Virtual reality justifies those ludicrous 17-inch ‘portable desktops’

Gaming laptops are a consumer-electronics category that don’t make a whole lot of sense anymore. They’re expensive, bulky, and hot as hell. That’s why companies like Razer are rethinking these products. But the age of virtual reality is starting to reveal some new reasons to own a massive laptop with insane graphics capabilities.

Soon after getting the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets, computer manufacturer MSI sent GamesBeat its GT72S Dominator Pro laptop, and while a portable desktop like this may seem excessive in a world where I have powerful desktop and a light ultrabook, it turns out this is an ideal machine for virtual reality. This version of the Dominator features the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics card — notice that does not have the “M” suffix. That means this is the full desktop GPU (graphics processing unit), which puts it well above the minimum specs for handling VR games both from Steam and the Oculus Store. And after a few days with my desktop in my family room, I loved putting that away without having to worry about dragging it back out. Instead, I can just set up the relatively small, organized gaming laptop when it’s time for more VR.