🔬 [REVIEW] MSI Prestige 15 (A12Ux) - best business-productivity laptop contender
Channel: LaptopMedia
Date: 2022-07-06

📈  💵  Specs and Prices: https://laptopmedia.com/series/msi-prestige-15-a12sx-a12ux/
👁  Buy our display profiles: https://laptopmedia.com/review/msi-prestige-15-a12ux/#buy-our-profiles
📖  In-depth Review: https://laptopmedia.com/review/msi-prestige-15-a12ux/
➡️  CONTENTS:
[0:00] Introduction
[0:30] Design and construction
[0:43] Keyboard and Touchpad
[1:19] Ports
[1:41] Disassembly and upgrade options
[2:18] Display quality
[2:58] Battery life
[3:15] Performance
[3: 48] Temps and Stability
[4:25] Verdict
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🔬 [REVIEW] MSI Prestige 15 (A12Ux)

Just at first sight, you’ll fall in love with the new MSI Prestige 15, as the all-aluminum chassis is stunning and durable at the same time. There’s also very little branding, with only a small MSI logo that comes in the color of the device. But it’s not just looks, the Prestige 15 has several neat tricks up its sleeve, stay with us to see them all.
 
Design and construction

Despite carrying a 15.6-inch display and discrete GPU options, the laptop weighs only 1.69 kg and has a profile of 18.9 mm.

Keyboard and Touchpad

A good keyboard and touchpad combo is essential for any self-respecting notebook, and here we have a bit of a mixed bag. The keyboard lacks a NumPad, despite the spacing between the keys being small enough. On the other hand, the keycaps are pretty large and there’s a backlight. The experience itself is okay, as the key travel could have been longer and the feedback clickier. The touchpad is another story, with a very smooth glass cover, and an aspect ratio that is pretty wide. The responsiveness and accuracy are also fantastic.

Ports

The sides feature pretty decent I/O, with two Thunderbolt 4 ports included, which could be used for ultra-fast file transfers, connection to external displays or even charging the notebook. We also have two full-sized USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.0, audio jack, and a MicroSD card reader.

Upgrades

Many thin-and-light laptops come with soldered memory these days and so is the case with the new Prestige 15. However, it’s a nice surprise to see that there are not one but two M.2 PCIe x4 slots available, one of which supports the ultra-fast Gen 4 drives.

If you want to see how to open the device, check out our disassembly video.

Display quality

There are two display options, with IPS panels that come in FHD or 4K resolution. We chose the former option, and it is a great display for Creator work and general use. The viewing angles are good, ensuring a good multimedia experience, while a max brightness of 300 nits should be enough for most situations. The display shows near-complete coverage of the sRGB gamut, and the colors get very accurate once we applied our Design and Gaming profile, which you can get in the description. Something important - it doesn’t use harmful PWM for all brightness levels.

Battery

Despite carrying 14 cores and 20 threads, the Core i7-1280P is able to keep its 82Wh battery pack lasting for 13 hours and 3 minutes of Web browsing, or 11 hours and 3 minutes of video playback. 

Performance

It manages to do this while delivering as much performance as a top-of-the-line 45W CPU from last year. It also outperforms everything that AMD currently has in its arsenal, so things are looking pretty bleak for Team Red.

GPU performance isn’t as great, being that the laptop is offered with up to a 40W RTX 3050 Ti. But given that this isn’t a gaming laptop, it’s more than enough for general use, or even content creation.

Temps and Stability

The CPU and GPU are kept cool by two heat pipes, two fans, and two heatsinks. The Core i7’s clock speeds dip a bit in the later stages of the stress test, but things remain cool, with the CPU maxing out at 84°C. 

On the GPU side, the 40W TGP is pretty limiting, with a 1500MHz clock at the 30-minute mark with the Max Fans setting. The outside gets quite warm, having an external temperature of 53°C.

VERDICT

The Prestige 15 is not a perfect laptop, but it gets enough stuff right to get a solid recommendation. Mainly, its performance is off the charts, which can outshine its faults better than any other laptop we’ve seen recently. Also, it comes with some good surprises as the IR face recognition scanner and a fingerprint sensor.

What is your most and least favorite feature of the Prestige 15? Tell us in the comments below! And if you want to see more tests and details about the device, you can read our in-depth review.