MSI Prestige 13 AI Evo (A1MG), 3 month review
I do have a lot to say about this laptop, but I don't want this to be that long. If you have any questions about it, don't hesitate to ask! I bought this one from Microcenter for ~$1200.
The specs:
- Core Ultra 7 155H w/ Arc Integrated Graphics
- 32GB DDR5 6400 MT/s
- 1 TB NVME
- 2880x1800 (16:10) Oled display
My needs:
- Power efficiency & long battery life
- Can do basic CAD work and video editing
Build quality: Overall it is a solidly built laptop. MSI advertises a magnesium and aluminum alloy on their website, and the effects of it are very obvious. This laptop is incredibly light for what you get. There are some downsides to that, but I'll get to that later. The only spot where this laptop feels cheap in hand is tapping on the logo on the back of the screen. They were trying to make this laptop as light as possible so the metal is very thin on the back. It comes with 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left side along with a full sized HDMI port and one USB-A on the right. If you need it, it also has a MicroSD card reader. The keyboard is pretty nice actually but it won't wow you compared to something like the keyboard on a Macbook Air or a true Mechanical one.
Specs: For what I need it for, it is plenty powerful. It does CAD work and video editing just fine and the 32GB of RAM gives it just enough headroom for heavier projects. The ARC integrated graphics won't blow your mind with its performance but for a laptop of this weight and size it is perfectly fine. The 75Whr battery is a nice touch for a 13.3" laptop, it lasts for a really long time.
Now comes the slight issue(s). If you don't want this laptop to get to the 100+C range when doing anything intensive, it's recommend that you switch the power plan to battery priority or cooling priority. Unfortunately both of those modes sacrifice a ton of performance out of both the IGPU and the CPU and you end up with half the initial performance. The high temps are due to the thinness and size of this laptop (of course) and can't really be avoided.
Luckily, during regular use temperatures stay cool at around 50C and the keyboard barely feels warm to the touch.
Display: This is going to be short because I don't have much to say here. It is a solid OLED display with a nice 16:10 aspect ratio. No complaints here. It is only 60hz though, that may bother some users.
Overall I am decently impressed by the performance of this 13.3" laptop. It does what I need it to without breaking a sweat for the most part. If you want more performance though, the 16" comes with a 4070 at its highest configuration I believe.