MSI is primarily known for its PCs and gaming components, but the manufacturer has offered a variety of computers for office automation or developers for a number of years. The Prestige 14 Evo and its refined design are therefore not aimed at gamers, but at those who want a compact and powerful PC.
Selling for €1,590, it faces stiff competition but benefits from a fairly solid configuration with 1TB of SSD storage and a seemingly beefy Intel Core i7. We have checked all this on our test bench and tell you everything about this PC.
construction
The MSI Prestige 14 Evo impresses with its simple but rather elegant metal case. The screen format is 16:10 and the borders are not too thick. The 85% occupancy rate is not exceptional as some competitors exceed 90%. We also regret the presence of the fingerprint reader under the keyboard in the middle of nowhere…
It sure comes in handy for quickly unlocking the PC, but it could also have been integrated into the start button, as we often see elsewhere. Otherwise, the keyboard scores with a backlight that can be adjusted in four levels, even if the key travel is a bit long and some will criticize a somewhat soft stroke. The touchpad is smooth but not worthy of high-end models; he sinks too much under the pressure.
The fingerprint reader is inappropriately placed.
The connection is pretty solid with two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 charging ports, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, an HDMI 2.1 port, a mini-jack port, and an admittedly slightly outdated microSD card reader and fast. Finally, for connectivity, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 have been chosen, state-of-the-art standards. The webcam films in Full HD and offers a good level of detail. It’s also compatible with Windows Hello and we can therefore use facial recognition to start a session.
To open this PC, nothing could be simpler: no screws are hidden and all are cross-shaped. You can then change the battery or the M.2 SSD if necessary, but nothing more because the working memory is soldered. We also learn that MSI has decided to install a single fan, which will affect the sequel.
In fact, the Prestige 14 Evo is super quiet! Even under full load with the Cinebench software, we only recorded 33.2 dB, a slight hiss that is good for the ears compared to some of the competition. The warming remains rather restrained at around 40 °C measured in the center of the keyboard. On our thermal images we notice a hotspot at 50°C, but this is at the level of the air outlet, which is perfectly normal. Note that it is not placed on the sides, but under the screen.
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Performance
The MSI Prestige 14 Evo is equipped with an Intel Core i7-13700H processor at a TDP of 45W with 14 cores (six powerful and eight efficient), whose frequency can increase to 5 GHz in turbo mode. It also comes with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD.
For an office model, this PC does quite well. With a CPU performance index of 129, it surpasses, for example, the MacBook Air M2 or the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360, also limited by its thinness.
Even more surprising (and disturbing) is that the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus’ Core i7-12700H was much more efficient! A difference of about 15% from the previous generation, which contradicts the promises of a new generation, but is explained by the presence of a thicker case and better cooling on the Dell.
On the Prestige, we saw an average frequency of 2.2 GHz on the performance cores when used intensively with HandBrake. It’s really not much, but it allows the processor not to heat up a lot (57C on average while encoding). As we wrote above, limiting cooling to a single fan is non-trivial: you gain in silence, but you also lose in performance.
So, in absolute terms, the Prestige 14 will be efficient in office automation, but one can wonder why MSI didn’t include an Intel P-series processor, which consumes less and heats up less. The engineers could have also added a fan to make better use of that 13700H, but the PC would have been louder.
On the SSD side, we found 6.5 GB / s in reading and almost 5 GB / s in writing, results worthy of games or very high-end PCs.
Screen
The MSI Prestige 14 Evo’s screen is not its strong point. The IPS panel has a 16:10 format and is well calibrated with an average Delta E of 2.2 and a very good contrast of 1680:1, which is rather rare with this technology. In addition, the maximum brightness reaches 500 cd/m², another good value. Unfortunately, other aspects cloud this beautiful picture.
The average color temperature of 7330K is a bit cold and the screen’s reflectivity is very high (49.5% on average). Why the hell did you put a glossy panel on IPS? Reflections can therefore be annoying, even if the high maximum brightness partially compensates for this shortcoming. Finally, the afterglow time of 23 ms is high, but this is only important in the game, but this Prestige is not designed for that.
Audio
The speakers in this computer are honestly not great. Installed under the chassis, we note the lack of bass, as well as a muffled sound where mids and highs merge. In addition, the stereophonic scene is not very broad. In short, it is better to use headphones or speakers.
The headphone output in particular is very correct with a distortion limited to 0.01%, a dynamic range of 92 dB, an imperceptible crosstalk of -64 dB and an output level of 140 mVRMS. This performance is sufficient for everyday use, but does not allow the use of monitoring headphones.
| MSI Prestige 14 Evo | Average tested PCs | |
|---|---|---|
| output volume | 140mVRMS | 161 mVRMS |
| distortion + noise | 0.01% | 0.015% |
| dynamic range | 92dB | 100dB |
| crosstalk | -64dB | -64dB |
Mobility / Autonomy
With its 14-inch format, the Prestige Evo is compact. On the other hand, it’s not the lightest as it weighs almost 1.5kg, while adding the 374g of the USB-C charger. The latter is small, but the cable is its weight, and we now prefer “smartphone-style” charging blocks that take up less space.
The charger is compact but the cable is quite heavy.
In the exercise of autonomy, the computer performed quite well. It turned off after 8 hours 13 minutes of video playback on Netflix (via the Chrome browser) with the screen brightness set to 200 nits. A score that keeps him away from bad students without being at the level of the best.
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strong points
Very quiet.
Connections provided.
Good contrast and high brightness.
Full HD webcam with Windows Hello.
weak points
Underutilized Core i7-13700H processor.
Average construction (fingerprint reader, edges, keyboard…).
Plate moving towards blue and subject to reflections.
Diploma
Global brand
How does the classification work?
The MSI Prestige 14 Evo delivers good overall performance for those looking for an easily portable computer. Its performance is absolutely correct, as is its autonomy, which lasts. Above all, we appreciate its remarkable smoothness even with intensive use. However, you have to make a few compromises on the side of the screen and the construction. We would have wished for full utilization of the onboard processor.