MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ review: 30+ hours (!!!) of battery life

Price When Reviewed

$1299

Best Prices Today: MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ is among the first few laptops within the new slate of machines operating on refreshed Intel {hardware}, bringing some thrilling bumps to graphical efficiency and effectivity. It additionally will get fitted into a brand new design that’s smooth, slim, and a step away from the gamer aesthetic that many prior MSI machines exhibited.

In our testing, the {hardware} held up nicely and the internals held up even higher. With that, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ proves a potent choice for these on the lookout for smooth efficiency and wonderful longevity, although just a few weaker elements in the end go away me extra excited for up to date fashions from completely different manufacturers.

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Specs and options

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra X7 358H
• Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x-8533
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc B390
• Display: 14-inch 1920×1200 OLED touchscreen, 60Hz, Glossy, Stylus included
• Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD – Micron 2500_MTFDKBA1T0QGN
• Webcam: 1080p + IR
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C with Power Delivery and DisplayPort Alternate Mode, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio
• Networking: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6.0
• Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint, facial recognition
• Battery capability: 78.6 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 12.42 x 8.74 x 0.55 inches
• Weight: 3.02 kilos
• MSRP: $1299 as-tested ($1,299 base)

At the time of writing, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ was provided in only one configuration. This included the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H paired with 32GB of reminiscence and Intel Arc B390 graphics. That stated, MSI’s product particulars alluded to each Intel Core Ultra X9 configurations and lower-end configurations that will not embody Arc graphics. So, it’s probably extra fashions will be part of the stack, including extra highly effective and extra reasonably priced choices. 

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Design and construct high quality

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ is a sleekly constructed 2-in-1 laptop computer. It doesn’t do an excessive amount of to be flashy or stand out, nevertheless it has curb attraction. The aluminum alloy chassis is per its rounded edges and corners, which give it a snug really feel even when in its pill mode. 

The hinges are the straightforward 360-degree type we see on most 2-in-1 fashions, not one thing extra lavish or distinctive. They’re practical, however they do let the display screen wiggle a bit after making changes. It may also be a little bit difficult to open the lid with only one hand. 

Even although you’re getting an all-metal development for the chassis, it does flex a little bit bit. It’s greater than I’d count on, however not a worrying quantity. On the flip aspect, the show lid flexes lower than numerous different laptops. Altogether it’s a good displaying for a laptop computer this skinny.

The display screen will get a Gorilla Glass end that extends all the way in which to the perimeters reasonably than swapping over to plastic for the bezels. Those bezels are skinny on the edges however thicker on the high and thickest on the backside — fairly typical for 2-in-1s. The higher bezel squeezes in a webcam with a bodily privateness shutter that’s straightforward (however not too straightforward) to slip into place and two mics. MSI truly inbuilt a 3rd mic on the keyboard deck simply to the left of the Caps Lock key. 

Underneath, the laptop computer sits on rubber toes with one vast foot stretching throughout the again, which helps forestall reintake of the recent air exhausted out of the again fringe of the system.

Foundry / Mark Knapp

Between the 2 entrance toes, there’s a charging slot for the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s included stylus. The stylus totally tucks away into this slot. It pops out utilizing magnetism when a small latch is pulled out of the way in which. Unfortunately, this method makes it very fussy to get again into place. The magnets need to push it proper again out and rotate it in order that the charging pins don’t line up proper, and it’s a really high quality line between totally inserted and never fairly inserted sufficient to keep away from having the laptop computer pop it proper again out. 

The stylus is a really skinny, akin to the type you’d discover for telephones. It tracks precisely and makes for a extra exact enter than the trackpad or fingers for jotting notes or doodling. But it’s not a high-performance stylus with stress or tilt sensitivity. At least it triggers hand rejection after it’s been used (however not earlier than). 

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Keyboard, trackpad

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ incorporates a respectable keyboard that some could like. The keys have a brief journey that may make for fast, light-touch typing. The stabilization can be fairly good. But they lack a lot tactility, and the keycaps are fairly clean and don’t have a lot contour, which I discovered held me again as I had a tough time confidently feeling every key and keypress.

I used to be in a position to rise up to a typing velocity of 112 phrases per minute in Monketype, however struggled to maintain my accuracy up above 95 p.c. The keys get white backlighting, and fortunately MSI saved the keycaps black and legends white, which helps with visibility, although it may be a little bit laborious to inform the backlighting is on (and losing battery) in vibrant situations. 

The trackpad is giant and pretty clean, nevertheless it’s in any other case unremarkable. The bodily click on is gentle, plasticky, and shortly turns into too stiff above the underside third of the trackpad. The high corners of the trackpad embody shortcuts to the calculator and the MSI Center S software program, which is ok, I suppose, however MSI Center S has a second shortcut on the F7 key.

The trackpad additionally helps a number of different gestures and customers can arrange three extra gestures. But, crucially, MSI has locked the defaults — no customizing these — and made the entire system all-or-nothing, forcing you to both allow all of its gestures or disable all of them. 

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Software word

The system comes with Norton pre-installed, which usually I might say isn’t too huge a deal. I don’t look after it personally, however a freebie is a freebie. However, on this case, Norton created points.

I discovered many webpages failing to load continuously with no clear purpose why. I’d go to Amazon, LinkedIn, or Facebook — widespread web sites — and the loading wheel would simply spin and spin whilst I ran a velocity take a look at in a distinct tab that confirmed a quick connection. After having had sufficient, I attempted uninstalling Norton and as quickly because it completed, these pages completed loading.

Norton additionally seems to have been liable for one other annoying conduct the place as a substitute of going to sleep when the lid was shut, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ would merely energy down. It was a lot quick besides again up, however this nonetheless closed all my browser tabs. As quickly as I uninstalled Norton, this conduct went away.  It’s all of the extra curious that any of this occurred within the first place, as I had no less than disabled Norton from the beginning. 

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Display, audio

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s show is a combined bag. On the one hand, it has some beautiful qualities. It achieves 100 p.c protection of the DCI-P3 colour area and it even proved fairly correct with a measured common dE1976 of 0.57 and a max of 1.41. Those are nice outcomes. As an OLED panel, it’s additionally naturally responsive and has an infinite distinction ratio. 

But the show is simply 1920×1200, which is respectable however not tremendous sharp subsequent to the glut of 2880×1800 opponents on this area. The show can be not impressively vibrant. It maxed out a surprisingly low 294 nits. In an workplace area or dimmer interiors, it’s not a problem, however that mixed with the shiny show makes it more durable to make use of successfully in vibrant areas even with the display screen dialed as much as its max brightness.

There’s a particular draw back to the assist for contact and the stylus: You can see the digitizing layer. On areas of the display screen which can be one stable colour just like the white background or a phrase doc, the little dots that comprise the digitizing layer are readily seen, trying like tiny little speckles on the display screen. It’s refined and hides away higher on darker and non-uniform backgrounds, nevertheless it offers a softness to visuals that impacts high quality particulars. It could not irk everybody, and it naturally turns into extra refined the additional away you view the display screen, however I nonetheless discover it hurts the general expertise even at affordable viewing distances. 

The laptop computer combines a pair of two-watt woofers and a pair of two-watt tweeters, which give it a nice sound with out being too harsh within the mids or missing fullness. The bass continues to be gentle at greatest, and also you’ll miss out on loads of impression if you happen to’re listening to music or watching motion pictures. But you’re nonetheless getting loud, crisp audio system that greater than do the job.

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The webcam on the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ helps Windows Hello facial recognition, which is a fast and handy technique to signal into the system. Beyond that, it’s type of unhealthy. Even with a 1080p decision for video, it seems grainy and like every thing it captures is smeared in grease, erasing any form of high quality element. It will get its publicity proper, however seeing such poor outcomes even in good lighting situations is a disappointment.

Thankfully, the triple mic array performs way more admirably. It picks up my voice fairly nicely, offering a transparent replica of what I say whereas additionally suppressing background noise decently. An ambulance siren and a fan (that began squealing on account of some fault) throughout my take a look at recording had been each audible in my take a look at, however the siren was hushed and the squealing fan didn’t cease the mics from choosing up my voice clearly. 

In addition to facial recognition, the laptop computer features a fingerprint scanner within the energy button, which sits close to the top-right nook of the keyboard. The scanner unlocked the laptop computer shortly after registering my fingerprint, which it did efficiently about 50 p.c of the time — a fairly good end in my expertise utilizing laptop computer fingerprint scanners.

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Connectivity

Foundry / Mark Knapp

Other thin-and-light laptops have been warned: there’s no excuse for skimping on connectivity. Even with the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ measuring simply over a half-inch thick, it squeezes in a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, a pair of USB-A 10Gbps ports, a headset jack, and an HDMI 2.1 port. The proven fact that it even discovered area to deal with its skinny little stylus and cost it’s icing on the cake. Any small laptop computer rocking fewer ports seems stingy compared. An SD or microSD card slot might have been bonus, however the USB ports are ok for peripheral readers and hubs. 

The system goes heavy on wi-fi connectivity, too, with Intel Killer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 connections. Both have labored constantly in my testing, offering quick and dependable wi-fi connections. 

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Performance

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ has considerable efficiency because of its new Panther Lake chip, which mixes each a really succesful CPU and an built-in GPU that goes nicely past what we’re used to seeing. Though, to be upfront, the default energy plan for the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ doesn’t let the system put its greatest foot ahead.

With ample reminiscence and quick storage, it’s little shock to see the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ rating excessive marks in PCMark 10’s holistic benchmark, which examines how nicely a pc can carry out routine workplace duties like shopping, web-conferencing, spreadsheets, and media modifying. The system will get a robust increase within the picture modifying sub-test because of its graphics efficiency. 

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ will get nicely forward of current thin-and-light champs just like the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI and the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition, displaying a few of the profit of getting newer {hardware}. But we will additionally see that the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ isn’t at all times going to paved the way. By default, the system is available in a balanced energy profile, and that conservative setup could be sufficient to carry it again. 

Running our Handbrake take a look at, which duties the system with a hefty encoding process that slams the CPU lengthy and laborious, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ fell nicely behind the pack. It took nearly twice so long as the Dell XPS 14 operating the identical CPU and lagged behind even a last-gen CPU within the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition. Perhaps the one purpose it beat the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI is as a result of that system, too, ran in a balanced energy profile by default. You would possibly assume the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ has weak cooling that throttles it throughout lengthy checks, however that’s not fairly it. Instead Handbrake helps show what an important distinction easy energy settings could make. 

Managing energy use is nice for battery life, nevertheless it’s value understanding simply how a lot energy the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ is keen to sacrifice. So I repeated just a few of the checks in a efficiency energy profile and the distinction was stark.

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ truly has loads of velocity to supply and an honest cooling setup that mixes a vapor chamber and two cooling followers that work fairly nicely with out getting too loud. While its balanced profile once more confirmed so-so leads to Cinebench, narrowly beating some last-gen Intel-powered methods, the efficiency profile was sufficient to show it into a frontrunner.

It managed a single-core efficiency bump of 7 p.c in Cinebench R23 and 5 p.c in R24, and a multi-core efficiency bump of 19 p.c in Cinebench R23 and 49.5 p.c in Cinebench R24. Not solely did the system show keen to spice up its efficiency, nevertheless it additionally sustained longer duties higher reasonably than shortly throttling below a load. 

This efficiency held true for the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s graphics as nicely. Even in its balanced mode, the brand new Intel Arc B390 graphics had been sufficient to offer it an edge over earlier Intel Arc 140V methods, nevertheless it nonetheless lagged nicely behind the Dell XPS 14 operating in efficiency mode. But as quickly because the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ toggled over to efficiency mode, it leapt forward. Its efficiency even places it in league with some methods operating discrete GPUs just like the RTX 4050 or RTX 3060, although it tended to fall a little bit wanting these, particularly in thicker, higher-wattage methods. 

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ proved able to some heavier gaming as nicely. It hit a mean of 68fps (49fps in Balanced mode) in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p and the Highest graphics preset. And it held a gradual 30-40fps in Helldivers 2 at Native 1920×1200 (no DLSS/XeSS/FSR) and Medium graphics settings. Even whereas operating laborious, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ doesn’t get too scorching or loud. The followers could be a little shrill, however not horrible. 

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Battery life

The flip aspect of the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s conservative Balanced energy profile is that it could chug alongside like no laptop computer I’ve ever seen. We’ve seen laptops leap up in battery life during the last couple years, doggedly making an attempt to catch as much as Apple’s first-party silicon, and there have been some enormous successes (Lenovo’s ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 breaking information once we first examined it). And the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition dazzled with loads of efficiency, a stunning design and show, and practically 24 hours of runtime in our commonplace battery take a look at. Even then, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ places it to disgrace. 

Playing offline video with the show set to 250 nits, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ ran for an astounding 34:28 (a consequence so staggering I nearly wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t already seen the laptop computer muster 29:45 in the identical take a look at once I had began it from 93 p.c cost as a result of it was refusing to cost to 100 p.c for an unknown purpose). This not solely blows every thing we’ve examined earlier than out of the water nevertheless it additionally trounces the Dell XPS 14 operating on the identical chip and an solely barely smaller battery.

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ had nonetheless extra to supply. Running PCMark 10’s built-in battery benchmark, nonetheless at 250 nits and this time with Wi-Fi nonetheless on to higher simulate real-world use, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ lasted 18:14. That noticed it run practically so long as the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI managed in its offline video playback take a look at.

All that stated, precise battery life can nonetheless fluctuate fairly a bit. In my common use, which includes few Google Docs and Sheets open in a tab-heavy Chrome browser with side-by-side home windows and frequent video or music playback, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ was on tempo for 9 to 10 hours of runtime. It’s very respectable, however nonetheless exhibits that state of affairs and utilization play an enormous function. 

MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Conclusion

The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ has rather a lot going for it. It’s a properly constructed machine and is surprisingly gentle for all it packs inside. It’s all of the extra spectacular to see the degrees of efficiency it could eke out because of Intel’s newest {hardware}, particularly with its graphics resolution. To pair all that with battery life that tops the charts in our testing merely makes it an astounding thin-and-light choice. It would have been much more thrilling if it had been paired with a sharper, sooner, and brighter show. And even with its wonderful effectivity, battery life in precise use falls again to earthly lengths. Ultimately, that stops it from being a very sensible machine, nevertheless it has sufficient going for it to be in any other case nice.