MSI Prestige 14 review: A fast, but flawed laptop

My review unit used the Intel 12th-gen Core i7-1260P, a 28-watt, 12-core (four Performance and eight Efficient), 16-thread CPU. We’ve reviewed several laptops with this chip, most of them 14-inch models, and it’s been a strong productivity performer with an increase over Intel’s 11th-gen CPUs in CPU-intensive creative tasks. The Prestige 14 also equipped an Nvidia RTX 3050 GPU.

The most disappointing thing about the Prestige 14’s display is its old-school 16:9 aspect ratio. It’s weird to use a premium laptop with a display that’s not taller at 16:10 or 3:2. That said, out of the box, the panel looked reasonably bright and colorful with deep blacks for an IPS display. It runs at only Full HD (1920 x 1080), so it isn’t as sharp as many other 14-inch laptops I’ve reviewed lately. There’s also a 14-inch Full HD display option with a low-power panel that I didn’t review.

When I applied my colorimeter to the display, the results were average at best with a couple of exceptions. First, the panel was just bright enough at 317 nits, exceeding our 300-nit threshold for displays that can overcome typical ambient lighting. Colors were average for a premium display at 97% of sRGB and 72% of AdobeRGB, but accuracy was a disappointing Delta-E of 3.67 (less than 2.0 is good enough for creative work).

The one bright spot was the contrast ratio, which came in at 1,820:1 — greatly exceeding our preferred 1,000:1 ratio and high for an IPS display. As you can see from the tablet below, this was mostly a lower-quality panel compared to competitive laptops.

The MSI Prestige 14’s display is good enough for productivity work, especially for anyone who works with black text on a white background. It isn’t ideal for creators, though, with too narrow and inaccurate colors. That’s too bad, as this machine has the performance to back up that kind of work.

Two downward-firing speakers provide the audio with DTS support. They put out sufficient volume to fill a small office, with clear mids and highs and little bass. Nothing to write home about, but they’re good enough for the occasional YouTube video and Netflix show.

The keyboard has large keycaps and excellent key spacing, occupying almost all available space. The switches are light and springy, with a comfortable bottoming action that’s precise and responsive. It’s an excellent keyboard that ranks up with the best Windows versions, including Dell’s XPS and HP’s Spectre lines.

The touchpad is very wide and narrow, giving it plenty of horizontal surface area. It’s an unusual size, but it works. The surface was comfortable for swiping, with Microsoft Precision drivers for reliable Windows 11 multitouch gesture support. However, the surface was also a tiny bit loose and made a faint noise when tapped, and the button clicks were a little loud.

The display isn’t touch-enabled, and that’s disappointing. As far as I can tell, there’s no option for a touch display on this model.

Windows 11 Hello passwordless support is provided by a fingerprint reader embedded in the touchpad, which is my least favorite location for that sensor. It does, however, include facial recognition via an infrared camera. Both methods worked quickly and consistently.

The webcam is just 720p, and its image quality was just okay. Many premium laptops have switched to 1080p webcams, so the Prestige 14 is behind the curve here again.

The Prestige 14 has 52 watt-hours of battery capacity, which isn’t a lot for a 14-inch laptop. I’ve not seen any indication that the Core i7-1260P is a particularly efficient CPU compared to Intel’s 11th-gen, but the Prestige is also equipped with a Full HD display that shouldn’t be too power-hungry.

As it turns out, battery life was disappointing. In our web browsing test that cycles through a handful of popular and complex websites, the Prestige 14 managed just five hours. That’s well below average and at the bottom of our comparison group, most of which had higher resolution displays and, in the case of the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 and Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED, much more demanding OLED panels.

It performed even worse, relatively speaking, in our video test that loops a local Full HD Avengers trailer, hitting just six hours. Most laptops last 10 hours or longer in this test, and it’s surprising to see the Prestige 14 perform so poorly given its low-res display. I ran the test twice with a reboot in between just to make sure there wasn’t some rogue task running in the background, and I got the same result. It’s possible that there’s a display driver or other issue at play, and it’s something MSI will want to look into.

Finally, I ran the PCMark 10 Applications battery test, the best indication of productivity longevity. The Prestige 14 hit seven hours in this test, which is less than the 10-hour or so average across all the laptops we’ve tested and the lowest among our comparison group.

Overall, battery life is disappointing. You’re unlikely to get close to a full day’s work even running a simple productivity workflow. Push the CPU hard, and you might not make it to lunchtime.

MSI has a wide range of configurations available with the Prestige 14. My $1,499 review unit was the most expensive model, equipped with the Core i7-1260P, 16GB of LPDDR4 RAM, a 512GB PCIe SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050, and the 14-inch 16:9 Full HD IPS display. The least expensive model you can buy is $929 for a Core i7-1240P, 8GB of LPDDR4 RAM, a 512GB PCIe SSD, Intel Iris Xe graphics, and a 14-inch 16:9 Full HD low-power IPS display. Several configurations offer up to 32GB of RAM (only with Iris Xe graphics), a Core i7-1280P, and a 1TB PCIe SSD. These prices start at the midrange and end up as premium. They compare to the Yoga 9i Gen 7 at $1,449 for a Core i7-1260P, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 14-inch Full HD+ display, and Intel Iris Xe graphics. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is another competitor that comes in with a $1,220 model with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch 16:10 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED display.

The MSI Prestige 14 offers strong productivity performance and can tackle some creative tasks as well. It doesn’t last long on a charge, though and it has a few old-school design elements. It has the basics covered, even if it’s far from the most cutting-edge laptop.

Are there any alternatives?

I’ve reviewed several excellent 14-inch laptops in the last few months, most convertible 2-in-1s. The best has been the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7, which provides strong performance, a stunning aesthetic, a solid build quality, and a superior display.