MSIology 2023: Our first impressions of MSI's new range of laptops

During a press event we attended recently, held in Gothenburg in Sweden, we had expected MSI to show off their new updated line of laptops, and they didn't fail here, and even introduced a number of new models. Most of them have gone to a 16:10 display ratio, with Nvidia RTX 40 Series graphics cards, and 13th Gen Intel H Series CPUs. Let's go over some of the models.

The Creator Z17 HX Studio A13V might have a long name, but in short, it's an ultra-compact, 19mm chassis laptop with a Pen touch display and 100% DCI-P3, Calman verified display, and is cooled via vapor chamber. At the same time, MSI showed their new MSI Pen 2 with a graphite pen tip, USB charging, magnetic lock to your computer, and 4096 pressure levels.

For business, MSI's Prestige 13 Evo series took the spotlight, 990g due to the use of Magnesium-Aluminium alloy and a 15 hour battery life, while still featuring LPDDR5 memory, Wi-Fi 6E and Intel Iris Xe graphics, and there are also Prestige 14 Evo, 16 Evo and 16 Studio variants. In the more creative corner comes the Summit E16 Flip A13V - quite the mouthful, that can flip and stand, and naturally has a 360 degree flip-over, 11 hours of battery and remains ultra-thin at 16.85mm.

For the home user, MSI has introduced more subtle colours in the slim Modern 15 and Modern 14 series, so named after the screen sizes, and despite their small size, each have full inputs and up to 2TB of storage. It seems like MSI will be gunning for the more moderately priced, everyday notebook market at break-neck speed.

However, the new gaming laptops are by far the most interesting - we are a gaming media at the end of the day. There are a few new devices on the more affordable end of the spectrum, but for those that love the existing lines there are upgrades, and lots of them, while prices seem to stay on previous levels.

The new Cyborg series is perhaps the most interesting, with Intel 13th Gen CPU and Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics it brings DLSS 3 to entry-level gaming laptops, alongside having a 144Hz display, and still being thin and light with a weight under 2kg. The Katana series has been upgraded with RTX 40 graphics and Intel 13th Gen as well, and also now has a baby brother - the Sword series that is smaller, lighter and white.

For those that need a laptop for both gaming but also rendering and computational use, the upgraded Vector series with its Nvidia RTX 4070 and Intel 13700HX seems to be a strong candidate, as it also provides strong and amble cooling. For gaming, it comes with a up to a 240Hz panel and SteelSeries keyboard.

Last but not least is the updated Titan series - which has reached a somewhat more mobile size. We actually just got one at the office, and this behemoth costs an arm and a leg, but will provide you with a mobile RTX 4090 graphics card, 64 GB of DDR5 memory, Intel's 24 core 13980HX and a 17.3" 4K/144Hz MiniLED display, plus 4TB of NVMe storage. How expensive is it? Very.

When you read this, most models should be in stores, however, MSI did disclose that some variants have been sold so fast that they are sold out already.