MSI is a household name that is almost synonymous with gaming. They manufacture everything from headphones to motherboards to graphics cards and everything that can be related to gaming. They even sponsor several esports gaming communities, going as far as hosting one of their own gaming tournament. So, making great gaming laptops just seem obvious, doesn't it?
MSI's gaming laptops are arguably some of the best in the industry. Thanks to their aggressive pricing, killer looks, awesome cooling, and great use of RGB lighting, they basically have a cult following among gamers.
When it was first introduced in 2021, the Katana series was part of the Thin GF series. It has now outgrown GF to be a lineup of its own. The Thin GF series still exists as the base of MSI's gaming laptop hierarchy, as it is meant to be a portable option. Katana, on the other hand, prioritizes performance and, while it is still on the cheaper side, costs more than its GF Thin counterpart.
Thin GF: Thin GF lineup is home to the most affordable gaming laptop that MSI currently makes. As the name suggests, these laptops are designed to offer gaming performance in a thin and light form factor.
Katana Series: Katana laptops get their name from Japanese Samurai warriors. It was designed by Tsuyoshi Nagano to represent blades and armor. Katana laptops are generally more advanced and powerful than Thin GF, although both are meant to be thin-and-light gaming laptops. They are the first to get the latest CPUs and GPUs, along with other gaming features like MUX Switch and 4-zone RGB keyboard.
The Sword series fits into the MSI gaming laptop hierarchy as a step above the Katana series. While it maintains the thin-and-light form factor, you get more advanced features and higher performance making it a suitable choice for those looking for a balance between portability and power. It is among the first to receive the latest CPUs and GPUs and comes with features like MUX Switch, and multi-zone RGB keyboard.
Cyborg Series Laptops
Moving along, the Cyborg series of MSI laptops incorporates a futuristic, mechanized exterior design. This gives them quite a different vibe in the sea of normal-looking laptops. These are powered by Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX series Laptop GPUs. One of the unique features of the Cyborg series is the translucent parts on the keyboard and chassis, which allow you to see through parts of the internals. This series is designed to bring a cyberpunk-style gaming experience.
Coming to the Pulse series, this is where things start getting serious. Unlike the GF series, Pulse focuses solely on performance. The Pulse series is MSI's attempt at bringing the high-end gaming experience to the mainstream audience. These laptops come in 15 and 17-inch variants. However, the former is more readily available in Nepal than the former.
The Vector GP series is among the top-performing laptop series from MSI. These laptops are targeted at engineers, scientists, and STEM users. They are designed for tasks that require high performance along with computational efficiency. Here, you get the latest processors Intel processors, including the high-end "HX" series. Together with NVIDIA's graphics card and MSI's overclocking technologies, they offer unprecedented performance.
MSI GE is a tier above the Vector GP series and caters to gamers that like to tinker with their laptops. The Raider GE has more of the "traditional gaming look" with the aggressive sharp line and RGB lighting.
Usually consisting of slight downgrades in terms of processor, graphics, and others compared to the premium Titan GT series, this one is great for those who seek great performance but don't want to go all-in.
Prestige Series Business Laptops
Next up, we have the MSI Prestige series. These are mainly intended for students, programmers, corporate-level employees, and such. Laptops under the Prestige title are lightweight and can be perfect starter laptops. You can also do lightweight graphics designing on such machines, but that's about it.
The "Modern" series from MSI is another shot at entry-level laptops by the company. It comes with a slightly less powerful processor, graphics, and other compromises to name a few. And like the one above, these are targeted toward students, programmers, general-purpose, and business-class users.
But in some cases, the Modern series even outclasses the costlier Prestige models in terms of connectivity options, battery endurance, and others. For now, MSI Nepal is selling 5 models of Modern laptops in Nepal. You can choose between Intel or AMD CPU. As you'd expect, these are power-efficient processors and, therefore, aren't suitable for heavy-load usage like gaming. But there are also models with H series CPUs.
The new Summit Series by MSI is home to the company’s premium laptops for business and productivity. MSI is well known for its gaming laptop and hardware and now looks to conquer the business laptop segment with the Summit series. Portability and productivity are the two main areas where it excels.
Here, the MSI Summit series is further categorized into the E series and the B series. Both subcategories feature laptops of two screen sizes – 14-inch and 15.6-inch. Still, the E-series is the more advanced of the two as it comes with dedicated graphics cards and TPM 2.0 modules. Also, options for a touch display and 4K resolution are not available in B-series.
Starting off with a good MSI notebook, you can't go wrong with the Modern 15 from 2023. It's got the snappy Raptor Lake processor from Intel alongside integrated Iris GPU for day-to-day graphical needs. The 8GB of RAM does feel like MSI is holding back a little but it should be sufficient for your everyday user like office folks and students. The SSD is also a snappy NVMe one and you get 500GB of space to store documents and data. Finally, although the battery isn't super promising with its 39Wh size, the FHD display shouldn't push too many pixels to be very taxing. Well, the i5 processor also has tons of efficiency cores helping keep you going a bit longer. Overall, it's a good pick among available MSI models in Nepal.
If you want the cream of the crop in the MSI realme, get the Raider GE68 HX with a powerful Core i9 HX CPU with an NVIDIA RTX 4070 running at its full TGP. It's a monster of a machine that will plow through anything you can throw at it and with that comes the hefty price both figurately and literally. The Raider weighs more than 2.7 kilos and costs upwards of 3.4 lakhs. We suggest the Raider to gamers and editors alike who can make use of the powerful hardware. Besides the powerful CPU/GPU, there's a crispy QHD screen running at 240Hz with minimal response times (<10ms) and plenty of storage. Our suggested configuration ships with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 2 TB of Gen 4 SSD.
Although we don't get a lot of new MSI laptops right now, the Cyborg 15 (2024) is one of the options if you want a go at the latest and greatest. It's a gaming laptop with an emphasis on the portability side of things as well. So, along with the sci-fi aesthetics, you get a portable package weighing under 2 kilos. And while most MSI laptops are available with last year's Raptor Lake chips, the Cyborg ships with Intel's newer Meteor Lake Core Ultra 7 based on a newer and more efficient Intel 4 architecture. Since it's a gaming laptop and all, we can't forget about the GPU which is handled by NVIDIA's RTX 4060 be it running only at 45W.
How to Choose an MSI Laptop in Nepal? [Mini-Guide]
MSI is a premium gaming brand, or that's what the impression among people is. However, the company has forayed into different market segments and different price ranges. Although not all models arrive in the Nepali market, it can get a bit tricky to track the available models and choose the one that suits you the best.
All the MSI laptops fall under one of three broad categories— Gaming, Content Creation, and Business and Productivity. Within each category, different lineups cater to different price ranges. Each year, MSI refreshes these lineups with the latest components from Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA. But not all models reach Nepal, and most that do are not very appealing for the price. Hence, choosing the correct MSI laptop for you requires that you find a model that meets your requirements while not burning the bank.
Where to buy MSI laptops in Nepal?
For all Nepali gamers, Ocean Computers Pvt. Ltd. is the authorized distributor of MSI laptops in Nepal. Similarly, Max International Nepal also imports MSI laptops among other brands in Nepal. Their list of laptops includes ultrabooks and RTX-powered gaming laptops, among others. You can buy the MSI laptops listed in this list for their official price in Nepal from Hukut, ITTI, and Zozo Hub.
FAQ
What is the price of MSI laptops in Nepal 2024?
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