Best MSI gaming laptop online shopping? 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.
AMD’s Ryzen and Radeon silicon are a popular combo in gaming desktops, but the gaming laptop market hasn’t seen much from Team Red. That changes with the MSI Alpha 15 (starts at $899; $999 as tested), which pairs a quad-core Ryzen 7 3750H processor and a 4GB Radeon RX 5500M GPU to go head to head with Intel-based rigs packing Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650, producing smooth and reliable 1080p gaming performance. Although it doesn’t unseat the MSI GL65 9SC as our value-gaming Editors’ Choice, you can view the Alpha 15 as a feature-rich, happy medium between that laptop and the Acer Predator Helios 300, our pick in the next (and more expensive) performance tier.
It’s worth repeating that price: $1,799 for a Prestige 15 (model A10SC-010) with the aforementioned Core i7-10710U chip and 3,840-by-2,160-pixel display; 32GB of memory; a 1TB NVMe solid-state drive; Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics; and Windows 10 Pro. The MSI can’t match the eight-core Core i9 processor available in the Dell or Apple or the ultra-high-contrast OLED screens offered by the XPS 15, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme, or the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition, but it costs a lot less. Our XPS 15 test unit was $2,649; our Acer ConceptD 7 was $2,999; and our Razer Studio Edition was $3,999. Discover more details at msi gaming laptop.
My test unit (model A4DDR-023) is the better value of the two United States-bound Bravo 15 models because of its stronger processor and extra memory (16GB versus 8GB). The storage for both is a single 512GB solid-state drive with Windows 10 Home, and they also share the 4GB Radeon RX 5500M graphics chip that was used in the Alpha 15. The laptop is backed with a one-year international warranty.
At 3.6 pounds, the Prestige is also easier to carry than the Dell (4 pounds), Acer (4.6 pounds), or Razer (4.9 pounds). Clad in dark-blue/charcoal matte aluminum with MSI’s dragon logo on the lid and blue chrome trim, it measures a tidy 0.63 by 14.1 by 9.2 inches. Like most Lenovo ThinkPads and HP EliteBooks, the system has passed MIL-STD 810G tests against road hazards such as shock, vibration, and temperature extremes. There’s almost no flex if you grasp the screen corners or press the keyboard deck. See even more info on https://msigaminglaptop.com/.