MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo A2VM

Yahoo

04-05-2025

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MSI's latest crack at AI PCs is the super-mobile Prestige 13 AI+ Evo A2VM laptop (starts at $1,399.99; $1,499.99 as tested), the latest in a string of capable Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs. But while the AI hype train chugs along, this sleek machine promises more than just buzzwords. From its premium magnesium alloy construction and eye-popping OLED display to its rich connectivity, peppy performance, and all-day battery life, the Prestige 13 provides much more than a sprinkle of AI magic. However, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Touch (UM3406) and Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition still hold our Editors' Choice awards in the ultraportable category.
MSI's marketing materials bill the Prestige 13 AI+ Evo as "the peak of AI-ready PC laptops," but what does that mean?
To start, the Prestige 13 AI+ Evo is a , leveraging the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor inside to deliver 47 trillion operations per second (TOPS) from the NPU, and a combined 115 TOPS when the CPU and integrated GPU also come to bear. Combining that raw capability unlocks the full suite of AI features in Windows 11, known as Copilot+, including automated tools for writing, editing, summarizing, and even creating written content or images. More AI features, like live captions and automated video call improvements via Windows Studio Effects, provide functional capabilities that lesser laptops can't match.
MSI then adds to this with the MSI AI Engine, a tool that tunes your system for peak performance in various scenarios. Whether playing (casual) games, working, creating content, or kicking back with some Netflix, the AI Engine adjusts the system hardware settings to balance performance and efficiency, giving the best experience every time.
This is a healthy collection of features with something for everyone, whether you're an AI enthusiast or just somebody trying to get some work done.
The MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo has two distinct configurations, defined mainly by the CPU hardware inside. It comes with an Intel Core 7 258V or Core Ultra 9 288V processor, up to 32GB of memory, and 1TB SSD storage, which can expand to 2TB or more for additional cash.
You have two choices for the display: a 13.3-inch OLED with 2.8K (2,880-by-1,800-pixel) resolution or a lower-resolution FHD+ (1,920-by-1,200-pixel) IPS panel.
Our review unit has an OLED screen, an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD for storage. Whatever configuration you choose, MSI also includes a generous three-year warranty.
The slim Prestige 13 AI+ Evo is an ultraportable productivity machine, with a lightweight, thin chassis of molded magnesium alloy. The result feels sturdy and undeniably premium. The laptop weighs just 2.18 pounds, making it one of the lightest ultraportable laptops around—lighter than the Dell XPS 13 9350's 2.6-pound, CNC-machined aluminum chassis. The Prestige measures 0.66 inch thick, which isn't particularly chunky but a little thicker than many competing ultraportables, which are usually thinner than 0.6 inch. Despite the laptop's lightweight and slim design, MSI's construction feels rigid and robust, with minimal keyboard flexing when typing and even less lifting the open laptop by one corner.
This Prestige model also looks appealing, with a sleek and stealthy Stellar Gray finish. Combined with the understated lid—no dragon-themed logos or RGB lighting here—it's a modern-looking machine that would be at home in any office or meeting room.
The laptop's 13.3-inch OLED panel looks superb, with a high contrast ratio and rich 100% DCI-P3 color. MSI's slim display bezels on the sides and bottom are a high-end touch, while the top bezel is a bit thicker to accommodate a cluster of webcam and microphone components.
That cluster includes the 5-megapixel webcam with infrared sensing for Windows Hello and a physical shutter to ensure privacy when not in use. The system also has a three-mic spatial array, which receives some AI enhancement to improve clarity on video calls or when recording video.
As for sound, the Prestige 13 AI+ Evo has a pair of 2-watt speakers enhanced by Nahimic 3D Audio for immersive sound. The speakers have decent volume at max levels, but the bottom-firing setup lacks bass—a common problem for slim machines. They'll do the job for video calls or casual media, but the audio isn't a standout feature.
MSI's keyboard feels surprisingly large, given the laptop's small footprint. The well-spaced, clearly lettered keycaps are comfortable to type on and are backlit for visibility. Overall, its typing feel is lovely, with decent depth and a punchy-enough level of springiness to avoid that mushy sensation. The only exception to that comfortable layout is the arrow cluster, which crowds four arrow keys and page buttons into the space of three full-size keys.
The keyboard also includes an integrated fingerprint reader in the power button for seamless, secure sign-on.
MSI's touchpad is also decently sized, measuring 5.5 inches diagonally. With a silky glass surface and responsive multitouch, the touchpad is comfortable and accurate, handling all of my swipes and taps without any issues.
Where most ultraportables go light on the port selection, MSI doesn't skimp on the connectivity. On the left, you'll find a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5mm headset jack. You get a USB-A connection, a microSD card reader, and a Kensington cable-lockdown slot on the right.
Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 round out the wireless options, giving you several ways to connect with accessories for a 13-inch system.
For this review, we're comparing the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo against some superb systems, from the Dell XPS 13 (9350) ($1,699.99 as tested) and HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 ($1,899.99 as tested), which has the same Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor inside, to the similarly AI-enhanced ($1,199.99 as tested) and the Editors' Choice-award-winning Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition ($1,519.01 as tested). The systems are a mix of ultraportables, convertibles, and even a larger desktop replacement, but they all provide a fairly similar blend of features and components.
Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, puts a system through its paces in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput.
Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive. Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular tasks ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the freeware video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.
Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image editing prowess using various automated operations that it runs inside the seminal photo software Adobe Photoshop 25.
Across all of our productivity tests, the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo made a decent showing, outpacing most competitors in some tests (Cinebench, Photoshop) but falling behind in others (HandBrake and Geekbench). The productivity results are interesting because the Prestige laptop kept pace with the 16-inch Acer model in more tests than not, even outpacing it in Photoshop. Meanwhile, the Prestige comparatively lagged in HandBrake, which might be down to cooling system differences. Regardless, the Prestige's performance results revealed a reliable productivity and content creation machine, especially for its size.
We challenge laptops' graphics with a quartet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K) use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. In comparison, Steel Nomad's regular (4K) and Light (1440p) subtests focus on APIs more commonly used for game development to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, emphasizes ray-tracing performance. This benchmark works with native APIs and subjects 3D scenes to increasingly intense ray-traced workloads at 1440p.
With so many ultraportables featuring Intel's latest integrated Arc Graphics 140V, you can see a decent level of graphics capability, provided you don't expect it to handle AAA games. Across the different tests, the MSI edged ahead of some competitors and fell behind in others. This integrated GPU handled ray tracing quite well, and it posted a decent score in Wild Life but fell behind in Steel Nomad and Steel Nomad Light. It shows how the MSI is capable enough for most general uses, but if you need more horsepower, it needs hardware that the system simply doesn't have.
We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
While most of the test results have landed the MSI in the middle of the pack, the battery life test was the system's time to shine. The Prestige 13 AI+ Evo led the pack with more than 25 hours of battery life. This truly all-day-plus result is fantastic in a category with standard 20-hour-plus battery life records. You can use this laptop all day and even leave the charger at home.
The OLED panel isn't just lovely to look at, it's superb in both color and brightness. But that's par for the course in these excellent ultraportables, where premium OLED panels have become the norm, an exciting development on its own.