MSI Thin | RTX 4060 | Ryzen 9 8945HS | 15.6-inch | 1080p | 144 Hz | 1 TB SSD | 16 GB RAM | $1,199.99 $739.99 after rebate at Newegg (save $460)
It's all here: an RTX 4060, 1 TB storage, and a lovely Ryzen 9 processor. The 1080p IPS with a 144 Hz refresh rate is a good fit, too. And all for a very appealing price. Though you do have to file a rebate to get this one down to the full discount, so make sure you definitely do that. Otherwise there are RTX 4070 laptops for less. Plus the chassis is pretty chunky, but that's to be expected at this price point.
We've seen a handful of pretty tempting gaming laptop and gaming PC deals over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but I reckon this one is about the best we've seen for an entry into laptop gaming. It's one that I'd actually purchase myself.
In fact, in my own case, I'd probably pick this above some great value higher end laptops. That's because I think this MSI Thin for $740 at Newegg (after rebate) knows exactly what's most wanted out of a gaming laptop: 1080p gaming horsepower. That it has the ability to crunch through some productivity work if needed is a nice bonus, too, of course.
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For prices that would more suit an RTX 4050 laptop you're getting something surprisingly powerful. Just remember to actually apply the rebate, because without it there are better options.
Here are the full specs:
GPU | RTX 4060 mobile (8 GB) |
CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS (8-core, 16-thread) |
RAM | 16 GB DDR5-5600 |
SSD | 1 TB NVMe Gen4x4 |
Screen | 15.6-inch, 144 Hz, 1080p, IPS |
USB ports | 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C w/ DP1.4, 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A |
Battery | 52.4 Whr |
Remember we're not dealing with a gaming PC, here, and 1080p is very well suited to a 15.6-inch screen. At that screen size, 1920 x 1080 looks pretty sharp. That's why I'd probably opt for this rather than a more powerful laptop, personally, because I have my gaming PC for 1440p gaming and 1080p is fine for laptops.
This is why it's not so terrible that mobile GPUs are usually lower-tier than their desktop counterparts. Except, in the case of the RTX 4060 mobile such as the one in this laptop, it uses the same AD107 GPU as the desktop RTX 4060—albeit with a little less memory bandwidth and a likely lower power limit.
Anyway, what all this means is that although the 4060 mobile isn't the most powerful GPU on the market, it's perfectly fine for 1080p gaming, especially considering tons of games allow you to enable DLSS 3 frame generation these days.
I tried an RTX 4060 in the HP Omen Transcend 14 and found it to be great for gaming at 1080p, even at a high refresh rate (120 Hz on the Transcend, 144 Hz on this MSI laptop). We're talking about 100 fps in good-looking games such as Metro: Exodus with DLSS enabled, and higher than this in esports titles such as Overwatch 2. In other words, an RTX 4060 1080p laptop covers both competitive and casual gaming use cases pretty comprehensively.
So much for graphics and gaming. But don't worry about the other departments, either, because the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS inside this thing is a beast. It's the same CPU found inside the Zephyrus G14 that we tested, which is an incredibly premium laptop. The processor is more than capable of churning through heavy productivity and creative workloads.
So what gives? How's it so cheap?
Well, for one, the 52.4 Whr batter is nothing to write home about. I'd love to see 70+ Whrs even on an RTX 4060 laptop, but I suppose 52 is doable. Just don't expect to be gaming with it unplugged for hours on end.
That, and the screen doesn't look to be particularly amazing. It looks like your bog-standard speed-over-vibrancy deal, which seems to be confirmed in various reviews of the MSI Thin online. But that doesn't mean it'll be washed out to the extent of cheap laptops circa 10+ years ago—things have improved since then, at least.
Overall, though, it's the price after rebate that sells this $740 bargain. That's well into RTX 4050 laptop territory, and certainly territory far below where we'd usually see a CPU as amazing as the 8945HS. Just remember to actually apply for that rebate, otherwise it's all for nought.
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Jacob got his hands on a gaming PC for the first time when he was about 12 years old. He swiftly realised the local PC repair store had ripped him off with his build and vowed never to let another soul build his rig again. With this vow, Jacob the hardware junkie was born. Since then, Jacob's led a double-life as part-hardware geek, part-philosophy nerd, first working as a Hardware Writer for PCGamesN in 2020, then working towards a PhD in Philosophy for a few years (result pending a patiently awaited viva exam) while freelancing on the side for sites such as TechRadar, Pocket-lint, and yours truly, PC Gamer. Eventually, he gave up the ruthless mercenary life to join the world's #1 PC Gaming site full-time. It's definitely not an ego thing, he assures us.
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