What just happened? MSI has showcased several new laptops this week at Computex 2023 in Taipei, Taiwan, including the Prestige 16 Evo and Prestige 16 Studio powered by Intel Meteor Lake processors. Neither product has been officially launched yet, but the company did offer a tentative timeline for when they might be available for purchase.
Alongside the new Prestige 16 series, MSI also revealed the Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport edition OLED laptop at the ongoing trade show as part of a partnership between the Taiwanese tech firm and the German luxury automaker.
The current Prestige 16 series that was announced at CES 2023 in Las Vegas comes with Raptor Lake processors, while the refreshed Prestige 16 rocks an unidentified Meteor Lake chip with 22 threads. While MSI did not reveal the identity of the processor, it is very likely the CPU that Intel demoed at its own Computex pavilion earlier this week.
The chip that Intel showed off comes with 16 cores, including 6 hyper-threaded Performance cores and 8 single-threaded Efficient cores in a CPU die, and a further 2 Efficient cores on an SoC for a 6+8+2 configuration. It reportedly has a base clock of 3.1GHz and features 1.6MB of L1 cache, 18MB of L2, and 24 MB of L3.
CPU specs notwithstanding, the Prestige 16 is an impressive machine by all accounts. It is built with a magnesium-aluminum alloy, making it fairly light and portable with a weight of 3.3 pounds. The device features a 16-inch display with a 2560x1600 pixel resolution, but the refresh rate remains unclear for now. The panel is certified for 100 percent DCI-P3 color space, which should make it attractive for creators and video editors.
As mentioned already, the Prestige 16 line is offered in two variants. The 'Evo' comes with Intel Evo certification and uses Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics. The 'Studio' series represents the more premium offerings with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU and Studio-validated drivers.
MSI claims that the laptops will offer up to 24 hours of total battery life, although that's likely to be significantly lower in real-world usage. They support USB PD 3.1 charging up to 140W, while connectivity options include 1x HDMI port, 2x USB Type-C ports, and 1x USB Type-A port. There's also an integrated SD card reader, an Ethernet port, and a fingerprint scanner merged into the power button.
The Prestige 16 line is slated to launch in the fourth quarter of this year following Intel's Meteor Lake announcement this summer. The prices are still under wraps, but don't be surprised if there's a slight bump as the new line brings significant improvements over its predecessor.