Lesser-known MSI Venture 16 office laptop offers only the bare minimum features

The MSI Venture 16 AI is now shipping starting at roughly $1000 for the IPS configuration with the Core Ultra 7 255H CPU. The model comes in several hundred dollars cheaper than the Prestige 16 which is MSI's flagship office model complete with more physical features and a thinner, sleeker design. So, what does the Venture 16 sacrifice in order to meet the more attractive price point?

As shown by our recent review of the model, the Venture 16 shaves off a handful of luxuries including integrated IR, support for secondary SSDs, and multiple USB-C ports. It even still ships with a barrel-type AC adapter whereas the vast majority of laptops with no dedicated GPUs have already moved on to USB-C charging.

Perhaps the most notable drawbacks to the model is its base 1200p IPS touchscreen which covers only ~60% of sRGB colors and a somewhat heavy weight. Users who do a lot of video or graphics editing would have to upgrade to the higher resolution OLED configuration for fuller DCI-P3 colors.

It's not all bad, of course, as the Venture 16 still carries some notable bright spots. Its relatively thick profile, for example, allows for easier servicing and upgradeable RAM the latter of which is becoming more uncommon. Core temperatures are cooler than average while the Core-H CPU itself is notable for being more powerful than the typical Core-U or Core-V solution as found on many other business laptops. Additional benchmarks and comparisons can be found on dedicated review of the MSI here.