After 3 years of building Bigscreen on laptops here are the best options we’ve found
Getting a desktop PC that can handle virtual reality is super easy at this point, but what if you want something portable to take VR with you? For a long time, it either meant taking your entire desktop computer to that VR party… or lugging around a $5,000 laptop that weighed 10 LB.
Late 2016 was an inflection point for portable ‘VR Ready’ laptops. With Nvidia releasing the Pascal-based GTX 10-series graphics cards for laptops we’ve seen a wave of ultra-portables that can run experiences just as good as your unwieldy desktop PC.
Before Pascal, most mobile GPUs were stripped down versions of desktop cards to fit the power, heat and size constraints of laptops — often lagging a few years behind their full-size desktop counterparts and delivering underwhelming performance.
Nvidia’s 10-series graphics cards delivered desktop-class performance in a laptop-friendly size for the first time and it isn’t an exaggeration to say it changed everything.
At Bigscreen, we’re spending all-day every day developing for VR, often on laptops, so we know which ones can handle the performance requirements of VR. Here’s our take on the best VR laptops you can buy today, and what we’re excited about in the future.
VR laptops in 2015: the MSI beast
Darshan, Bigscreen’s CEO, bought his VR laptop — the MSI GT72S — two whole years ago when we were first building Bigscreen and needed something more portable.
Before the MSI existed Darshan traveled with an entire desktop PC… so he was throwing a screen, two VR headsets, keyboards, mice and more into a Pelican case to be checked in. That’s more than 100 LB of hardware to lug around!
MSI’s laptop was the first “desktop grade” GPU in a laptop and he really needed it for meetings, so jumped for it as soon as it hit the market.
Inside there’s a quad-core i7, 16 GB of RAM, a Blu-ray drive (seriously) and a GTX 980 — the first non “M” version of Nvidia’s graphics cards to make it into a laptop.
That sounds weak now, but back then it was groundbreaking and let him do VR development on the move.
Here’s the thing: for a cool $3,000 the MSI is a beast in almost every way — including literally, it weighs in at 10 LB (4.5 KG) plus the power adapter is another 4 LB (1.8 KG). Oh, and it’s more than 1.8-inches thick.
That’s an insane amount of weight/heft to lug around if you’re travelling, but back when he bought it there wasn’t much other choice.
Setting it up took a long time too, which doesn’t look great when you’re trying to give a demo to someone. With the MSI however, it meant being able to put everything in a single bag.
All of this said, he loves it still: “it’s a total beast and still very powerful for VR development” — but would skip it for a much lighter laptop now that they exist if he was looking to repurchase.
The thing that bothers Darshan after a year might be predictable: the track-pad is a garbage fire and near unusable, but he’s still using the laptop despite tempting lighter-weight options on the market.
Apple-esque portable VR: Razer Blade
The Razer Blade looked like something of a dream when it was refreshed this year: it’s Nvidia’s top-of-the-line graphics card, the GTX 1080, in a 4 LB (2.5 KG) package with MacBook Pro-esque looks.
In other words, over the space of a year laptops lost more than 80 percent of their weight and gained exponentially more performance per inch.
2017’s Razer Blade refresh saw the machine shipping with an Intel i7 quad-core processor, options all the way up to 16 GB of RAM, a 3200 X 1800 QHD+ display and that dedicated HDMI port you really need for VR on the go. On top of that, it’s 0.7 inches thick, so it actually fits in a normal backpack.
Chris, one of Bigscreen’s software engineers based in Nashville, uses the Blade and thinks the overlap of specifications, build quality and portability makes it the perfect trifecta, but there’s just one issue.
The Razer Blade, for all its perfect points, has one enormous flaw: “the fans are insanely noisy while gaming or using VR”. Chris says it’s “insane, no exaggeration” and he can hear the noise through his headphones.
The Verge found the exact same issue in its review of the laptop earlier this year:
And deal with [heat dissipation] they do, by spinning up with the sound and fury of what sounded like an actual jet engine, to the point where I had co-workers complaining about the noise while demoing games.
That amount of noise is not ideal if you need to record audio or communicate with others using your voice. There are hacks to get around it, which are worth trying given the hardware is perfect in every other way, but it’s a serious flaw to consider when you’re buying.
Like I also wrote when I reviewed the Razer Blade earlier this year, it’s a dream if you need to jump into VR at a moment’s notice:
It’s the perfect VR machine: it fits in your backpack, along with the rest of the gear, so you can cycle over to a friend’s house (very carefully) and jump right into any game.
If you do consider getting one, make sure to get the 4K screen for a few hundred dollars more: it’s worth it. Starting at $1,849, it’s a pretty good desktop replacement as well — out of all the devices in this post it’s the lightest and thinnest.
Affordable power: Asus ROG STRIX
On the cheaper end you can get some great devices as well. Paul, software engineer at Bigscreen based in London, has the Asus ROG STRIX GL502VS-DB71 (good luck remembering that) which cost just $1400.
For that money he got a Intel i7 quad-core, GTX 1070, 1080p display, 16 GB of RAM and it weighs in at just 5 LB (2.3 KG).
Paul says it’s “not ultra light, but definitely portable” and that the upgrade to the GTX 1070 graphics card was worth it as it’ll last much longer than the default 1060.
There’s one issue: it lacks Nvidia’s battery-saving Optimus technology, which dynamically switches between the dedicated GTX 1070 and integrated graphics, which saves battery significantly when you’re not gaming.
That means the battery life is paltry, at just 1–2 hours even if you’re just browsing, which could be a deal breaker. All of things in mind, Paul says he loves the machine and doesn’t regret it.
For Asus’ laptop it’s significantly less cash up-front — and if you’re doing VR on a battery you’ll find that performance is throttled down to save power so you’ll need to plug in anyway.
That said, it’s worth keeping in mind that the battery life might be a huge issue if you plan to do non-gaming work on the go as well.
Low-key power, but a dealbreaker: Dell XPS 15
I’ve been searching for the perfect on-the-go laptop since Apple essentially gave up on playing in the high-end laptop space a number of years ago. I started with the Razer Blade, but the fans were a deal-breaker for working in quiet places. I stumbled on Dell’s new 15-inch XPS line a few weeks after returning the Razer and was blown away how far the company had come.
For me, it’s possible this laptop is the perfect trifecta: it’s got a quad-core i7, 32 GB of RAM, GTX 1050, 4K display and doesn’t look like a alien nation designed a computer. All of this is in a 4.5 LB (2 KG) package, which is reasonable given what you get in return.
Not only is XPS 15 is a delight to use, mostly because of that ridiculously beautiful edge-to-edge 4K display; it’s perfect for side-by-side coding, writing and whatever else you want to throw at it.
It won’t sound like a rocket engine, and it won’t overheat either, so you can actually use it in public.
The downside? It can just power VR headsets, but because it uses Nvidia’s Optimus technology it’s not ideal and can’t do much more than run Bigscreen or launch Steam Home because the Vive can’t run in Direct Mode. Bummer.
Given years of Dell’s sub-standard products and rumors of bad service, I was pretty hesitant, but with all things considered above it’s an all-rounder with just one problem: it attracts grease like a magnet. It’s not an exaggeration: I need to wipe down the machine every few days or it looks disgusting inside.
It’s a serious bummer that there’s a GTX 1050 rather than the 1060 that’s needed for fully-fledged VR, but otherwise it’s a perfect machine. Maybe next year they’ll nail it.
The model I’m using goes for $2,149, which is a great price given the form factor, screen and power you get. I’d pay more just for the edge-to-edge display, which still makes me enjoy using it every day.
What we’re looking forward to
With new Intel chips on the market we’re pretty excited about other hardware we haven’t had a chance to try out yet. Here’s a few laptops that have caught our eye and we hope to review soon:
Surface Book 2: Microsoft’s Surface Book refresh starts shipping soon and the company is dead serious this time around about performance. If you get the 15-inch model, you’ll get an i7 quad-core, 4K display, GTX 1060, 16 GB of RAM… and it can be a tablet too, which is ridiculous.
We can’t wait to get our hands on this one — especially given the battery life is up to an estimated 17 hours and it weighs a feather-light 4.2 LB (1.9 KG). 😅
Razer Blade Stealth: We’re excited about this machine for one reason: it doesn’t have a graphics card built in, but it’s more than happy to become a gaming machine if you extend it with a bonus accessory.
It’s almost as light as a MacBook Air, comes with a quad-core i7, 4K display, 16 GB of RAM and it’s just 0.52-inches thick. To play anything in VR, you’ll need the Razer Core and an external graphics card inside it — but once you have that, it’ll outperform anything in the laptop class.
Given that you’ll need to lug the Razer Core around on top of your VR headset we’re not convinced it’s the best option out there, but simply because it converts into an ultra-portable the rest of the time it’s a compelling option.
That’s it for now — we’re planning on keeping this post up to date with new laptops we’re interested in and what we’re buying (or not). If you see a laptop that you think we need to know about, let us know on Twitter, jump into our Discord community or just reply below.
