MSI has unveiled its refreshed line-up of high-end gaming laptops at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, giving visitors insight into the future of notebook design.

A major highlight of the manufacturer’s gaming laptop range was the MSI GS65 Stealth, which features a thin and portable chassis while offering impressive specifications.

The laptop boasts an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card and 8th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, allowing it to easily run the latest games at maximum graphics settings.

MyBroadband spoke to MSI regional marketing manager for the Middle East and Africa, Green Lin, about the manufacturer’s laptop design strategy.

Lin provided insight into the evolution of gaming laptops and outlined what to expect from these high-end notebooks over the next few years.

He also announced that MSI’s new line-up of gaming and professional notebooks would be available in South Africa from February 2019.

Portability and specifications

MSI has focused on building high-end gaming laptops for many years, and Lin said the production of a great gaming notebook depends on more than just specifications.

“We are not just putting a graphics card or a high-end processor into a device,” Lin said. “We focus on the overall experience, including audio, video, and advanced cooling systems to make the system stable.”

“The same concept also applies to our P Series laptops for content creators, because when you create content, you also need a fast and stable system,” he said.

Lin said that many laptop vendors are still trying to define what a gaming laptop is. Some just focus on the high-end specifications, but MSI believes the overall experience of the device is most important.

This includes the portability and physical design of the laptop, and Lin said Nvidia’s Max-Q technology has aided in the production of gaming notebooks which are both portable and powerful.

“Following the integration of Nvidia’s Max-Q design, we are beginning to focus more on thin and light gaming notebooks which retain the high-end specifications and experience synonymous with our gaming laptop range,” he said.

Design

Lin said the physical design of gaming laptops is constantly evolving and becoming increasingly important.

“Lighter and more portable gaming laptops will definitely be more common in the next few years. The trend is moving away from bigger and bulkier gaming laptops to sleeker, more portable designs.”

MSI also predicted that 4K displays will become increasingly common in laptops – and due to the increased computing power of the devices, panel vendors will have a greater incentive to produce 4K panels for gaming laptops.

“Our P65 Creator device already has a 4K HDR display panel, and we will see these displays becoming more common on both gaming and professional laptops in the coming years,” Lin said.

Growing demand

MSI said it holds the top spot in the gaming laptop market, which is continuing to grow as users drop desktop PCs for more portable devices.

“When we first started to launch gaming laptops years ago, our overseas vendors did not predict a big market for gaming devices,” Lin said.

“We began shipping gaming laptops in high volumes, however, and there is definitely a growing demand for high-end gaming notebooks worldwide.”

From a market strategy perspective, Lin said MSI is strongly established in the gaming laptop market – especially on high-end models.

“Going forward, we want to focus on more mainstream products in addition to our gaming range, and this is where the content creation range fits into our strategy.”

He added that gaming laptops are taking market share from desktop PCs, and the quantity of laptops shipped has been higher than desktops for at least three years.

From a gaming perspective, this is largely due to the fact that laptops are now capable of running games at high frame rates on maximum settings, eliminating the need to buy a desktop PC.

Jamie McKane is reporting from CES 2019 in Las Vegas