It seems that every other laptop that comes across my desk at the moment has AI in the name. At times this makes sense, as is the case with the Acer Swift 14 AI but at other times it appears to be no more than just a marketing gimmick.

I was keen to see which side of the fence the MSI Prestige 14 AI landed. Would it be one of the best AI laptops or just a poor attempt to grab market share? It’s fair to say that creatives are increasingly making use of AI in their workflows and so there is definitely a market for hardware that drives it.

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Specs as tested
CPU Intel Core Ultra 9 processor with Intel AI Boost (NPU)
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060
Memory DDR5-5600 Max 32GB
Screen size 14-inch
Resolution 2.8K (2880x1800px)
Refresh rate 144Hz
Storage 1TB PCIe4 SSD
Connectivity USB 3.2 Type-A x 1, Thunderbolt 4 x 2, HDMI 2.1 x 1, 3.5 mm jack x 1, Ethernet
Dimensions 313.4 x 246.5 x 18.95mm
Weight 1.7 kg
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MSI Prestige 14 AI : Benchmark scoring
Geekbench 6: CPU single-core: 1650 CPU multi-core: 7621
Row 1 – Cell 0 GPU OpenCL: 22092 Row 1 – Cell 2
Cinebench 2024: CPU single-core: 73 CPU multi-core: 535
Handbrake: 5m 47s Row 3 – Cell 2
Blender: Monster: 48.29Junkshop: 33.60Classroom: 24.06 Row 4 – Cell 2
ASUS Zenbook S 13

ASUS Zenbook S 13

Super lightweight, super good-looking and a super-performer, this is a hybrid worker’s dream and a fantastic student laptop too.

Macbook Air M2 (2022)

Macbook Air M2 (2022)

The lightweight MacBook is still a great laptop, and will handle slightly heavier workloads than the MSI if the visual performance of the latter doesn’t cut it for you.

HP Omen Transcend 14

HP Omen Transcend 14

This is for the all-out gamers who want better battery life than in previous-gen gaming laptops. Mind you, it works real nice for creative pursuits too.