Poppyseed Bagel

Very good, in this market.

This MSI Crosshair A16 HX laptop is one of the latest in the mid-range Crosshair line, and the TLDR is that it's pretty good. I say pretty good, because it's hard to rationalize where it stands in terms of value because the prices keep going up on these laptops due to the RAM/SSD crisis. I had just gotten a gaming laptop 6 months ago, and this is more expensive, and inferior in terms of spec. Now, I recognize none of us has a time machine to go back and grab something more affordable last year, but the price still stings here.But let's break it down. The laptop comes pretty well packaged, with another box around it for extra protection. Inside there’s not much. Just a laptop in a plastic baggie, and a 240W power brick and detachable power cable. Just taking the laptop out of the box resulted in some nice, oily fingerprints (despite clean hands), so expect to be wiping this down a lot. The chassis is all plastic as far as I can tell, so there’s none of the premium feel that you get with a e.g. Lenovo Legion Pro 7 that I also have.Port selection is good, but not remarkable. On the left side you have the AC adapter port, 2x USB-C 3.2 Gen.2 (you can charge up to 100W with these - tested), - with DisplayPort capability, too. On the right side you have 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen. 1. On the rear, RJ-45 (only 1 Gbit), HDMI 2.1, and another USB-A 3.2 Gen. 2 port.Unfortunately there’s no Thunderbolt here, and no 2.5 Gbit ethernet. The laptop weighs just a hair under 5lbs, and feels pretty well balanced when holding it. There is absolutely no RGB on the exterior of the case at all, and whether you like the graphic on the front is going to be very subjective. It’s definitely quite gamer-y, which isn’t usually my scene in terms of case aesthetic. I prefer a more muted shell. Also a peculiar choice to have one corner rubber pad in bright blue, but that’s what we get. From the rear it looks like someone squashed a dog toy under the laptop. Hey, I didn’t ask for that!Inside we have more gamer-y graphics (still not a fan) and also we have a decent enough keyboard (not tons of key travel, but not bad). These keys are very quiet, so if you like to game in bed, your partner won’t likely complain about this, which is nice if you’re a night-time gamer. The WASD keys are also quite gamer-y and translucent. The RGB setup for the keyboard is a tad lacking, with no per-key RGB which you get on other laptops in this price range, which is disappointing. Just zonal adjustments here. The trackpad is quite large, and very responsive. I’m used to terrible trackpads on Windows laptops so this was pleasantly surprising. Oh, and for those wondering, the "AMD" sticker peeled off without leaving residue, the "GeForce" sticker took a little rubbing to get the goop up, and the "HDMI" sticker was easily removed. In any case, a fingernail and a finger rub is all you need for a clean sticker-less look.System setup was very easy. The laptop will not initially power on until the power cable is connected (despite having some charge), but as soon as it is plugged in, all systems are a go. Windows setup is fairly rudimentary, and doesn’t take long, and there are a few updates along the way that you can cancel and do later if you prefer.Once setup, there is just a few pieces of bloatware software (Norton, looking at you), but these only took a moment to uninstall. At this point, you’ll be able to control the screen brightness, volume, and keyboard brightness (4 levels, - or off). That’s when you’ll notice the light on the power button, that’s a bit annoying, and not brightness adjustable. It will alternate between white and orange, depending on whether the system is using the integrated Intel GPU or the Nvidia RTX 5070 discrete GPU. This is annoying because depending on what you’re doing it will switch between the two often, and it’s very, very distracting to see this orange light flash to white, and then back to orange all the time. You can lock the system to one GPU or the other rather than this hybrid system (which is ideal), but you have to reboot to switch to one or other GPU exclusively. I hope we see a firmware update to disable the light entirely, or dim it at minimum.The screen is really, really good. It’s a 16:10 1600p IPS display at 240hz, with very minimal clouding, - one of the best I've used in that regard. Unfortunately, there’s no GSync of any sort, which is surprising at this price point, but there we are. That said, it gets very, very bright, and motion handling is excellent. Gamers should be happy here, especially if poor LCD motion handling is something they are sensitive to (I’m talking about you, Nintendo Switch 2). Above the screen there is a webcam that works well enough, and has a physical switch to turn off the camera, which I like to see on laptops. Oh, and you can open the screen with one hand. The one downside is it doesn't get super dim, but that shouldn't be an issue for most.Speakers run along the top, behind the keyboard, and they are, for lack of a better word - awful. Very tinny/thin. Sure, they’ll do in a pinch (speakers usually do), but they are bad. Use headphones. You’ll want to use headphones anyway given this isn’t the quietest of laptops. It’s absolutely in line with other gaming laptops, which means twin fans running most of the time from around 2000rpm to 5500rpm-ish at the highest level. I will give MSI credit, though: these fans are a low pitch, and low pitch is good for least amount of annoyance, as it’s much more easy to tune out. At the 1975rpm default speed, they're not disturbing at all.The charger is only 240W, which comes as a major surprise given the power output of the CPU and GPU. Do not expect much, if any charging when gaming at all, and the charger gets SUPER hot when doing so. I was having a play session in “Trails in the Sky, Chapter 1”, and boy did that charger get crazy hot. On the plus side, it’s a much smaller brick than the 400W monster with my Legion Pro 7.Performance in games is very good, as you’d expect for a 5070 mobile part. There’s a question mark surrounding this 8GB variant of GPU, but for most games, especially at 1600p, I don’t expect it to much be much of an issue, and it wasn’t in my testing. Still, it’s a tad niggling to know that there’s a 12GB variant on the market in other laptops as of now.The 1TB SSD is a Micron 2500 PCIe 4 2280 drive. It’s a middle of the range drive, as you’d expect, with decent read/write speeds (around 7000MB/s read, 6000MB/s write).The Wi-Fi 6E chip I received is the RZ616, also known as the MediaTek MT7922. Absolutely zero issues with it connected to my Asus BQ16 Pro Wi-Fi 7 mesh system. On my 2 Gbit fiber internet connection (2 down, 1 up) It gets speeds in line with my Wi-Fi 7 iPhone and 6E iPad Pro, around 1.6 Gbit download, and the full 940 Mbit upload. No stability issues of any sort, even when slamming Steam with downloads.Battery life is decent for a gaming laptop. At low brightness, and on the Intel GPU specifically (to prevent hybrid mode switching), I’m averaging a little over 5 hours with light browsing. There’s also plenty enough power for work or light gaming without bringing the MSI power brick, just by using a 100W USB-C charger, and connecting via one of the ports on the left. I like being able to do that, as it means I can leave the charger in its usual place for more intensive gaming, but bring the laptop to my office and quickly connect via USB-C for work. Hibernating Windows 11 also means boot times are insanely fast, at just a few seconds.Overall, this laptop is good. There’s no question about that, and it has been rock solid over the days I've used it. But given the price, I’d have liked to see just a little more premium to the whole system. I can’t even say to wait and the prices will come down, because… that’s not true lately. So that said, as a laptop for gamers in this particular market, it’s a recommendation.4 out of 5.

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msi Crosshair A16 HX 16” 2.5K QHD+ 240Hz Gaming Laptop – AMD Ryzen 9 8940HX, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, 32GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi 6E, USB-C, Windows 11 Home: Gunmetal Grey E8WGK-009US

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Reseñas

Insane performance, but definitely feels like a plastic budget build

Powerful Gaming Laptop with Excellent Performance, but Expect Some Heat and Weight

Im just broke and hating

Very good, in this market.

Gaming Laptop

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