MSI takes the Intel Evo route with the new Prestige 14 Evo

Intel launched the Tiger Lake and the associated Evo platform yesterday, and we've seen a slew of new laptop announcements featuring the 11th generation Intel processor including MSI's own Stealth, Prestige, Summit and Modern series. Apart from the traditional Prestige 14 offering, MSI is also introducing a Prestige 14 Evo edition that adheres to the standards laid out by the new edition of Project Athena.

The Prestige 14 Evo is in many ways similar to the regular Prestige 14. You get CPU options that include the Core i5-1135G7, Core i7-1165G7, and the Core i7-1185G7 all of which feature the new Intel Gen12 Xe LP graphics. Dimensions, port selection, RAM, connectivity, and even the presence of an NVMe PCIe Gen4 SSD are common with the non-Evo version.

The Evo platform mandates are certain minimum spec for the battery life and this is where the Prestige 14 Evo differs from the regular Prestige 14. Both models carry the same 3-cell 52 Wh battery with fast charging support. However, the Prestige 14 Evo uses a 60 Hz 100% sRGB panel that draws just 1 W of power, which makes it highly power-efficient and as a result, can afford longer run times.

And true to the Evo ethos, the Prestige 14 Evo does not feature the discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU and relies solely on the Iris Xe iGPU. Iris Xe should offer a decent boost in graphics performance for creative applications compared to the previous Iris Plus variants. Since there is no discrete NVIDIA graphics on board, the Prestige 14 Evo offers just 65 W charging via USB-C. MSI says that a 15-minute charge should offer up to 1.5 hours of usage on battery and an overall 12 hours of battery life.

Pricing and availability info are yet to be announced.