What MSI Unveiled at CES 2026: A VGTimes Report from Las Vegas (Part 1)

Right now, the Consumer Electronics Show is taking place in Las Vegas — the largest exhibition of technological innovations and new products of the year. Traditionally, CES brings together leading manufacturers of computer hardware and gaming devices, including the Taiwanese giant MSI. As part of the event, company representative Andy Chu conducted a presentation for us, showcasing the devices MSI will release this year. We divided the report into two parts: the first focuses on laptops for business and productivity, while the second will cover more specialized gadgets for gamers.

Upon entering MSI’s exhibition area at CES 2026, the first things you see are the refreshed premium laptops from the Prestige series, along with a new entry-level model, the Modern S.

All of these devices share several key features. First, build quality has been significantly improved. The new Prestige 14 AI+ and Prestige 16 AI+ use a fully aluminum chassis, which provides a higher overall level of construction quality. Second, the devices have become thinner and lighter compared to the previous generation. The minimum thickness of the new Prestige 14 and 16 is just 11.6 mm. At the same time, the 16-inch model weighs around 1.59 kg, while the 14-inch version comes in at approximately 1.32 kg — nearly 20% lighter than the previous generation.

It is encouraging that this high level of build quality has also been achieved for the more affordable Modern S lineup:

Andy Chu also spent time discussing the laptops in a disassembled state, demonstrating the materials used in the Prestige models. These include anodized aluminum, which provides excellent rigidity and tactile feel. At the same time, this aluminum alloy is heavier than the magnesium-aluminum alloy used in some previous models. To keep the weight down, MSI engineers redesigned the cooling system and the motherboard, reducing their overall dimensions, and also switched to OLED displays. Such panels are roughly 50% lighter than LCD screens of the same size, which helps keep overall weight low.

Notably, MSI is one of the few OEM manufacturers at CES this year to conduct full live demos of laptops for exhibition visitors. The company is showcasing ProMio on Prestige systems — AI-powered features from CyberLink aimed at rapid creation of marketing content. The idea behind ProMio is that it can automatically cut out objects and people from images, replace or generate backgrounds, and work with ready-made templates for banners, stories, posters, and product cards. Content can be quickly adapted to different formats and social media requirements, making ProMio a convenient solution for small businesses.

All new Prestige models are powered by the latest Intel Panther Lake processors — chips from the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 lineup. Intel officially unveiled Panther Lake at CES, placing the main emphasis on improved energy efficiency compared to the previous Lunar Lake generation, as well as a significant boost in integrated graphics performance. The iGPU supports up to 12 Xe3 cores, delivering a noticeably higher level of performance than earlier integrated solutions.

Intel also introduced a new naming scheme: the presence of the letter “X” in the processor name (for example, Core Ultra X9) indicates the use of the full integrated graphics configuration.

The touchpad in the new Prestige models has become 53% larger than in the previous generation. In addition, MSI has implemented the so-called Action Touchpad — a touch-sensitive panel with integrated controls, such as volume and brightness adjustment along the edges of the touchpad. All of these features can be enabled or disabled via the proprietary MSI Center utility.

Another unique feature of the new Prestige lineup is the convertible Prestige Flip version, which can be transformed into a tablet. For this model, MSI completely redesigned the stylus storage system.

The bottom cover includes a dedicated slot with mechanical locking and magnetic retention, ensuring that the MSI Nano Pen is securely stored while also charging at the same time.

The stylus also supports Copilot features: when connected via Bluetooth, it is recognized as a microphone and allows push-to-talk functionality. The stylus is included free of charge with all Prestige Flip models. If a user already owns an MPP-compatible stylus (Microsoft Pen Protocol), it is also compatible with the new Prestige devices.

In addition, Andy Chu showcased an updated version of the Prestige 13 — the lightest device in this laptop family. The new model almost completely retains the design of the previous version but weighs even less.

At the same time, MSI is usually fairly conservative in its stated specifications, so in reality the weight is closer to around 870–880 g. According to the manufacturer, this makes it not just one of the lightest, but the lightest 13-inch laptop on the market.

In addition to a thinner chassis, Prestige 13 users also get the new Panther Lake platform and more USB ports. Previously, there were two Thunderbolt 4 ports and one USB Type-A; now the laptop offers 2 USB-A and 2 USB-C ports.

Read the continuation of our report in a separate article dedicated to MSI’s new gaming laptops.

Article by Rodion Ilin and Fazil Dzhyndzholiia.

VGTimes has been operating since 2011 and during this time has attended dozens of exhibitions and festivals where our journalists gathered numerous exclusive materials. For example, in 2019 we attended a closed Cyberpunk 2077 showing at gamescom, in 2017 we prepared a photo report from WG Fest, in 2020 we were at Central Asia's largest gaming event CAGS, and we also visited "IgroMir" several times, where we saw Hideo Kojima and other famous developers. Last year, we traveled to the land of the rising sun for TGS 2024, where we were amazed by the scale of the event. And this year we saw with our own eyes one of Asia's major gaming exhibitions — ChinaJoy in Shanghai and gamescom asia in Bangkok.