MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro Review

Interior

Quite how everything is packed into this tiny 14in laptop we were keen to see and as expected, the top third section of the GS43VR Phantom Pro is largely dominated by the dual fan cooling system and a mass of heat pipes cooling the GPU, CPU and various other hotspots. The fans are fairly diminutive, though, so it remains to be seen how they fare in dealing with the hefty heat load from such a powerful setup.


The battery is a sizeable one for such a small unit with an 8060mAh capacity, although this is slightly less potent than the 73Wh unit Aorus managed to shoehorn into its 13in X3 PLUS V5. Whipping off the rear cover was simple and provides access to the full array of ports and slots for upgrades.


There's no additional cooling for the M.2 drive, although this has been less of an issue than it was with previous generations. Still, it's good to know that swapping out the hard disk, M.2 drive and memory are fairly easy tasks, should you want to tweak the specification in future.


There is one issue with the cooling system, though, which is that the intake vents on the underside are extremely small. In addition, one vent doesn't quite clear one of the internal fans, blocking it by around a third. We'd imagine every cubic millimetre of air is important in keeping a tiny pocket rocket like this cool so it's a shame there's such an oversight, especially in an area where a larger vent would have zero impact on aesthetics.