The earlier MSI Status 16 AI Evo arrived in late 2023 and remained one in every of our favourite Mac rivals by way of 2024. One among Intel’s first AI PCs, the Status 16, was an early success story for Intel’s Core Extremely 100 sequence household.With the discharge of Intel’s new Arrow Lake-H cellular chipsets, MSI has a brand new model of the Status 16, which presents even higher battery life and efficiency than the 2023 mannequin. Paired with a vibrant, vivid show, satisfying keyboard, and strong graphics efficiency, the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) is a worthy overhaul.Nevertheless, I am upset in MSI’s design selections for the 2025 chassis, which makes the laptop computer really feel flimsy regardless of its magnesium case. MSI additionally put each Thunderbolt 4 ports and the one USB Sort-A port on the again of the 16-inch chassis, which places lots of the most used ports in essentially the most inaccessible location.However are the ability and battery life enhancements sufficient to assist the MSI Status 16 AI Evo snag a spot on our greatest AI PCs record? Or maybe our greatest enterprise laptops web page?Sadly, the Status 16 AI Evo doesn’t have an MSRP at press time, so we’re unable to attain this overview. We’ll replace this hands-on to a completely scored overview as soon as pricing is accessible.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) Specs and benchmarksSwipe to scroll horizontallyPrice:TBACPU:Intel Core Extremely 9 285HGPU:Intel Arc 140TRAM:32GBStorage:1TB SSDDisplay:16-inch, 2560 x 1600, IPSBattery (HH:MM):15:20Dimensions:14.11 x 10.01 x 0.66-0.74 inchesWeight:3.41 poundsClick to view full benchmark take a look at resultsSwipe to scroll horizontallyLaptop benchmarks (Use sprinkles software to repeat HTML and paste it right here)Header Cell – Column 0 MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM)Geekbench 6 (Increased is healthier)17,385Handbrake conversion (Decrease is healthier)04:1225GB File Switch Check (Decrease is healthier)14.7125GB File Switch Check (SSD pace)1,825Blackmagic Disk Pace Check: Learn (Increased is healthier)4,365.3Blackmagic Disk Pace Check: Write (HIgher is healthier)4,765.4Heat (Levels Fahrenheit)101.5Battery life (Increased is healthier)15:20Display brightness (Increased is healthier)418sRGB coloration gamut (Increased is healthier)163.1percentDCI-P3 coloration gamut (Increased is healthier)115.6percentColor accuracy (Decrease is healthier)0.33DMark Hearth Strike (Increased is healthier)8,6883DMark Time Spy (Increased is healthier)4,610Borderlands 3 (1080p, fps)31.67Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, fps)28Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (1080p, fps)57.79MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): Value and configurationsMSI lists a number of configurations for the Status 16 AI Evo, with the beginning mannequin that includes an Intel Core Extremely 7 255H (Arrow Lake) processor, Intel Arc built-in graphics, and a 16-inch, 3840 x 2400 OLED display screen.Our overview mannequin was a higher-end spec with an Intel Core Extremely 9 285H processor, Intel Arc 140T built-in graphics, 32GB of reminiscence, 1TB of SSD storage, and a 16-inch, 2560 x 1600 IPS show.MSI has not revealed pricing for any fashions of the Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) as of press time.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): DesignThe MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer is open on a wood desk angled away to indicate its lid. (Picture credit score: Future)The magnesium chassis on the Status 16 AI Evo is a nondescript “Stellar Gray,” which is an understated coloration supreme for skilled customers. It’s an ideal selection for a laptop computer that’s designed to mix in with solely MSI’s minimalist enterprise brand on the highest cowl in a shiny chrome inlay so as to add a bit extra curiosity to the clamshell lid.The Status 16’s design hasn’t modified an excessive amount of from the 2023 mannequin, as MSI saved the port array and off-center touchpad from the unique mannequin with the identical magnesium chassis. My solely difficulty with the design is the construct high quality. Whereas the Status 16 has a minimalist magnesium chassis, it’s too thick to really feel as a lot give within the physique as I do whereas carrying the Status round. Whereas not an enormous difficulty, it makes the Status really feel much less premium than a few of its rivals.The Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) measures 14.11 x 10.01 x 0.66-0.74 inches and weighs 3.3-3.4 kilos, relying in your configuration. Our Intel Core Extremely 9 mannequin did have a thicker chassis, nevertheless, it is nonetheless fairly gentle, even when in comparison with some thinner rivals:MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): PortsImage 1 of 3A close-up picture of the left-side ports on the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer.(Picture credit score: Future)A detailed-up of the rear ports on the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer.(Picture credit score: Future)A detailed-up of the right-side ports on the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer.(Picture credit score: Future)It might be powerful to expire of ports on the Status 16 except you’ve gotten an extremely port-hungry workstation setup. The Status 16 AI Evo options:2x Thunderbolt 4 (with energy supply, DisplayPort 1.4)1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Sort-A1x HDMI 2.11x RJ45 ethernet port1x Audio combo jack1x SD card reader1x Kensington lock slotHowever, the 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, USB Sort-A port, and HDMI port are all on the again of the laptop computer. So, in case you do determine to select up the Status 16, we suggest investing in top-of-the-line laptop computer docking stations or USB-C hubs so that you aren’t continually reaching across the again of the Status to vary out an adjunct or two.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): Battery lifeThe Status options an Intel Core Extremely 9 285H Arrow Lake processor, which is extra highly effective than its Lunar Lake counterpart, however the Status nonetheless has a formidable diploma of energy effectivity from its Intel CPU and 99Whr (watt-hour) battery combo.I used to be capable of undergo a full workday on the Status with its show set to max brightness, with not less than 10 Chrome tabs open, and Photoshop operating within the background, and nonetheless have an honest chunk of battery life left on the finish of the day. Whereas I wouldn’t have the ability to go two full work days on a single cost, I wasn’t nervous about discovering an outlet midway by way of the day. Whereas I wasn’t capable of personally take a look at the Status out on a flight, I can’t see any cause why I’d be nervous about operating out of battery whereas engaged on a flight between New York and California.MSI isn’t setting any battery life data with the Status 16 AI Evo, but it surely did final a formidable 15 hours and 20 minutes on the Laptop computer Magazine battery take a look at. That is nearly two full hours extra battery life than the 2023 Intel Meteor Lake model of the Status 16, and it’s greater than sufficient to get you thru an extra time shift fully unplugged.Click on to view chart information in desk formatSwipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0 MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM)MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B1MG)HP EliteBook Extremely G1qAsus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606)Apple MacBook Professional 16 (M4 Professional, 2024)Battery life (Increased is healthier)15:2013:0416:2211:3520:46MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): Safety and durabilitySecurity is usually some of the necessary components when contemplating a enterprise laptop computer. And MSI has not skimped on the safety of the Status 16. The Status incorporates a fingerprint scanner, a webcam shutter, a discrete trusted platform module (TPM) 2.0 safety chip, a firmware trusted platform module 2.0, and a Kensington lock slot.MSI additionally presents safe sign-in through Home windows Hey for an added layer of safety to your information, and you should utilize the proximity sensors for Sensible Guard to maintain your information non-public to your eyes solely.And in case you’re extra nervous about sturdiness, the Status 16 has been examined to resist extraordinarily excessive and low temperatures, low-pressure environments, shock, mud, and moisture to satisfy the MIL-STD-810H requirements.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): DisplayThe MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer is open on a wood desk, taking part in a film trailer. (Picture credit score: Future)Our Status 16 overview unit incorporates a 16-inch, 2560 x 1600, shiny IPS show panel. The intense, vibrant IPS panel made even the tasteless trailer for the upcoming MCU flick The Unbelievable 4: First Steps look nearly watchable.Whereas the trailer is shot with an deliberately muted coloration palette, there’s nonetheless a variety of seize variance within the lighting when watching the trailer on the Status’s slick show. The sheer variety of shades of beige the Status captures within the Sixties-style trailer is spectacular. Sadly, not even the Status could make the terrible CGI used for Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s The Factor look any much less like dangerous AI.In our lab checks, the Status 16 measured 115.6% protection of the DCI-P3 coloration gamut with a peak common brightness of 418 nits. So it’s a vibrant, vibrant panel that shouldn’t have an excessive amount of difficulty with glare.Click on to view chart information in desk format.Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0 MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM)MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B1MG)HP EliteBook Extremely G1qAsus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606)Apple MacBook Professional 16 (M4 Professional, 2024)Show brightness (Increased is healthier)418368321357565sRGB coloration gamut (Increased is healthier)163.1percent194.7percent119.6percent112.6percent115.0percentDCI-P3 coloration gamut (Increased is healthier)115.6percent137.9percent84.7percent79.7percent81.4percentColor accuracy (Decrease is healthier)0.30.170.220.230.27MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): Keyboard and touchpadAn angled close-up exhibits the keyboard of the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer on a wood desk. (Picture credit score: Future)We liked the chicklet keyboard on the Status 16 after we reviewed the Meteor Lake model in 2023, and MSI has saved the keyboard comparatively unchanged. It nonetheless has a satisfying bounce and strong spacing between every key and nonetheless incorporates a numeric pad.On the 10fastfingers.com Superior typing take a look at, I averaged 86 phrases per minute (WPM) on the Status 16, which is just under the 88WPM common I keep on my MacBook Professional 14.Having the touchpad centered under the spacebar is smart from a design perspective, but it surely does take some getting used to as a result of the entire keyboard is shifted a bit to the left to suit the numpad. Fortunately, the touchpad is giant sufficient to compensate for the educational curve, and it’s acquired a silky clean floor that feels improbable beneath your fingers.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): AudioBusiness laptops aren’t precisely recognized for having stellar audio high quality, however with the rise of digital conferences, having good audio system on a enterprise laptop computer is extra obligatory than ever. The Status 16 AI Evo has bottom-firing audio system which does imply you aren’t going to get the identical high quality as you’ll from top-firing audio system, however the dual-speaker system will get a reasonably strong quantity of quantity.I put the Status’s audio system to the take a look at with some traditional German industrial steel, blasting Rammstein’s “Radio” at full quantity. Whereas there’s a little bit of additional distortion from the audio system being embedded in a laptop computer chassis, Til Lindemann’s vocals had been crisp, and the bass didn’t get misplaced within the background. The Status was additionally capable of absolutely fill a big room with sound, so that you shouldn’t have any hassle listening to your coworkers on a video name.However whereas the Status’s audio system pack strong high quality and spectacular quantity, we’d nonetheless suggest a set of the very best headphones to maintain the peace with everybody who sits close to you on the workplace.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): Efficiency and heatA close-up of the Intel Core Extremely 9 and Intel Arc Graphics badges on the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer. (Picture credit score: Future)MSI has loaded the Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) with an Intel Arrow Lake H-series processor, which presents higher efficiency and energy effectivity over the earlier Meteor Lake era. Our overview mannequin featured an Intel Core Extremely 9 285H chipset, so I had excessive expectations for the Status’s efficiency.I dealt with my day-to-day work with ease because of the Status, which included 20 analysis Chrome tabs, Photoshop, YouTube movies, and video games operating and downloading within the background. That efficiency was fairly constant, with solely a minor drop when on battery energy. So, it’s straightforward to juggle emails, spreadsheets, video conferences, and inventive functions with out hitting any bottlenecks.In our lab benchmarks, the Status 16 AI Evo provided efficiency that was effectively above its AMD and Qualcomm competitors, providing a Geekbench 6.3 multicore rating of 17,385. Intel claims as much as 20% enhance in multicore efficiency with the Intel Core Extremely 200H sequence in comparison with the earlier era. Our 2023 Status 16 unit did characteristic an Intel Core Extremely 7 155H processor, so we noticed beneficial properties of nearer to 30% era to era, however the Core Extremely 9 has the next turbo frequency than the Core Extremely 7 155H, which accounts for a few of the 30% enhance.The Status 16 was additionally simply 31% behind the Apple MacBook Professional 16 (M4 Professional, 2024), and 15% forward of the Apple MacBook Professional 14 (M4, 2024). So the Status 16 packs some critical energy.Click on to view chart information in desk format.Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0 MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM)MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B1MG)HP EliteBook Extremely G1qAsus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606)Apple MacBook Professional 16 (M4 Professional, 2024)Geekbench 6 (Increased is healthier)17,38513,31012,71713,28222,822Handbrake conversion (Decrease is healthier)04:125:276:405:092:3825GB File Switch Check (Decrease is healthier)14.7119.237.729.55Row 2 – Cell 5 25GB File Switch Check (SSD pace)1,8251,400721908Row 3 – Cell 5 Blackmagic Disk Pace Check: Learn (Increased is healthier)4,365.3Row 4 – Cell 2 4,398.23,207.05,353.7Blackmagic Disk Pace Check: Write (HIgher is healthier)4,765.4Row 5 – Cell 2 4,329.12,977.56,640.5Heat (Levels Fahrenheit)101.5104.5112.0105.590.5MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): Gaming and graphicsA close-up of the Minimalist MSI brand on the highest lid of the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer. (Picture credit score: Future)The Status is a mainstream enterprise laptop computer, not a gaming machine. But it surely does have sufficient graphic energy to deal with some informal gaming if you might want to unwind after an extended day of conferences and convention calls.As the kind of particular person described as an MMO hermit, I worth respectable gaming efficiency on any laptop computer as a result of I do know my very own weaknesses. I booted up my MMO of selection, Ultimate Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, to place the Status to the take a look at in opposition to my each day gaming habits, together with a 24-player raid, and the Status holds its personal in opposition to the display-melting boss and magic-user skill results. Set to 1080p on the Customary (Laptop computer) graphics preset, the Status maintained a strong 50-60 frames per second with out difficulty.In fact, most enterprise customers will stress the Status’s iGPU with AI options or graphics rendering quite than gaming. The Status generated text-to-image prompts in Photoshop and Intel AI Playground inside seconds.Click on to view chart information in desk format.Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0 MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM)MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B1MG)HP EliteBook Extremely G1qAsus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606)Apple MacBook Professional 16 (M4 Professional, 2024)3DMark Hearth Strike (Increased is healthier)8,6888,1925,3347,468Row 0 – Cell 5 3DMark Time Spy (Increased is healthier)4,6103,8571,8073,728Row 1 – Cell 5 Borderlands 3 (1080p, fps)31.67Row 2 – Cell 2 Row 2 – Cell 3 31.942.8Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, fps)28Row 3 – Cell 2 Row 3 – Cell 3 2779Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (1080p, fps)57.7965.6820.0763.2198.36MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): AI featuresMSI opted for Intel’s Arrow Lake-H chipset for the Status 16, so it does characteristic an Intel AI Increase NPU, although the Neural Processor on Arrow Lake is way smaller than its Lunar Lake counterpart. Due to that, the Status doesn’t make the minimize for Microsoft’s Copilot+ score. Nevertheless, you do nonetheless get some Home windows Copilot AI options like primary Home windows Studio Results, together with background results like background blur.The Status does get some AI options in MSI Heart; you additionally get a number of AI {hardware} optimization options like Clever modes like Clever Assembly, Clever Leisure, and Clever Work to raised optimize your efficiency and effectivity settings to get the very best out of your MSI laptop computer. However MSI Heart S on the Summit 13 additionally presents further AI options like AI Noise Cancellation, Sensible Brightness, and Studio Results for the built-in webcam and microphone.Because the Status has an Intel AI PC chipset onboard, it additionally will get entry to Intel’s open-source AI platform, Intel AI Playground, which helps you to use Intel’s AI fashions, import your individual LLM fashions, or set up ComfyUI and Llama on set up.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): WebcamA close-up of the webcam on the MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) enterprise laptop computer. (Picture credit score: Future)The Status 16 AI Evo sports activities an FHD IR webcam that’s adequate for internet calls and digital conferences, however it’s extra of a safety and necessity characteristic than a high-end webcam. The uncooked digicam feed presents respectable coloration constancy with out a lot coloration bleed, even with my blue hair. It merely suffers from a little bit of graininess, notably at full-screen.In the event you plan to make use of the laptop computer for video calls or displays often, we suggest utilizing one in every of our greatest webcams as an alternative.MSI Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM): Software program and warrantyThe Status ships with Home windows 11 Dwelling or Home windows 11 Professional, relying in your spec, which incorporates normal Microsoft functions like Copilot, Microsoft 365, Home windows Media Participant, OneNote, and Microsoft Groups. The Summit additionally comes with Intel functions like Intel Graphics Command Heart, the Killer Efficiency Driver Suite, and Killer Intelligence Heart.You additionally get the MSI Heart S pre-installed as effectively so you possibly can customise your efficiency settings, monitor your {hardware} utilization, and allow AI options like “Sensible Display screen” settings. Whereas this isn’t a clear Home windows 11 Professional set up, MSI doesn’t load numerous proprietary software program to the Status, so that you don’t want to fret about bloatware.MSI has coated the Status with a 3-year restricted guarantee, together with a 1-year World guarantee.Backside lineThe Status 16 AI Evo (B1MG) in 2023 was an instantaneous favourite of the Laptop computer Magazine employees. The Arrow Lake-H processor replace provides further efficiency, gaming potential, and battery life worth to an already nice bundle.In the end the 2025 model of the Status 16 AI Evo (B2HM) is a strong {hardware} refresh. Sadly, it nonetheless retains a few of the design flaws of the earlier mannequin, as it’s constructed on the identical chassis, with the identical keyboard, and off-center touchpad. So long as MSI retains the same pricing scheme, the Status 16 (B2HM) will as soon as once more be an unimaginable worth.