MSI Creator M16 Review: Performance Powerhouse with a Few Caveats

The MSI Creator M16 might not charm with its aesthetics or inventive design, yet its prowess lies in the caliber of its configuration and user experience. Initially, we anticipated a price exceeding $1,500 for a machine armed with an RTX 4060, Core i7-13620H, 32GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Surprisingly, this laptop only costs $1,349, a steal for what it offers.

This device’s original price, hovering around $1,600 sans discounts, hints at its substantial allure, primarily owing to its impressive configuration. Moreover, its screen mirrors its name’s prestige, providing ample capability for video and image editing and various personal projects. Want to know more? Dive into our MSI Creator M16 review below.

MSI Creator M16 Review

Design

The MSI Creator M16 falls short in terms of creative design appreciation. When labeling a laptop as “creative,” its appearance should ideally invoke excitement or inspiration among users—a characteristic lacking in the Creator M16.

Rather than being conventionally beautiful, this laptop boasts a bold, masculine allure owing to its striking black hue. Admiring its Aside from a distance reveals MSI’s consistent maintenance of this design, which remains striking over the years.

The issue lies in its resemblance to gaming laptops like the MSI Katana or MSI Cyborg lines. For a creator-centric laptop, we anticipate more—a dash of creativity, perhaps an RGB LED for the keyboard instead of the mundane white LED.

Regrettably, the Creator M16 lacks critical ports like an SD card slot and Thunderbolt 4, essential for creative users.

However, it compensates with a robust build, exhibiting minimal bending or flex during typing. While predominantly plastic, the device’s A side flaunts a metallic finish, etched with a cool yet fingerprint-prone engraved logo. MSI ensured the Creator M16’s accessibility for upgrades, repairs, and component replacements, fostering efficient heat dissipation. It supports upgrades up to 64GB RAM and a 2TB SSD.

The D side of the Creator M16 exposes the heat pipes and two radiator fans, an optimal design for effective heat dissipation.

Display

The Creator M16’s screen isn’t tailored for Esports gaming, but it excels in professional work settings. Boasting a 100% DCI-P3 spectrum (97% sRGB and 78% AdobeRGB), a 2560 x 1600 resolution, and a 16:10 aspect ratio across its 16-inch size, this display caters remarkably to creators. With a color deviation (Delta E) of less than 2, complemented by commendable contrast, gamma, and brightness levels, it’s an optimal choice for content creation.

The slim borders, notably thinner at the bottom, enhance the visual appeal of this laptop’s screen. Its 16:10 ratio not only adds to its aesthetic allure but also expands the workspace, proving beneficial for creative software like Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Blender.

However, the 60Hz refresh rate presents a drawback, especially for someone accustomed to higher refresh rates. While creative tasks might not demand such speeds, software like Premiere Pro benefits noticeably from a 90Hz or 120Hz screen, offering smoother mouse movements and color dragging.

Regarding gaming, the 60Hz screen limits Esports enjoyment but handles AAA games like RDR 2, GTA V, Alan Wake II, and Cyberpunk with ease.

Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard boasts a full-size layout with a row of number keys, ideal for typing. However, a detail that irks us is the compact and closely situated keycaps on these numbers, creating a cramped space on the right side. This arrangement often led us to inadvertently hit the up arrow, right arrow, 0 key, and Enter key.

Beneath, the touchpad is encased in plastic, resulting in a slightly squeaky feel while navigating. Despite this, its tracking capabilities are commendable, supplemented by an additional fingerprint sensor for screen unlocking. The inclusion of biometric security on creator laptops while gaming laptops lack it remains a puzzling aspect to us.

MSI Creator M16 review test

The MSI Creator M16 caters primarily to content creators at a basic or semi-professional level, smoothly handling various testing tasks owing to its configuration.

When using software like Blender, Lightroom, or Photoshop, popular among designers, tasks such as rendering, opening multi-layer PSD files, and exporting images—like 50 RAW GFX100 files—prove manageable on the Creator M16. Despite reaching GPU temperatures of approximately 80 degrees Celsius and slightly higher CPU temperatures at around 90 degrees, the fan operates quite noisily, a common trait in high-configuration laptops. The GPU draws about 100W of power, while the CPU consumes around 80W.

Comparing this device to similar configurations like the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 8, Acer Predator Helios Neo 16, Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 2023, and Asus ROG Flow X16 2023, it becomes evident that the RTX 4060, with its increased VRAM, CUDA cores, and wider bus width, outperforms the RTX 4050. Despite sharing a TGP level of up to 140W, the RTX 4060 surpasses last year’s RTX 3050Ti by a significant margin.

Regarding the Core i7-13620H, it’s a robust CPU line boasting 10 cores, including 6 P cores and 4 E cores, with a turbo clock reaching 4.9GHz and a default TDP of 45W. Its multi-core capabilities prove advantageous, particularly when handling multiple windows or layers in software like Photoshop. Intel’s 13th Gen CPU enhances the Thread Director feature, enabling automatic processing tailored to user tasks.

The MSI Center software offers diverse performance modes, including automatic (Smart Auto) or adjusted modes, along with MUX Switch support and NVIDIA Advanced Optimus for optimized gaming performance. While peak performance inevitably triggers noisy fans, transitioning to balanced or power-saving modes introduces noticeable lag, especially with the MSI Creator M16. In such modes, the CPU consumes about 50W and the GPU around 70W, as verified by Hwinfo64.

Given the choice, opting for Performance mode ensures optimal device performance, albeit with the trade-off of using a headset for a quieter working experience.

Battery

The MSI Creator M16’s battery life falls short as well, housing a 52Whr capacity that lasts roughly 3 hours under continuous usage—web surfing and typing at 75% brightness. This duration stands as average and mirrors a common challenge among high-performance Windows laptops, addressing not only usage duration but also performance.

For an optimal experience, relying on the charger remains the current solution if you seek the best performance from the device.

Final line

MSI Creator M16 excels notably in performance and screen quality. While these aspects stand out, there remain several areas where MSI could enhance the next iteration. Improvements in design aesthetics for a more captivating and inspiring look, along with enhancements in the keyboard, touchpad, speaker system, and connection ports, stand as notable areas for potential growth.

Price and availability

The specific MSI Creator M16 review unit, equipped with a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13620H (10-Core), GeForce RTX 4060, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD, is priced at $1,349.99 on Amazon.com. Meanwhile, the top-tier model, featuring 64GB DDR5 RAM and a 2TB SSD, is available for $1,699.99.