MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ overview: Large-screen flexibility completed proper

Worth When Reviewed

$2,299

Greatest Costs Right now: MSI Status 16 Flip AI+

MSI’s compelling Status 14 Flip AI+ now has an enormous sibling within the Status 16 Flip AI+. This new mannequin boasts an analogous design language with a slim and smooth metallic body and a decently low weight for a 16-inch laptop computer. It runs on the most recent Intel Panther Lake {hardware} with the upgraded Arc B390 graphics. 

That mixture makes it a critical 2-in-1. It even upgrades a few options the 14-inch mannequin missed out on, like a sharper show with a quicker refresh fee. The entire package deal comes collectively properly, however a number of the typical setbacks of 2-in-1 laptops preserve it from being as sensible because it might have been. 

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Specs and options

• CPU: Intel Core Extremely X9 388H
• Reminiscence: 32GB LPDDR5x-8533
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc B390
• Show: 16-inch 2880×1800 OLED touchscreen, 120Hz, VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600
• Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD – Micron 2500
• Webcam: 1080p + IR
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C with Energy Supply and DisplayPort Alternate Mode, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio
• Networking: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6
• Biometrics: Home windows Hi there fingerprint, facial recognition
• Battery capability: 78.6 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 14.08 x 10.01 x 0.55 inches
• Weight: 3.64 kilos
• MSRP: $2,299 as-tested ($1,369 base)

MSI affords just some configurations of the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+. Our check unit is on the high of the stack, costing $2,299 and that includes the specs above. The show is widespread amongst all the configurations, so that you don’t have to fret about lacking out on it for those who decide a lower-end config. Storage and reminiscence are additionally an identical throughout the board. That stated, MSI doesn’t give a lot purpose to decide on a lower-end config.

You may drop all the way down to a config with an Intel Core Extremely X7 358H, however in any other case an identical specs and save $100. MSI’s least expensive choice is $2,149 and it downgrades the CPU to an Intel Core Extremely 7 355 with Intel Graphics with simply 4 Xe cores fairly than Intel Arc Graphics included on the opposite configurations — sufficient to make this a horrible choice subsequent to the opposite two. 

MSI is providing non-flipping fashions via Costco. These get the Intel Core Extremely X7 358H chip and will value $1,369. They nonetheless help the Nano Pen, however don’t embody it. Sadly, deliberate pricing and precise pricing might diverge for the non-flipping mannequin. The mannequin specified for Costco seems to have a $1,799 price ticket as an alternative of the $1,369 (we have been advised). Pricing for the flipping fashions seem correct with B&H’s itemizing exhibiting costs that match these shared by MSI.

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Design and construct high quality

Foundry / Mark Knapp

Having already examined the MSI Status 14 Flip AI+, I wasn’t too shocked to see the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ was very a lot the identical laptop computer made bigger. It’s finally a big however slim slip of metallic. On this case, it’s 14.08 inches large and 10.01 inches deep, nevertheless it’s the identical 0.55 inches thick that the smaller mannequin is. This all places it at a tame 3.64 kilos, which is nice contemplating all that the system is packing. 

The laptop computer sits on slim rubber toes, making it straightforward to slide into laptop computer sleeves and backpacks. The graceful, rounded edges throughout additionally assist in that division. Additionally they assist with consolation when resting my wrists on the entrance edge whereas typing or holding the system flipped all the way in which open as a pill.

The big dimension of the system results in some deck flex, although it’s not excessive. Whereas resting my arms on the keyboard deck to sort, I don’t discover the flex. For such a big display, flex is minimal. The show has a pretty big chin and high bezel. That’s not unusual for 2-in-1s, however the 1-inch chin nonetheless leaves it feeling slightly dated. 

Whereas the appears of the system are clear, particularly with the silvery engraved MSI emblem on the lid, they’re additionally pretty plain. MSI didn’t use the additional dimension of the keyboard deck to accommodate a bigger keyboard or match top-firing audio system. It simply turns into a bigger slab of empty house. Like on the 14-incher, the stereo audio system stay on the underside. 

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ attracts recent air in via a modest grille on the underside and vents it out via a slim exhaust within the again. The underside additionally homes the MSI Nano Pen. The holding mechanism is slightly awkward to insert the pen into, as orientation is essential. The mechanism can also spring the pen out for those who don’t have a hand able to catch it. 

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Keyboard, trackpad

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The keyboard holds the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ again considerably. Its keys don’t have sufficient of a contour to simply really feel centered on, aren’t steady sufficient to really feel firmly planted on, and don’t have a constant tactility to offer assured typing. It’s all just some levels within the incorrect route, so whereas not egregiously dangerous, it’s not fairly good.

I used to be simply capable of break a 100-word-per-minute typing velocity with a modest 97 % accuracy in Monkeytype, however I struggled to go any quicker with out lacking a bunch of keys. I additionally needed to faucet tougher than typical, adopting an unusually sturdy fingerstrike to handle that typing accuracy.

The huge trackpad is nice for swiping round and navigating. It has loads of room for multi-finger gestures and it could supply particular management zones, reminiscent of scrolling alongside the sides to regulate quantity and brightness or double-tapping in corners to open shortcuts. The trackpad is slightly too straightforward to unintentionally get a palm on generally. It’s not that it has dangerous palm rejection whereas typing a lot as that it could register the palm as one other finger whereas merely navigating with the mouse. On this manner, I shall be shifting the mouse and out of the blue find yourself scrolling, or I’ll be scrolling and unintentionally open Activity View or decrease all my home windows.

One habits of the system I anticipated guilty on the trackpad was the frequent launching of Copilot. I believed there is likely to be some trackpad shortcut that was launching it with out my understanding. I used to be finally capable of decide that there wasn’t (although it’s attainable to create one via MSI Middle S), and but it continued to launch by itself infrequently even with my arms properly away from the Copilot key on the keyboard. This thriller stays unsolved. 

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Show, audio

Foundry / Mark Knapp

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ has a merely gorgeous show. Its 16-inch panel affords a crisp 2880×1800 decision mixed with a 120Hz refresh fee for sharp and clean visuals. It has a shiny coating that may wrestle a bit with glare, however normally that glare is simple to beat with the show’s 393 nits of brightness. That brightness can go even additional in HDR, the place I measured it at 640 nits for a ten % window and 661 nits for a quick one hundred pc window. That’s matched with good black ranges from OLED, so that you get wealthy and poignant visuals for video games and flicks. The colour can be on level, reaching one hundred pc of the sRGB shade house, 99 % of the DCI-P3 shade house, and doing so precisely with a max dE1976 of 1.95. This all makes the show one which’s sensible for inventive work and play alike. 

Additionally it is a touchscreen and it has a pen digitizer. You may actually go hands-on with the display to make use of it how you want. The digitizer is seen as a collection of tiny dots on the show, however I’ve discovered I might solely spot them on vibrant, single-color sections of the display once I sit unreasonably near the display. The stylus is a really skinny one, and it’s slippery on the glass floor of the show, so heavy stylus customers might not love the texture, however I discovered it good for notating a doc, drawing up a fast blueprint of a mission, or signing a doc.

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ consists of 4 audio system, every delivering as much as two watts. This lets that laptop computer supply appreciable quantity, which is definitely sufficient to play over its quiet followers. The woofer-tweeter pairing helps present low-end and crisp treble, although deep bass and sub-bass don’t come via, and you’ll’t count on any rumble. Nonetheless, it sounds superb for a skinny laptop computer. 

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The webcam on the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ isn’t all that spectacular. It appears to wrestle a bit with excessive dynamic vary conditions with any particulars in shadow showing blurry and hazy. Sadly, this meant that, as a result of my face was slightly shaded regardless of being in a well-lit room, the readability suffered.

The webcam has a reasonably large viewing angle which does assist when utilizing Home windows Hi there facial recognition. Whereas on some laptops I’ve to hunch all the way down to get in entrance of the digital camera earlier than it’ll acknowledge my face, the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ tends to do it shortly with out a lot effort on my half. The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ additionally features a fingerprint reader close to the top-right nook of the keyboard. In testing, it was fast and constant. 

The microphones carry out slightly higher than the digital camera. They captured my voice whether or not I used to be standing proper in entrance of the laptop computer or strolling across the room, and efficiently canceled out background noise on the identical time.

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Connectivity

Foundry / Mark Knapp

Connectivity is a powerful entrance for the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+. It affords each quick and succesful wired and wi-fi connections. The left fringe of the laptop computer features a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports that may deal with absolutely anything you want, together with DisplayPort output and energy enter. They sit subsequent to an HDMI 2.1 port for high-res video output. The best edge consists of two 5Gbps USB-A ports and a headset jack. An SD card reader would have rounded out issues properly, however there isn’t one.

For wi-fi, the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ helps Wi-Fi 7 and has confirmed quick and steady in testing. Its Bluetooth 6.0 connection has additionally been reliable.

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Efficiency

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ runs on a number of the extra promising laptop computer {hardware} out there to thin-and-light machines with its Intel Core Extremely X9 388H, 32GB of reminiscence, and Intel Arc B390 graphics. However MSI’s efficiency tuning appears to be extra centered on effectivity and funky, quiet operation than sheer efficiency. Even when working full-bore in its Efficiency mode, it doesn’t show very loud or shrill. By default, it runs in Balanced mode, which is even quieter and nonetheless modestly performant.

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ is greater than as much as the duty of on a regular basis workplace operation. It carried out exceptionally properly in PCMark 10’s holistic workplace check, which reveals it clearly can deal with internet looking, video conferencing, doc drafting, spreadsheets, and even some gentle picture and video enhancing. It held up properly to my very own workplace workload, which entails piles of Chrome tabs which are steadily flipped via for analysis and drafting. 

Relating to uncooked CPU efficiency, the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ is sweet, however not benefiting from its {hardware}. In its default Balanced energy mode, it affords sturdy single-core and multi-core efficiency, nevertheless it doesn’t fairly get forward of equally outfitted gadgets just like the Dell XPS 16 or Acer Swift 16 AI.

Dialing as much as Efficiency mode might assist in quick bursts, however even then, it doesn’t meet up with the Acer Swift 16 AI, which additionally ran in Efficiency mode. And although it passes the Dell XPS 16, the Dell may soar up in Efficiency mode to reclaim its lead (995 factors in Cinebench R24 Multi-thread). Even the small MSI Status 14 Flip AI+ can sustain, attaining a comparable 942 factors when switched to Efficiency mode. Surprisingly, none of these methods sustain with the Lenovo Yoga Professional 9 16IAH10 working an earlier Intel Core Extremely 9 285H. That system highlights the advantages of additional cooling, although weighs a heftier 4.52 kilos consequently.

Handbrake helps spotlight the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+’s modest cooling. The check requires the system to render a big video file to a brand new decision. This hits the CPU arduous and generates quite a lot of warmth over the course of the check, finally seeing simply how properly the CPU can maintain efficiency.

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ took the longest of the bunch apart from its smaller sibling, which predictably had a good tougher time wrangling the warmth. Lenovo’s system offers an instance of how a lot faster sturdy cooling could make a activity like this, virtually halving MSI’s time. The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ might need been capable of come nearer to the XPS 16’s time if it swapped to Efficiency mode, however the XPS 16 managed its rating in Balanced mode, as did the Acer Swift Go 16. 

The Arc B390 graphics within the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ maintain up properly, at the least. The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ carried out near the XPS 16 and Acer Swift 16 right here, exhibiting a transparent soar up from the Arc 140T and different earlier Intel built-in graphics choices. It nonetheless doesn’t fairly sustain with even low-end discrete graphics just like the RTX 5050 within the Lenovo Yoga Professional 9 16IAH10, nevertheless it’s additionally extra environment friendly and doesn’t include the burden penalty of discrete graphics like that. 

The temporary efficiency calls for of 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark as seen above don’t paint the total image, although. In repeated testing, the warmth that constructed up would see efficiency sink fairly shortly. The system couldn’t handle the identical scores throughout a 20-run stress check. Whereas the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ ought to nonetheless be good for some gentle gaming, extra demanding video games will possible see framerates dip after only a couple minutes.

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Battery life

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ has the sturdy battery life that latest Intel laptops have been impressing with. The longevity is considerably tempered by the massive display, so the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ didn’t break via to the unimaginable 34.5-hour mark of its smaller sibling, nevertheless it nonetheless did properly. In our offline video playback check, with the show working at 250 nits and headphones related, the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ ran for simply 11 minutes shy of 20 hours. It is a sturdy consequence though it’s not setting any data.

In common use, the battery life is significantly shorter. With Wi-Fi working and a superb pile of tabs open in Chrome, the system typically provides me about 10 hours of runtime protecting that very same 250-nit brightness. That’s been sufficient to make it via my workdays comfortably with out worrying concerning the battery giving out too quickly. Sadly, that 20-hour mark hasn’t confirmed attainable for precise work. 

MSI Status 16 Flip AI+: Conclusion

The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ isn’t good, however has loads going for it. Its smooth and light-weight design for a 16-incher has enchantment for transportable productiveness. The show is attractive and simply pretty much as good for consuming content material as it’s for creating it. The machine additionally affords flexibility with its 2-in-1 design, which a lot of its rivals gained’t match.

Whereas efficiency leaves one thing to be desired subsequent to equally configured rivals, there’s greater than sufficient zip for on a regular basis operation. The MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ is just extra of a brief sprinter. If you happen to’re searching for a creativity and productiveness machine, the MSI Status 16 Flip AI+ is a superb selection. You’ll want to take a look at the far cheaper 14-inch mannequin if dimension isn’t a significant concern.