MSI Cyborg 15 A12V Review – A Gaming Laptop That’s Bang for Your Buck

The MSI Cyborg 15 A12V is the newest lineup of entry-level laptops that focuses on good looking and cost-performance value. Packing an Intel Core i7-12650H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, this laptop has a lot going for it.

Specifications

Design

Even before coming out from the box, the MSI Cyborg 15 A12V already looks really flashy. The box that came with the laptop is specially designed with some futuristic patterns, which is right up my alley when it comes to aesthetics.

Opening up the box, there isn’t that much in there aside from the laptop, the tiny 120W power adapter, and the user manual. I also appreciate the smaller sized adapter compared to the literal bricks that laptops nowadays have.

On the surface, the Cyborg 15 looks like your average laptop; it’s fully black with a darker reflective MSI logo on it. One thing that caught my eye was the laptop hinges, and how its transparent. Almost the entire chassis of the laptop is made out of this translucent material, aside from the lid of the display along with the cover at the side of the keyboard.

Flipping the laptop over, you’re able to clearly see the internals of the laptop to a certain extent. You can see the copper heatpipe, a small part of one of the cooling fans, and the M.2 SSD. Another thing the laptop has it going is how the ventilation holes spell out “MSI TRUE GAMIN”, which in my opinion does look cool, but feels tacky.

The Cyborg 15 is also considerably thin for a gaming laptop, at 22.9mm and weighs only at 1.98kg. With how most gaming laptops tend to be on the heavier side, the Cyborg 15 really impressed me. It’s thin and lightweight, making it a very portable gaming machine you can bring around just anywhere.

Connectivity

The Cyborg 15 has a decent selection of points going on, with a USB Type-A 3.2 and a 3.5mm combo jack at the left, and a USB Type-A 3.2, a USB Type-C 3.2 Gen1 that support DisplayPort 1.4, a full size ethernet RJ45 port, a HDMI 2.1, and the DC-in for charging at the right.

While some might feel weird that the DC-in is located on the right side of the laptop, but it just makes sense considering it has a full sized ethernet port. But if you’re not a big fan of plugging in that LAN cable to your laptop, MSI has you covered with that WiFi6 technology.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Aside from the translucent material that they used to make the hinge and bottom cover of the laptop, the keyboard also incorporates the cyberpunk design of the Cyborg 15. With the WASD keys and the power button’s keycap being translucent together with the blue backlight, it looks great in person.

Typing on the keyboard feels amazing too. The key travel distance is pretty decent and the feedback it gives off is good too. It’s fun to type on this keyboard which is a huge boon for a laptop of this price. While I’m personally not a fan of, the laptop also comes with a num pad too. Additionally, the touchpad is huge and feels smooth, making it good to use too.

Internal Hardware, Display and Audio

The Cyborg 15 comes equipped with an Intel Core i7-12650H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8GB GDDR6 laptop GPU, and 16GB Dual-Channel DDR5 RAM running at 4800MHz in it. Throughout my time testing the laptop, the GPU utilisation is always over 90% which is pretty much close to perfect, and the CPU is not even close to 50% utilisation, meaning that the CPU is slacking a little because it’s so powerful.

However, it does mean that there’s some sort of GPU or RAM bottlenecking going on, but I’d rather have that than  CPU bottlenecks any time of the day. If it’s RAM bottlenecking, then you can just upgrade your RAM configuration down the road. The laptop uses SO-DIMM RAM so it’s easily upgradeable.

The display screen is pretty standard with a 15.6″ FHD 144Hz IPS panel. It’s relatively smooth and gives you some competitive advantage, and the anti-glare isn’t that bad either.

What caught my attention are the speakers. Although the Cyborg 15 only has two 2W speakers on the left and right sides of the laptop, it manages to produce some out of the world audio for me. The volume is loud, yet it never distorts the audio. The bass is there, and the treble is clear; making listening to music or watching a movie a blast.

Battery Life

The Cyborg 15 has a 53.5Whr battery life which is considerably pretty good. Putting the laptop on Silent mode, with Display Power Save on, 50% volume, 30% screen brightness and dialing the brightness for the keyboard backlight on full while I went on with my usual workload of typing and watching videos from time to time.

The laptop took 3 hours to get from 90% battery down to 7% which is pretty wild. The laptop also comes with Super Battery mode where you can definitely save up more battery life with it too. As for charging, it uses a 120W power adapter, and it took 1 hour and 15 minutes to change from 5% to 89%, which is not bad.

Game Test

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

• Max Setting – No DLSS – No Ray Trace: Average 58FPS, 1% Low at 26FPS
• Max Setting – No DLSS – Ray Trace High: Average 36FPS, 1% Low at 12FPS
• Max Setting – DLSS Ultra Performance – Ray Trace High: Average 71FPS, 1% Low at 29FPS

Forza Horizon 5

• Max Setting – No DLSS – No Ray Trace: Average 48FPS, 1% Low at 18FPS
• Max Setting – No DLSS – Ray Trace Extreme: Average 44FPS, 1% Low at 17FPS
• Max Settign – DLSS Ultra Performance – Ray Trace Extreme: Average 48FPS, 1% Low at 18FPS

Atomic Heart

• Max Setting – No DLSS: Average 85FPS, 1% Low at 39FPS
• Max Setting – DLSS Performance: Average 119FPS, 1% Low at 36FPS

Apex Legends

• Max Setting: Average 87FPS, 1% Low 4.7FPS
• Lowest Setting: Average 128FPS, 1% Low 87FPS

Verdict 

All in all, the MSI Cyborg 15 A12V is an amazing laptop that performs really well under this price range of RM5,999 It has a good combination of CPU, GPU, and display which MSI did a great job at keeping the cost low.

The combination of hardware is also designed to run competitive games comfortably over 100FPS, and the 144Hz display suits the best, making it a perfect pickup for gamers who are looking for a budgeted choice for a gaming laptop.

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