t be the negative sentiments towards the Macbook Pro. Hear me out. Latest generation quad- core Intel Core i7 processor? Present. Sixteen gigs of RAM, expandable to 32 GB? Here. Nvidia graphics instead of AMD? Front and centre. SD card reader? Regular USB and HDMI ports? Check and check. Now all it needs is the gorgeous screen and Cupertino styling from Jony Ive’s pen.

This, however, is not a Macbook Pro. The box proclaims it to have “TRUE FIREPOWER” and that the user will “REACH NEW HEIGHTS”. And, being a G- Series computer – MSI’S gaming line – the packaging is dominated by an illustration of a dragon.

Apache sits squarely in the middle of the G-series family (above Leopard, but below Phantom, Stealth Dominator and Titan), with the 7RE narrowly missing out on VR capabilities. And that’s kind of the story of this machine as a gaming laptop. It’s okay for 2017 with a couple of key upgrades, but the 4 GB 1050Ti is very limiting for the immediate future because of mediocre 4K support.

You still get the Steelseries Engine 3 for granular control over game settings (Ed: shout out to DOTA 2), and the responsive Steelseries chiclet keyboard with full custom backlight. It’s also easily the lightest in its class of 17-inch gaming rigs, weighing in at a tidy 3 kg.

In real- world use, though, the max 433 MB/S Wi-fi module and USB 2.0 card reader count heavily against it. As does the

550 MB/S limit on the SSD. Watch_dogs 2 couldn’t run on full graphics settings because it needs more than 4 GB of VRAM for details.

Where this Apache thrives, however, is in power management. Nvidia’s Optimus technology is used in place of MSI’S own G- Sync and it dynamically swaps between the graphics card and Intel HD graphics depending on the task – which makes all the difference when you only have about three hours of battery life away from a charger.

CONCLUSION

It isn’t going to set the gaming world on fire, but if you’re in need of a portable desktop option that will do dual service as a moderate video editing and gaming machine, then step right up. You’ll learn to live with the questionable design decisions.