MSI, short for Micro-Star International, is a technology corporation based in Taiwan. Although known for high-end gaming equipment, it seems to be making a renewed push into other parts of the laptop market, with the Prestige 15 laptop boasting a particularly practical set of specifications.
The laptop is a matte carbon grey colour and boasts a 15.6" 60 Hz screen with a touchpad, and a white LED backlit keyboard. It measures 356.8 mm x 233.7 mm, is just 18.9 mm thick, and weighs a little under 1.7 kg including the battery. This is really light and portable - there's no unnecessary bulk and moving the device from A to B is incredibly easy.
Laptops often falter in the port department, however this isn't something the MSI Prestige 15 suffers from - it boasts 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports (which can also be used as generic USB-C ports), 2 USB-A 3.2 ports, a single HDMI 2.0 port, and even a Micro SD slot.
This is hugely practical, allowing you to plug in a keyboard and mouse by USB-A or USB-C, and still have 2 slots left for other devices. With the right adapters and a bit of juggling, one could easily plug in 4 devices by USB, which is similar to most modern PCs with standard motherboards.
That's not even taking Bluetooth into account - the laptop comes with Bluetooth 5.3 and WiFi 6E AX211 powered by intel, giving you the option of a fully wireless experience with the right peripherals.
The battery is a 4-cell 82 Whr battery, which fast-charges with the 100W supplied adapter using a Thunderbolt 4 port. The battery life varies depending on how you use it, however on "Balanced" mode with moderate usage (word processing, web browsing etc), we were able to get around 8 hours of usage from the battery without needing to charge it.
It also charges relatively quickly even while in use, replenishing itself from 10% to 100% in under two hours thanks to the efficient 100W charger.
The keyboard is standard for this kind of laptop but is a pleasure to use nonetheless, however the same can't really be said for the touchpad.
It's a lot wider than it is tall, and it doesn't feel particularly stable in its socket - it moves a bit when pressing the corners, which sometimes makes the clicking unresponsive if you're being hasty.
I suspect this is something one would get used to, however, it's hard not to notice it when you first get to grips with the laptop. There are also no buttons for left and right-clicking - you are forced to click down on the pad. This is commonplace for laptops nowadays, but worth noting as it can make usage more difficult if you're not using a mouse.
The laptop has a decent set of specifications, outlined as follows:
- i7-1280P (12th Gen)
- 8GB RAM (LPDDR4)
- RTX 3050, with 4GB GDDR6
- 512GB Samsung PM9A1 M.2 SSD
Generally speaking, the laptop runs quickly. It utilises Windows 11, and it does it well - booting in under 7 seconds, and loading applications, web pages, and documents in a flash.
It's competent at multitasking, which would make it great for people who spend a lot of time editing photographs and videos, producing music, or just intend to do a lot of things at the same time.
When it comes to benchmarks, the system does reasonably well. A CPU Profile in 3D Mark scored 984 on single thread, and 5469 with max threads. This is perfectly average for this CPU and reflects the power of the components in the laptop.
Using the Time Spy benchmark, we were able to take a look at the power of the RTX 3050 that's inside and how it works with the i7 processor. The device scored 3571 overall, with the graphics coming in at 3292, and a CPU score of 6894.
This is actually pretty good considering some people would find the RTX 3050 to be lacking, and it translates to some decent framerates in popular games.
At 1080p ultra, you can expect to get over 150 FPS in Fortnite, over 50 FPS in Red Dead Redemption 2, and more than 100 FPS in GTA V. These are perfectly playable framerates, and although you'll get a lot more bang for your buck with a dedicated gaming laptop, it does show that the laptop is gaming capable in addition to its other functions.
Finally, we benched the M.2 drive using the 3D Mark Storage Benchmark tool. It scored 2890, which is significantly above the average for other machines using this drive. This is likely due to the CPU also pitching in, and is a testament to the MSI Prestige 15's overall design.
There aren't any complaints with temperature either, with all components running cooler than their maximum temperatures even when under load. The laptop doesn't feel especially hot underneath either, however, I did notice that some of the hot air seems to be blown onto the screen.
While this is something that is getting more common these days it's not something that I'm personally a fan of - screens can get hot enough on their own merit without needing help from the fans venting hot air onto them.
The laptop retails at around £900, which is slightly expensive on paper considering the components that are included. They work well together though, and when you buy MSI you know you're buying a quality brand, both in terms of build quality and customer service.
There are also a lot of retailers listing the laptop on sale for as little as £650 - a price that's relatively unlikely to increase too much.
MSI Prestige 15 verdict - 4/5
This laptop feels like it's designed with creators in mind. The screen is large and robust, with a good colour range and decent brightness.
It has a tonne of ports, meaning you can plug multiple devices into it, which would be ideal for people looking for a laptop to act as a music production hub, a recording studio, or some combination of the two.
Thanks to its ample processing power, it's great for multitasking, although a bit more RAM wouldn't go amiss. It can easily handle complex tasks in photoshop and will process large tasks such as batch photos or video renders with relative ease.
It's also a competent gaming machine, although this likely won't be its primary use - if you want a gaming laptop, you can do a lot better for the price. It's likely to fall into the hands of a creator or a business person, and I have no doubt they'll find it to be a great workhorse.
The MSI Prestige 15 is available from MSI Approved Retailers including Ebuyer, who currently have the device discounted to £679.00 (RRP £899.36)
