It’s not often that a laptop comes across my desk in this rough of shape. The MSI Prestige 16 Studio had a lot of of promise too, sporting the latest RTX 40-series graphics and even a mini-LED display.

MSI has been wanting to break into the professional and creator space for a while, and at a glance, and I was hoping the Prestige 16 Studio would finally fit the bill. It certainly looked the part on paper.

But as I began testing, I was left with disappointment after disappointment, finally resulting in my conclusion that this is a laptop that needs to return to the drawing board.

The Prestige 16 Studio comes in multiple configurations. The entry-level machine costs $1,300 for an Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, a 16.0-inch IPS display, and Intel Iris Xe graphics. At the high end, which I tested, you’ll spend $2,100 for the same Core i7, 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, a 16.0-inch mini-LED display, and an Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU.

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