Getting started with the MSI Prestige 16 Studio Evo

In the middle of all the excitement Generative AI, valuationsand so on, mainstream PC news was a bit of an afterthought at Computex 2023. That’s why I was so excited to discover this gem buried in the middle of MSI’s very noisy and crowded booth: the Prestige 16 Studio Evo. It’s coming in the second half of this year, with pricing yet to be announced, and I’m looking forward to it.

First things first: this device has received Intel’s coveted ‘Evo’ certification. The reason this is exciting is that, to my knowledge, no device with a GeForce RTX GPU has received Evo certification since the program launched in 2020. (There may be one somewhere I don’t know about, but even if it does, it’s still a very rare phenomenon.)

The reasons are somewhat obvious. To achieve Evo certification, Intel requires a device to deliver a certain level of battery life and performance within a certain weight class, which is difficult to achieve with a power-hungry discrete GPU inside. But the Studio Evo can include up to a GeForce RTX 4060 – and it’s a legit GPU that should play an important role in gaming and graphics work, unlike some of the weaker MX chips you often see in these thin and light, which don’t stand out too much from Intel’s integrated offerings these days. MSI reps were very clear with me on the booth that the RTX 4060 model, in particular, is Evo rated.

Now, in my experience, the Evo label isn’t always guarantee things like fast performance and all-day battery life. Nonetheless, the fact that an RTX 4060 system was running efficiently enough that Intel could even consider for the program it excites me enormously.

It’s hard to recommend a really solid Windows laptop to content creators right now, and I think there are some real openings in the market that this Prestige 16 could fill. It can be a real pain to use programs like Premiere Pro and Blender on a 14-inch screen, and I often advise pros to zoom in if they can. But 15-inch and 16-inch devices with discrete GPUs inside can get very heavy very quickly – which isn’t ideal for many videographers either, who may need to carry their laptop to film alongside. many other large pieces of equipment. I was waiting – like really, I was looking forward to it – for a 16-inch device with a discrete GPU to arrive that wasn’t a full tank. Solid battery life would really seal the deal.

The Prestige 16 Studio Evo weighs 3.3 pounds – nearly a pound and a half lighter than the 16-inch MacBook Pro. I can tell you, having held it, it’s very light. Gram LG light. “Are you sure it’s not an empty chassis?” ” light. It would be a dream to carry around in a well-stocked backpack. I’m melancholic just remembering what it was like to pick this up.

This is especially true because the finish seems a solid step above what I’ve experienced from MSI before – this company often fate of laptops which are covered in fingerprints like, five seconds after unboxing. I tried very hard to stain the Prestige lid on the living room floor, and I couldn’t.

The Prestige 16 Studio Evo also has a 99Wh battery, which is the biggest battery you can take on a plane (and therefore the biggest you’re likely to see in a consumer laptop).

Another nifty thing about this product is that it looks like it might be one of the first 14th-gen Meteor Lake laptops we’ve seen in the wild. The spec sheet in the cabin simply lists “the latest Intel Core i7 processor” and – as Notebookcheck also found out – the show unit CPU was just listed in Device Manager as “Genuine Intel(R) 0000” and showed 22 threads. It is definitely not a 13th gen i7 mobile as there is no 22 thread offering in this range.

Now I don’t want to be hopeful or jinx anything. But I wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is a good sign for the efficiency of the next generation of Meteor Lake. After all, many of today’s workstation laptops have poor battery life and heavy chassis for a reason: Intel’s current heavy processors are inefficient and hot.

The phrase “MacBook Pro alternative” is often used. But this Prestige is shaping up to be one of the closest contenders I’ve seen in 2023 so far. Now, let’s wait to find out the price.

Photography by Monica Chin