MSI Creator A16 AI+ laptop review

Not so long ago if you wanted a performance Windows laptop that could handle serious or image editing, your best bet would have been a gaming laptop. But nowadays there's a growing range of machines aimed specifically at creators: they blend the outright performance of a gaming laptop with more conservative styling. The MSI Creator A16 AI+ is just such a device. It packs a high-performance 12-core AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX 370 processor, a generous 32GB of RAM, and a fast 1TB NVMe SSD. What's more, the dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics processor provides plenty of GPU-accelerated video rendering speed, while still being relatively power-efficient and cost-effective.

As is the way with seemingly all aspects of the tech world now, the Creator A16 is designed with AI firmly in mind. Its full name is the Creator A16 AI+ A3XVFG Copilot+ PC, and as such it ships with Windows 11 and Microsoft Copilot pre-installed, while the laptop itself gets a dedicated keyboard button to launch the AI assistant. That high-end AMD Ryzen 9 CPU has also been developed to make light work of AI-driven workloads.

A laptop aimed at creators needs a decent screen, and the specs of the A16's display look promising. Its 16-inch size is large enough to view reasonably comfortably while, still keeping the laptop easily portable. The IPS LCD panel is rated to display an impressive 100% of the wide-gamut DCI-P3 color space, and is also capable of a fast 240Hz refresh rate. Though the 2560x1600 resolution is some way short of 4K, it's still more than crisp enough for a screen of this size, so you won't see individual pixels at a typical viewing distance. But unlike some creator-focussed laptops, MSI doesn't make any color accuracy claims for the A16's display.

MSI Creator A16 AI+: Specifications

MSI Creator A16 AI+: Design & Handling

The Creator A16 is surprisingly thin and light for such a powerful laptop. It uses a magnesium alloy chassis to help keep weight down to a bearable 2.1kg, while thickness is just 20mm. But although it's not inconveniently heavy or bulky, this is still a machine built for speed not outright portability, so don't expect MacBook Air / Ultrabook PC levels of lightness.

The AC adaptor brick is also quite bulky and heavy, but that's a price you have to pay to power a high-performance laptop. MSI claims the A16 meets the MIL-STD-810H military standard for reliability and durability. While I don't doubt that, and the laptop feels well made, it does squeak/creak when the chassis is flexed even slightly, which detracts from the otherwise premium feel.

One advantage to choosing a slightly larger, performance-orientated laptop over a thin and light, power-efficient model is that you usually get more physical connectivity. However, the A16 is a mixed bag in this respect. While there is a handy pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A ports, along with an HDMI socket (supporting up to 8K at 60Hz) and even an ethernet port, there's only one USB-C connection. Thankfully this is an ultra-fast USB4 revision that also supports DisplayPort, Power Delivery 3.0 and Thunderbolt 4, but a single Type-C port on a laptop of this size and performance just isn't good enough. Thankfully the AC adapter has its own dedicated socket, so doesn't connect to the sole Type C port. This feels robust, but it's almost identical in size and shape to a USB Type-A socket, so expect some fumbling when trying to connect the charger.

Though not marketed at gamers, the A16's keyboard features key-specific RGB backlighting. It can perform animated rainbow lighting effects, which is fun, but obviously not an essential requirement for most creatives. The brightness is easily adjustable though, or can be completely disabled. The size of the laptop also means there's (just) room for a dedicated number pad, albeit one with keys around two thirds normal size. Think of this more like a pocket calculator than a full-size keyboard num pad and it's more acceptable.

MSI Creator A16 AI+: Performance

I found the Creator A16 made light work of all the image editing tasks I threw at it. Even super-high resolution, multi layer stitched panoramas caused very little slowdown, and I was still able to move around and perform typical edits with no noticeable delay. Opening and editing multiple image files was similarly snappy, helped by the lighting-fast SSD.

I also ran several performance benchmarks on the Creator A16: Geekbench and Cinebench to assess general speed, Geekbench AI to determine AI-specific performance, and CrystalDiskMark to test the SSD storage:

Both the Cinebench and Geekbench scores are very respectable. What's more, even during these highly intensive tests, though the Creator A16's fans did spin up to audible levels, the noise was never distracting. You will need to keep the laptop on a hard surface to ensure sufficient cooling though, as the large air intake vent is on the base of the machine, with thick rubber feet maintaining a sufficient gap for airflow.

The 1 terabyte PCIe Gen4 SSD performs very well, and while this is some way off the fastest write speed I've seen from a laptop SSD, it's plenty quick enough to max out even the fastest CFexpress 4.0 memory cards when ingesting images and video from your camera.

I also evaluated the A16's audio quality. The Dynaudio-branded 6-speaker system is claimed to "exceed the highest acoustic expectations". While I appreciate this is obviously overenthusiastic marketing - any device measuring only 20mm thick will never offer audiophile levels of sound quality - I was nonetheless disappointed by the A16's audio performance. Music sounds surprisingly thin, and even when playing electronic music with limited bass (which doesn't tend to expose the limitations of small speaker drivers as much as some music genres) the A16 still delivered relatively weak sound. I compared the A16 alongside a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 15 Aura - a far thinner, lighter laptop which doesn't make such bold claims about sound quality, yet the Yoga delivered substantially richer, more enveloping sound, with better bass.

MSI Creator A16 AI+: Screen quality

A laptop designed for creators needs to have a reliably accurate display that can do justice to your images or video. At first glance the A16's display looks the part. At maximum brightness it's plenty bright enough, while colors are vibrant and contrast is very good. However, to objectively assess a screen's performance you need a specialist device called a colorimeter - more commonly know as a monitor calibrator. Our Datacolor Spyder Pro is also able to measure the image quality of an uncalibrated display, so I can determine if the A16's screen performs in line with its advertised specifications.

Color gamut

MSI claims 100% coverage of the P3 color space. I recorded 97% coverage - not quite as advertised, but not enough of a deviation to be concerning. MSI doesn't state the display's Adobe RGB coverage - I measured 86%, which is a fairly respectable score.

Color accuracy

Some laptops designed for creators feature factory color calibration, so you can be confident the screen will display accurate color right out of the box. There are no such guarantees with the A16, but I measured a Delta-E deviance from perfect color accuracy of 1.48. That's a good result, but it could be better, as I've previously recorded deviances as low as 0.48 from a laptop screen.

Screen uniformity

If color accuracy is good but not great, color uniformity is downright bad. A difference of Delta-E 10.3 between the most and least color-accurate regions of the screen is one of the worst results I've ever recorded. Thankfully if you drop the screen brightness from 100% down to a more comfortable 67%, color uniformity is substantially improved.

However, it doesn't matter how you adjust the screen brightness, luminance (brightness) uniformity across the screen is poor. The lower-right portion of our laptop's display was a whopping 36-37% dimmer than the upper-middle portion. Ordinarily when the colorimeter records brightness uniformity issues, they tend not to be obvious to the naked eye. But in this case, when you display a solid color, the brightness irregularities are easily visible. What's more, in the extreme bottom right of the screen is a strip of obvious backlight bleed, which can be distracting.

The photo below isn't quite an accurate depiction of the backlight irregularities, but it gives you an impression.

Brightness & contrast

A peak brightness of 580 nits and a maximum 1510:1 contrast ratio are both highly commendable scores.

MSI Creator A16 AI+: Verdict

The MSI Creator A16 AI+ A3XVFG promises a lot: high performance, great screen and audio quality, solid build, and comprehensive connectivity. I was impressed by its sheer processing power - it's easily able to handle demanding photo- or video-editing workloads, or even some fairly intensive gaming when work time's over. The generous amount of RAM and high-capacity SSD are also welcome, as is the super-fast USB4/Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. The A16's (relative) thinness and lightness are another bonus for such a high-performance laptop.

But a laptop for creatives needs to be more than just a processing powerhouse, and there are too many key areas where the A16 just doesn't live up to expectations. The most concerning issue is screen quality, where brightness uniformity simply isn't good enough for a premium laptop. Color uniformity is also disappointing when the screen is set to maximum brightness, and general color accuracy, while good, is far from class-leading. When it comes to connectivity, USB4 / Thunderbolt 4 is great, but there's just a single USB-C port that can deliver this performance. Lastly, audio fidelity is surprisingly weak, especially considering the bold claims made about the A16's 6-speaker sound system.

Don't get me wrong, the Creator A16 AI+ isn't a bad laptop. Its problem is that there are plenty of other creator-focussed laptops available for similar money that don't have these shortcomings, making the A16 difficult to recommend.