MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo Review: If You’re After a Desktop Replacement Notebook, This is The One to Get

The MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo may appear to be a run-of-the-mill laptop, but it is anything but. It was one of the first major AI laptops of 2025, and by launching later in India, the market has caught up. With Intel’s latest 200-series line-up going all guns blazing, the Prestige 16 AI Evo is a laptop that has quietly stuck around and performed with aplomb. It’s powered by Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285H, along with 32GB of RAM. Plenty enough for a performance-oriented user (not for gamers, as it only features integrated Intel Arc graphics and no dedicated GPU).

From the moment you unbox it, this laptop may seem like a typical ‘business’ PC, but it’s much more for the mainstream user. It’s for the creative professionals. It’s for the coders. It’s for the everyday user. It’s for those who want a 16-inch laptop.

Within a few months, the Prestige 16 AI Evo may be outdated if you’re purely looking at the spec sheets, but after having used it for a couple of weeks, this laptop will quietly become your daily companion, though it isn’t without its flaws.

For this review, I will take a different approach. I’ll tell you about the laptop, in brief, but mostly, I will tell you just exactly whom this laptop is targeted at. Let’s dive in.

What’s powering the laptop

With the Prestige 16 AI Evo, you’re getting a top-of-the-line Intel Core Ultra 9 285H processor. Pair this with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, and any demanding workloads will be handled with relative ease. Forget the MacBook, the Prestige 16 AI Evo can handle all your 4K video editing, multitasking, and more.

The laptop, featuring a 16-inch display and a magnesium-aluminium alloy chassis, weighs around 1.5kg. It may be big, but it isn’t hefty. There’s close to zero flex, a solid build, and a minimalist design. Something that’ll appeal to everyone.

The standout is the IPS display.  The 16-inch QHD+ (2560x1600) IPS display (with a 16:10 aspect ratio) stands tall with rich and punchy colours, nearly 100% DC-P3 coverage and excellent brightness levels. The display will suffice for editing photos, watching content, or just browsing the web. There’s only one downside here. The display comes with a glossy finish. So, outdoor legibility might be a slight concern. That, coupled with the 60Hz refresh rate, makes it less desirable. With that said, the display feels snappy and content glides across the screen.

The other thing MSI has gotten right is that the laptop is packed with ports. There’s a LAN port on the right-hand side, along with a full-sized SD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the left? You’ll only find a Kensington lock slot. So, where are the other ports then, you may ask? At the back! It may be awkward, but it gets the job done. The device features two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a full-size HDMI 2.1 output, and a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port.

Then we come to the battery life. There’s a massive 99.9Wh battery under the hood. Couple that with the latest Intel chip, and you’ve got upwards of 16-17 hours with light usage. A medium-to-heavy workload of browning, researching, editing photos, bingeing YouTube videos, and streaming India vs West Indies in the background, and the laptop won’t last you more than 12 hours on a single charge. Those numbers are still significantly better than those of any laptop released before 2025.

Intel’s AI chops

There’s a built-in NPU (thanks to Intel and the Core Ultra 9 285H chip) that can handle all of your AI chops that you’d need on a daily basis, from Windows Studio Effects to noise suppression and more. It’s all done on-device, and with minimal battery drainage.

There’s the MSI Center S app that comes pre-installed with this laptop. It’s MSI’s own software, which gives you access to performance settings, including the all-important ‘AI Zone.’ Within this zone, you can enable AI noise cancellation, the Smart Guard feature (which automatically turns on the screen when you leave the desk and turns it back on when you return), and more. Microsoft CoPilot, designed to help you be more productive, comes with features like ‘Recall’ and more.

Front and centre, in the app, is the ‘AI Engine’. This automatically adjusts the hardware settings for optimal performance and an enhanced experience.

The combination of an Intel CPU, GPU and NPU makes for a future-forward laptop (it also has Wi-Fi 7 support). One that will run smoothly (and all your AI tasks) for the next couple of years.

Who is this laptop for, and should you buy it?

The MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo is primarily designed for individuals seeking a high-performance desktop replacement that also offers portability. It’s a business-focused laptop that doubles up as a mainstream notebook. It’s not thin and light, but its immediate competition ends up being the MacBook. With Intel’s chops, this laptop is ideal for productivity-oriented individuals - whether it is photo editing, typing out lengthy documents (the 16:10 aspect ratio really helps), or binge-watching (yes, an OLED display would have been nice, but the IPS panel suffices well enough).

This laptop is not intended for gamers. Even if you’re a casual gamer, I’d steer you away from this laptop. Yes, it can play all of the basic games, but anything even half demanding, and you’ll get a less-than-ideal experience.

A desktop replacement notebook with all-day battery life was something only a few could have dreamed of a few years ago. It’s not cheap, with the entry-level laptop coming in below ₹1,50,000, but in the end, it is worth it.