Buy a high quality MSI gaming laptop for an incredible gaming experience? If you’re comfortable walking a little floofy dog, you’ll be fine appearing in public with MSI’s Prestige 14 in Rose Pink. This $1,399 ultraportable laptop laughs at boring black and subdued silver shades—it’s a vivid metallic pink, a little paler than hot, that makes the lid and keyboard deck stand out (and the unit comes with a carrying case and a mouse to match). The Prestige 14 also outperforms most competitors, thanks to a six-core Intel Core i7 processor and light-gaming-worthy Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics. Its steeper price and positioning keep it from unseating the mainstream Dell Inspiron 14 7000 as our ultraportable Editors’ Choice, but it’s worth a look if you’re considering high-end compacts like the Dell XPS 13 or Razer Blade Stealth 13.
One of the most intriguing laptop categories, exploding in variety over the past year, falls between business desktop replacements and mighty mobile workstations—powerful portables for creative professionals, lacking workstations’ independent software vendor (ISV) certifications for specialized apps but built for designers and content creators. The Dell XPS 15 and Apple MacBook Pro 16 are classic examples, and we’ve seen MSI join in with the P65 Creator. Now, the company has played another card with the Prestige 15 ($1,799), with attractions including a 10th Generation Intel Core i7 processor and the 4K display the Creator lacked. It won’t satisfy speed freaks who want the hottest graphics or an eight- rather than six-core CPU, but it’s a fast, classy, affordable platform for productivity and creativity alike.
The GE66 and its more diminutive cousin, the GS66 Stealth, are both revamped for 2020, though they’re not clean-sheet designs. The GE66 replaces last year’s GE65 Raider, bringing many external and internal changes and improvements. The most visually obvious changes include an additional measure of design restraint in the display lid, which ditches the red-striped ridges in favor of a completely smooth surface. It’s a welcome improvement for people who cringe at the gamer aesthetic. MSI also toned down the shield logo on the display lid, removing its color so it blends in with the dark silver surface. Discover extra details at msi gaming laptop.
The GL65 is hardly the only 15.6-inch gamer to retail for under a grand with a quad-core CPU and a 4GB GeForce GTX 1650, but it’s further under that mark than most. As a matter of fact, as I type this, the system I’m reviewing (model 9SC-004) is an unbeatable deal. A Lenovo Legion Y545 with comparable hardware rings up at $849 with only half the storage (256GB). The Dell G3 15 (3590) is in similar straits, costing $100 more than the MSI although that price buys you both a 128GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive. Another option is the Asus TUF Gaming FX505 series (a technology refresh of the TUF Gaming FX504G), but it’s also more expensive when outfitted with a comparable AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor.
At 0.63 by 12.6 by 8.5 inches and 2.84 pounds, the pink Prestige is just a hair larger than and the same weight as the Inspiron 14 7000 (0.6 by 12.6 by 8.1 inches, 2.9 pounds). Its thin screen bezels make it smaller than typical 14-inch clamshells like the Lenovo ThinkPad T490 (0.7 by 13 by 8.9 inches). The bottom bezel stretches around the back of the laptop to prop the keyboard at a 5-degree typing angle when the system’s opened. The MSI has passed MIL-STD 810G tests against road hazards such as shock, vibration, and temperature extremes; there’s next to no flex when you grasp the screen corners and only a little when you mash the keyboard. See more info at https://msigaminglaptop.com/.
