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How MSI’s newest laptop for creatives upgraded my day-to-day

For today’s emergent creatives, setting yourself up with the best tech is step one

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As a graphics designer on the move, looking for the right gear to handle my workload is no easy task. And while it’s impractical to carry your desktop everywhere around with you to match the specs to your needs, there’s a powerful solution available at your fingertips: MSI’s Creator Z16P, a laptop made for creatives, by the creatives.

Whether it’s video editing, illustrations or graphic design, the Creator Z16P handles everything that I need it to do with power, portability, and style. Upon unboxing, the first thing I noticed is how light the Creator Z16P is for a performance laptop. Laptops of this nature usually weigh anywhere between five to eight pounds, but the Z16P weighs in at the low end of the spectrum at just over five pounds.

Much like Clark Kent and his second identity as Superman, the Creator Z16P blends in with the crowd yet stands out from other performance laptops in its design: sleek and unassuming, yet masking strength and powers within. The Creator Z16P merges a gorgeous minimalistic design with cutting-edge technology in all departments, accomplishing peaks in both aesthetics and technology.

With my daily work routine, I had next to no issues making graphics. The specs are a marvel to behold: the Creator Z16P packs a 12th gen Intel i9 Processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series graphics and up to 64GB of the latest DDR5 RAM. When I had to make designs in Photoshop with multiple layers, the Creator Z16P was able to handle the load without a hiccup. And with moments where I had large vector files in Illustrator that I needed to transfer to Photoshop—paired with a myriad of browser tabs and the Spotify app running—the Z16P was able to keep up with everything I threw at it and more. It’s an impressive feat that the laptop stays cool and quiet with everything running—a testament to the innovative vapor chamber cooler that changes how cooling is distributed throughout, and the Ambient Silent AI that helped maintain performance while keeping fan noise down.

What stood out for me as a graphic designer were the visuals; the 16-inch display monitor gave me plenty of space to view my work with perfect visual acuity. Combined with the QHD+ True Pixel display, colours looked richer and more vibrant. With the sports designs that I often create, getting a team’s colours right is priority number one. Even watching movies and television provided me a pristine viewing experience as if I was sitting a theatre, thanks not only to its crisp display, but the built-in high-res DTS speakers that brought life to every room.

From a tactile perspective, the Creator Z16P gives you a fluid experience, which was important in keeping my workflow as seamless as possible. The built-in fingerprint sensor helped to unlock the computer so I could get to work right away, which came in handy when I had to rush to make and edit graphics for breaking news stories. There is also an option for facial recognition, making use of the infrared FHD webcam. The monitor is also a touchscreen, which, in combination with the MSI Pen, improved my productivity over using my mouse, the trackpad, or even my tablet at times. With a pen pressure level of 4096, a 266Hz poll rate and replaceable pen tips for adapting to the different styles that I worked with, the MSI Pen was my trusty companion in maximizing efficiency in my workflow.

Compared to other performance laptops, the trackpad on the Creator Z16P is about 50 per cent larger than average, with support for different multi-gestures like pinch zooming to maximize your productivity and tab between programs with ease. The RGB-backlit keyboard also allows for custom colour profiles, providing an extra layer of personalization for users to make this laptop feel like home.

If you’re a content creator and you’re constantly on the go, the MSI Creator Z16P is the trusty steed that will handle your workload. This unassuming slab of metal may not look like much, but it packs enough processing power to transform any coffee house table into a mobile workspace.

The new Creator Z16P is now available at Memory Express and Canada Computers.

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