At R12,000, the Neo is the machine that’ll put Apple in front of eyes that might otherwise look elsewhere. A few weeks ago, you might have snagged an M1 MacBook Air for not much more money, but they seem to have mysteriously disappeared. Right now, we’ve got your budget Apple notebook right here, pal.

Affordable work weapon

At the R10k to R12k price point, you’ll find a range of builds from Windows machines. All plastic, plastic that looks like metal, and the occasional metal build occur here. Apple’s MacBook Neo has the company name to keep up, so everything looks and feels premium. The biggest indicator that the Neo is a ‘budget’ machine is the blockier, thicker (for Apple) shape with its rounded corners. There’s something smartphone-like about its design language when closed.

That disappears when the Neo is opened up. Then it’s MacBook all the way. In typical Apple style, the MacBook Neo is light on ports — there’s just a pair of USB-C inputs and a headphone jack on the left side — but the trackpad and keyboard all conform to the company’s tastes for its pricier machines. The bezels around the 13in display hark back to earlier times for the company (thicker bezels), but it’s still an eminently usable laptop.

The trackpad is a little smaller than those found on the Air range, and the keyboard is ever-so-slightly less good, but otherwise, the Neo is unmistakably a MacBook.

Part iPhone

Internally is where the Neo’s the largest differences lie. Instead of an M-class processor, the Neo is powered by one of Apple’s mobile chipsets. The A18 Pro processor, found in the iPhone 16 Pro, runs all of your major operations. The base model Neo, like ours, also only has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That spec would be crushed by Windows 11. With Apple’s operating system, it’s actually more than tolerable.

It is, however, still technically a budget laptop. It’ll do every casual task you ask of it well enough. It’ll even function as a work machine in most cases. But if you attempt to push the Neo into more intensive tasks, it’ll complain. Quietly, because it doesn’t have any fans. But it’ll complain, just a little quicker than the M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM that we currently use for day-to-day tasks.

Banish thoughts of buying a super-cheap video edition Apple machine, is what this boils down to. It’s a work or study computer, as long as neither of those demands vast quantities of RAM.

Neo, all day

If you’re using the MacBook Neo this way, you’ll spend at least a full workday away from anything that looks like a charging cable. It’ll be hovering below the bottom third of the battery by the time you’re done, but it’ll make the trip. The catch? You have to supply your own charging block. A smartphone version will do, so you can just repurpose whatever you’re using to charge your handset. Apple does include a cable, in case you’re lacking one of those.

The other catch? The Neo doesn’t feature TouchID, so there’s no biometric login. If you’re not an Apple user, you don’t know what you’re missing. If you are… well, you’ll have to buy the 512GB model (R14,000) to get a fingerprint reader.

Apple’s native software all runs as it should, and veteran users will hardly notice a difference in everyday usage. It’s only once you start trying to be clever — and you’ll have to push your luck quite a bit — that anything like slowdown will crop up. Newcomers, again, aren’t likely to notice anything amiss unless they’ve got big ambitions.

Apple MacBook Neo verdict

Apple’s MacBook Neo punches well above its price range, though it’s possible to get more punch (via more RAM) from a Windows laptop at this price point. But it won’t be the Neo, and it won’t feature the same build and attention to detail across the whole package. That’s… sort of the point.

Few laptops can match Apple’s design in the R12,000 price bracket. Even fewer will run an operating system with a mobile chipset and 8GB of RAM quite as well as the Neo does. In terms of performance, it’s very close to Apple’s MacBook Air (M1), with some slight concessions to come in lower than that departed notebook’s final price point. It’s a MacBook for regular folks, really. Even if the Fruit Company’s idea of ‘budget’ is still somewhat higher than a regular person’s budget.

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Packard’s C82PRO is an authentically budget laptop. We don’t mean that it’ll run you less than R10,000. In fact, it’ll cost less than R5,000. Does this make it a useless hunk of computing plastic? Actually… no. It depends on what you’re expecting from your R4,500.

Plastic Bell

For your money, you’re getting a decent chassis. It’s all plastic, sure, but it looks and feels durable. There’s less flex in the lid than expected, and the hinge feels solid and robust. The casing will crack before that component gives out (unless you toss it across a room. Don’t do that).

The soft-touch keyboard doesn’t have much travel, but it doesn’t need it. The keys are bracketed by large speaker grilles, and a very visible power button lurks in the upper right. The trackpad is a shade narrow vertically, but it makes up for it by being wide.

All of the ports you could want (except for Ethernet) are present. A single-pin power connector occupies the right edge, with a USB-C, full-sized HDMI, and a USB-A. Sadly, the Type C doesn’t double as a power connector. Dual USB-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a microSD card slot live along the right side. If you’re keen on replacing the default keyboard and trackpad, it’ll be a snap to do.

Saved by the Bell

The Montenero-C82PRO’s internals are a mixed bag. The Intel Celeron N4500 processor isn’t great if you have ambitions beyond streaming video, online banking, and basic office programs. The RAM allocation is… actually decent. It’ll keep the Windows 11 Home OS chugging along unless you send in 26 Chrome tabs to smother it. 256GB of storage is also just okay, but we get the impression that you can do a little work at home with Packard’s machine.

A look at the underside will tell you why. Obviously, we’re not allowed to do this (Packard likes its products back with the warranty intact), but the large, standard screws and two large vents suggest that you can pry this machine open and change things. A larger hard drive and a 16GB DDR4 memory module will go a long way, but maybe stick with the storage upgrade. RAM is getting expensive.

Bell curve

That said, the standard set of components Packard Bell provides works as expected. Certainly well enough considering the price. We mentioned that the Montenero-C82PRO is best suited for basic computing. Usage bears that out. Basic spreadsheets, MS Word, a web browser, and other ‘normal’ computer stuff work fine. Load Chrome up with enough tabs to choke a MacBook and you’ll have a problem. Ditto attempting to open that one Excel spreadsheet that singlehandedly holds your small business together.

The C82PRO is a handy candidate for a school laptop. There’s enough under the hood to allow for school work, and not enough to permit serious distractions. Installing Steam (we didn’t bother) will undoubtedly give you a library of games that do run. But unless Junior is a serious fan of retro PC games (or Nintendo’s SNES, for variety), that’s not going to be a problem. Multiplayer is simply a myth told around the campfire where the unsold Packard Bell Monetenero-C82PRO units hang out.

Package Bell Montenero-C82PRO verdict

One of the toughest things to find in 2026 is a truly budget laptop that works. Packard’s effort is a decent one, combining an excellent price (for 2026) with enough internal performance to keep you from lobbing it at a wall in frustration. But you do have to know what you’re getting into. The screen is basic, and so is the processor. The RAM allocation is enough to get you by, provided you’re not expecting to edit large images or videos. And the storage is also a good start.

We suspect that the Montenero also allows for component upgrades, as far as that is possible with a laptop. A terabyte hard drive and a second 8GB DDR4 module (assuming there’s space — we didn’t check) would extend the C82Pro’s usefulness. It won’t do a thing about the CPU, but that’s fine. This laptop works better as a school/varsity machine.

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You also needn’t expect much in the way of imaginative design. MSI’s gaming notebooks haven’t evolved much over the years, with the largest change being more aggressive accents while keeping the same design notes we’ve become used to over the past decade or so. Red and black dominate, but the Raider 18 HX’s chassis is mostly just a place to keep the gaming hardware and plug in your doubtless-expensive mouse.

Raider from the East

And that’s fine. The Raider 18 HX, like previous models, is a desktop computer in laptop shape. You’re supposed to buy one, take it home, set it up, and never move it unless it’s travelling with you on holiday. Even then, we’d think twice about lugging its 3.6kg frame around in a backpack at the airport. This sucker is heavy.

There’s a lot going on here, all of it geared towards gaming. The laptop frame hosts an excellent 18in 4K MiniLED IPS panel, a decent enough backlit (and customisable) keyboard, and a trackpad that you’re immediately going to swap for a mouse, so it doesn’t matter that the corners dip a bit too enthusiastically.

The edges are where the magic happens. The right-hand line hosts a 3.5mm audio input, a USB-A, and two USB-C (Thunderbolt) inputs. The left? Dual USB-As and an SD-card reader. The rear, and this is how you can really tell that you’re not supposed to move the Raider, features the rectangular power input, a full-sized HDMI, and an Ethernet port.

The design would be almost bland if not for the hyper-aggressive cooling vents on the rear and sides, the similarly intricate cooling effort along the Raider 18 HX’s underside, and the RGB trim along the leading bottom edge and at the MSI emblem on the lid. It’s a black box built for games. Just like all the others.

Inner brutey

It’s not what’s on the outside that matters; it’s what’s inside that counts. Right? And MSI’s efforts have mostly been directed inward, with an incredibly speedy Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (which is where the Raider 18 gets one of its suffixes) mated up with an RTX5080 and 64GB of DDR5 memory, making up the majority of what you’re spending on this. A 2TB SSD also contributes to the price in your shopping cart, while removing one of the potential bottlenecks to blistering performance.

The same goes for the 18in 3,840 x 2,400 120Hz display, which isn’t an OLED but does a pretty decent impression of one. That’d be the MiniLED tech talking. Combine all these internal components, and you’ve got something that justifies the monster 400W power brick juicing up the 99.99Wh battery inside the Raider 18 HX. You’re going to have to drag that with you everywhere, by the way, because even when not under load, the Raider’s battery performance is awful.

But, as mentioned above, that’s intentional. This machine is not supposed to be portable. It’s a desktop replacement, and you wouldn’t stuff a desktop gaming PC into a bag without its cables.

High-performance highlight

In operation, MSI’s newest Raider lives up to its frankly ridiculous price tag. It’s not for everybody, but for the folks with a hundred grand to spare (more or less), expect anything you throw at it to bounce convincingly off. The combination of CPU, GPU, and enough RAM to make an AI bro irritated that it’s not in his data centre translates to excellent frame rates across the board. If you want benchmark data, look elsewhere. We didn’t bother with those, opting instead for real-world gaming to access performance.

Whether you’re running shooters, Cyberpunk 2077 (which is almost-but-not-quite-a-shooter), or anything short of a fully simulated Boeing cockpit, the Raider 18 HX will spit out acceptable-to-stellar frame rates depending on your game and/or settings. If you swung your budget over to a machine with an RTX 5090 — MSI doesn’t offer it as an option for this one — you’d see better performance, but it may not be high enough to justify the price increase. We’re not wholly sure on that one, because everyone’s too scared to give Stuff an RTX 5090. They’re right, too. They’re not getting it back.

MSI’s computing performance pairs very well with the excellent 18in display, and there’s even been an effort to stuff acceptable audio inside this Raider. There are six speakers with highly-tuned sound, but the audio setup is farting against the thunder of the 18 HX’s cooling system. Put it under load and the fans will kick in. Heck, leave it standing idle and sometimes the fan will kick in. As good as the audio can get here, we still suggest you swap it out for some noise-cancelling headphones.

MSI Raider 18 HX AI (A2XW) verdict

You’ll find MSI’s Raider 18 HX AI available anywhere from R85,000 to R97,000, which is the hardest thing about recommending this hardware to anyone but the most ardent gamer. There’s plenty of performance and features to drool over and, for proper gamers, the Raider may just outlast some of your favourite franchises. If you’re just playing Fortnite, this is overkill. If you just play three annually-releasing games, it’s a solid choice (since one of those games is probably the increasingly absurd Call of Duty). But it’s not perfect.

It’s heavy, it’s loud, it’s got no battery life to speak of. In any other laptop, these would be serious drawbacks. In MSI’s machine, it’s by design. Set it up, leave it there, play any game released over the next five years without blinking. That’s the plan. It works out to almost R20,000 per year to do that, not counting the price of the game, but every year beyond this point you make the MSI Raider 18 HX last brings the overall cost down. When you look at it in those terms… okay, fine, it’s still expensive, but it’s just… so… quick.

The post MSI Raider 18 HX AI (A2XW) review – Worth raiding your savings account for? appeared first on Stuff South Africa.

Just… don’t expect too many surprises for your money. If you splurged on an M3 MacBook Air, you probably don’t need to buy this one (unless you’ve done something horrible to last year’s model). M1 and M2 owners, or anyone still tussling with Windows, are in for a very good time indeed.

It’s a… MacBook

The MacBook Air M4 doesn’t look like it could possibly be anything else. Except for the M3 version of the Air, since the chassis here is more or less identical to last year’s model. A flatter profile compared to the M1 Air, with more squared-down (but not sharp) edges, makes for an attractive slab of aluminium to put on your desk. Open it up, though, and it’s all but indistinguishable from even older model MacBook Airs.

There are some differences. The fingerprint sensor in the top right is larger and easier to locate, the speaker grilles down the sides of the keyboard’s frame have vanished, and there’s a proper MagSafe connector alongside dual ThunderBolt ports on the left-hand edge. A lone 3.5mm input exists on the right. Apple’s not about to use the MacBook Air M4 to give that one up. Not yet.

Otherwise? You could be looking at any MacBook Air made since about 2020. The same set of tactile keys, the same generous-but-not-too-generous high-quality trackpad. Even the hinge and display framing are identical. But you’re not here for unique looks. Are you?

Driving an M4

Apple’s known for a singular aesthetic, meaning that it takes few chances once it identifies something good. That applies in the MacBook Air M4’s case, just as it has since the first unveiling of Apple Silicon and the M1 chipset. Visually, the Air hasn’t changed much. Internally, it’s also more of an evolution than the M1’s revolution.

The MacBook Air M4 has made one significant change that, really, had to happen. The most basic model starts with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, putting an entirely excellent office machine into your hands for the next five years at what amounts to R4,500 per year. Do that with a Windows machine and, by the end of year two, you’ll find yourself wanting to kill it.

The 13in 2,560 x 1,664 Liquid Retina display is as good as it ever was, which it bloody better be. If Apple somehow made last year’s screen worse, that would be cause for concern. A slight tweak to how the Air M4 handles displays means you can now plug in two external displays and have your laptop screen function at the same time. Previously, two externals meant no functional laptop display. So that’s a decent upgrade.

16GB of RAM was the only missing part of this equation, letting the MacBook Air M4 chew through tasks from video and image editing right up to some gaming, and all the typical office work these machines are typically used for.

Somehow, you’ll put all of this to work for an entire work day and most of your evening before heading off in search of a charger. That’s a true fact, though eighteen hours between charges with the 13in MacBook Air M4 is a slight stretch. It can be done, but you’ll find yourself grabbing closer to twelve to fourteen hours of uninterrupted work. That’s… not shabby at all.

Apple can bang on about the power and performance of the M4 chipset as much as it likes. Ten-core CPU, eight-core GPU, blah, blah — marketing is what the fruit company is best at. The performance increase over M3 is slight, but present, with the gap in functionality becoming more pronounced the further back you go.

There’s a reason Apple likes to compare even this processor to its old Intel models. Still, along with the RAM upgrade (and Sequoia 15.3), the MacBook Air M4 hums along fast enough to last you that half-decade you were looking for. Comfortably.

Apple MacBook Air M4 (2025) verdict

Want an excellent, hassle-free piece of computing hardware for around 22 grand? Apple’s MacBook Air M4 will happily provide it for you. It won’t wipe the floor with the competition the way previous outings have — the gaps are narrower this time around — but it’s still the best MacBook Air that money can buy.

You’ll get similar performance for a shade less if you can find any M3 Airs in stock, however, so it might be a bargain-hunting challenge to try and track down a 16GB/256GB model of one of these before dropping cash on one of these. There’s almost no such thing as a terrible Apple product. There’s only above-average and excellent. This one’s the latter if you’re on pre-2021 hardware, but the former if you’ve got an M2 or M3 tucked away in your bag at the moment.

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Advancements are seen in the touchscreen display, a more diverse port selection, and a swivelling hinge that puts this notebook into the 2-in-1 category. It’s not an Asus RoG Flow Z13, however. A little more capable than its brethren, it’ll perform better as an office or home machine where work isn’t mission-critical and time isn’t of the essence.

Going grey 

The Packard Bell Carrera F3 doesn’t look dissimilar from any of its (or other brands’) compatriot 15.6in notebooks. There’s a slight angular sweep to the F3’s front edge, a nod to the motoring-inspired name, but the metal-simulating grey plastic sheath won’t disguise itself at anything but a distance. The Carrera F3 is a touch thicker than it has to be, the better to accommodate a two-way hinge that allows users to fold the touchscreen display back and handle it like a tablet. That’s the idea, anyway.

The left and right edges host all of the ports you’ll ever need, and perhaps a few you won’t. The left side begins with a proprietary power port, while the USB-C port alongside will perform the same function. There’s a full-sized HDMI and USB-A to complete the set. On the right are dual USB-As, an Ethernet port (the compressed one), and a 3.5mm input for headphones. The power button also lives here. It’s been a while since we saw one that wasn’t up by the keyboard.

The central webcam lacks a privacy shutter, and Packard Bell hasn’t really embraced biometric access. There’s no fingerprint sensor, but Windows Hello’s facial recognition should work as well as usual. A point in the Carrera F3’s favour is the base panel, which looks like it was intended to be pried off for RAM upgrades. Standard Philips screws hold the panel in place, while two large divots should make getting the panel loose a breeze. A large dotted grille for heat dispersion also occupies the underside.

Vega Ryzen

The internals constitute a better effort than Packard Bell’s ultra-budget models. At almost double the price, they bloody better be. The 15.6in touchscreen panel is responsive enough to fingers, while the screen serves up fairly accurate colour reproduction. It’s not the very best you’ll ever see in a laptop, of course. The 1,920 x 1,080 resolution and 60Hz refresh rate are only slightly above what’s acceptable from a screen. But, again, the Carrera F3 will only set you back eight grand.

The step up from Celeron to Ryzen, specifically the AMD Ryzen 3 3400U, is noticeable. Windows and apps are snappier, especially with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of solid-state storage in the back end. AMD’s Vega 3 GPU adds some graphics grunt, but not much. But it’s still underpowered compared to the big boys. Right-click on a freshly-booted Carrera F3 and you’ll see what we mean. The context menu takes just a shade longer to appear than we’d be comfortable with.

You’ll need more money to grab more performance, however. As it stands, Windows 11 Pro works acceptably quickly that we wouldn’t be too miffed having to use the F3 all day. Unless there was a deadline or someone needed video editing done, in which case it’s an exercise in frustration. The same goes for navigating our (usually) 30 Chrome tabs. As would be the case for any laptop that costs less than R15,000.

The interface is also decent enough, though we’d have been happier with a more refined trackpad. It does a lot right. The centrally-located trackpad is large enough for fingers to wander, but there’s just a little more give down on the front edge (where the clicky part is) than we’d like. But generous keys and a soft touch on the keyboard make up for this somewhat.

The 2-in-1 aspect is workable, though the Carrera F3 is better suited to giving presentations than it is to acting like a tablet. The reversible hinge won’t quite lay the screen flat on the rear panel, meaning users must grip it to have it function like a digital clipboard. It’s possible that the hinge can be manipulated to change this, but this form factor was never supposed to require that much finesse.

Packard Bell Carrera F3 verdict

Is that what you’d expect from an R8,000 15.6in Windows notebook? We’d argue that despite its faults, you’re still getting more than your money’s worth from it. The bump up in price has a corresponding bump in features and tech that keep the Carrera F3 out of the ‘frustrating’ category and slide it into the ‘entirely usable’ department. It’ll function as a work machine (though you’d probably still give it to the intern), and it’ll perform more than admirably as a school or home computer. After all, you don’t want in-class Fortnite tournaments breaking out whenever the teacher (or professor) turns their back. Do you?

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Our review unit was one of the more powerful configs, with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, an Nvidia RTX 5080 16GB mobile GPU, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD. It’s so powerful, in fact, that you might struggle to find this exact model in South Africa. Apparently, a lot of gamers were eager to get their hands on one.

This model was the closest we could find locally. It has half the RAM, but the rest of the specs are the same. Still, you should take our performance figures with some salt, but they shouldn’t be too far from what you can expect with less RAM.

Lights, Camera, Gaming

Starting with the most important feature for gamers, RGB. The ROG Strix G16 features the same full-surround aura ring around its base as we first saw on the Scar 18. You also get per-key RGB on the keyboard.

Asus says the Strix G16 has been “redesigned from the ground up”, but that’s what you pay marketing people for. It does feature a more streamlined design with chamfered edges, and we enjoyed not having to constantly wipe dust and fingerprints from the grey plastic chassis.

Other mainstay gaming laptop features are present, like a decent numpad-less keyboard, large trackpad, and a Windows Hello-enabled webcam, although we didn’t care for the transparent ‘gaming’ keys on display.

Another shoutout to the tool-less bottom tray design. We reckon people seriously considering buying a laptop like this are going to hang onto it for at least a few years. Being able to easily upgrade some of the internals will be appreciated.

You won’t be starved for I/O real estate – there are two high-speed Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports, three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one HDMI 2.1 port, one 2.5Gb Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack. The 380W power adapter also gets its own proprietary port.

Mediocrity on display

The biggest let-down of the ROG Strix G16 isn’t even that big. The 16in 2,560 x 1,600 240Hz display our unit came with still boasts a claimed 500 nits of peak brightness, 3ms response time, and full coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. This year’s Strix G16 comes with two layers of anti-glare coating (that’s what the ‘ACR’ branding means), is factory calibrated, Pantone validated, and supports Nvidia G-Sync and Dolby Vision HDR content (on paper, at least).

However, coming from the mini LED display of the Scar 18, it left us feeling a little disappointed. This is still a decent display, but we can’t help but feel a little hard done by, considering what the competition offers at this price or what you could get from other Asus devices. It’s a small gripe that doesn’t matter if you plan on connecting it to an external monitor, but large enough to warrant a mention here.

Power to you

With the latest silicon from Intel and Nvidia inside, we don’t think you’ll have many gripes with performance. The Core Ultra 9 275HX from Intel’s Arrow Lake generation can chug up to 175W for short bursts but is usually content with using 150W. It might not claim the number one spot for performance, but this is still one of the best mobile CPUs available.

 Show me the numbers (CPU):

• Cinebench 24 (Single core) avg – 133

• Cinebench 24 (Multi-core) avg – 1,981

• Geekbench 6.4 (Single core) avg – 2,088

• Geekbench 6.4 (Multi-core) avg – 17,752

While the ROG Strix G16 features the same CPU as the Scar 18, it’s rocking the ever-so-slightly stepped-down RTX 5080 laptop GPU. You get 16GB of dedicated video memory, meaning you can crank those texture settings up a bit if you’re playing at the native 1600p resolution. Any higher, and you could run into trouble.

Like the CPU, it can also gulp down up to 175W of power, and it’s more likely to keep at that level in sustained stress tests. It’s worth noting that during most prolonged stress tests, our review unit had a bad tendency to thermal throttle (reduce performance to keep from overheating) before long.

More numbers (GPU):

• 3DMark Steel Nomad avg – 5,137

• 3DMark Time Spy avg – 20,782

• PCMark 10 avg – 7,144

The 5080 inside here can’t quite match the Scar 18’s 5090 synthetic benchmark scores, but the difference is less tangible in real-world use cases like gaming. In Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, we matched the settings we used to test the Scar 18 and saw framerate averages drop by around 10%. If you’re still after more performance, there’s also Nvidia’s Multi Frame Generation technology to eek out even more frames from games that support it.

Keeping the lights on

There’s a 90Wh battery inside the ROG Strix G16, but you shouldn’t expect the ‘all-day endurance’ that its website promises in the truest sense. A full workday, however, might be more accurate. We were pleasantly surprised by the runtimes we got from this gaming laptop.

During our ‘best case’ Wi-Fi streaming battery test, with the screen set to 50% brightness and 60Hz refresh rate, all RGB turned off, and Bluetooth disabled, we saw around eight hours of life on average. We saw a similar figure during our simulated Wi-Fi web browsing test. Being smart with your power consumption might mean you can get by on one charge at the office. We didn’t, because our office setup includes external peripherals, a higher refresh rate, and as much performance as we could get.

If you opt to watch videos stored locally and disable the Wi-Fi, you can expect even more hours of enjoyment, between ten and a half and eleven hours, according to our tests. In a more typical Wi-Fi streaming scenario, where you might increase the brightness to its maximum and use Bluetooth headphones, we saw around six and a half hours. Under a full load, it could only manage an hour and a half, despite the ‘Turbo’ mode being disabled.

Asus ROG Strix G16 verdict

The ROG Strix G16 has a lot to offer, as it should for the asking price. It might be notably cheaper than its bigger brother, but its starting price of R50,000 is still a lot of money. If you want the high-end specs, that price will climb to R78,000.

But it shouldn’t be a surprise that a high-end gaming laptop like this costs a lot of money. It houses some of the most performant chips on the market, a decent (if not the best you can get) high-refresh-rate IPS display, and features many quality-of-life features (like the toolless bottom tray) that help to justify its price. Whether it’s ‘worth it’ is relative, but it’s at least something to consider.

The post Asus ROG Strix G16 (2025) review – Great portable gaming package appeared first on Stuff South Africa.

The only sticking point is the price. Depending on your office IT setup, your money could be better spent on an M3 MacBook Air or similar. It’s possible to tuck one of Asus’ new office machines into your cart for R19,600, a couple of hundred bucks less than Apple’s own office darling. If everyone you work with is fond of pricey coffee and online activism, maybe opt for Apple’s machine. The ExpertBook P3 is here to work.

Old New Reliable

The ExpertBook P3 doesn’t reinvent anything in terms of design. This 14in workhorse is a silver-grey slab of lightweight metals that only stands out when you have it in hand. It feels… sturdy and dependable, like that one guy at your job who knows how everything works and never complains.

The impression is helped along by the unremarkable but highly functional keyboard and trackpad. Keys are satisfying to depress, while the oversized trackpad offers more room to navigate. Sure, you could pair the P3 with an external mouse, but we never saw any need to.

There are enough ports to keep you tapping away in the office without resorting to other peripherals, unless you’re partial to an external monitor. A full-sized HDMI is your friend there, while two USB-C ports on the left side handle most other connections. One of these is dedicated to the power supply, but you don’t always need external power. The 50Wh battery will keep you up for a while. A USB-A and expandable Ethernet port occupy the right edge, along with a Kensington lock. Yes, there’s also a 3.5mm input for your wired office headphones.

No games, please

The sense of stolid reliability extends to the internals. Windows 11 Pro was installed on our review unit, and Windows performance, as ever, is as good a reflection of office-hour use as anything else you could use. Asus drops an Intel Core i7-13620H in the mix, with 16GB of RAM and — we were surprised to note — 500GB of solid-state storage. It’s that last stat that firmly cements this as a practical laptop in our minds. If fun and games were on the menu, there’d be more storage.

If media consumption is your aim, then the ExpertBook P3’s 14in display will happily oblige. A native 1,920 x 1,200 resolution and crisp presentation combine with excellent colour rendition to ensure that your spreadsheets will never look better. The content from your favourite streaming service will be similarly well-treated. Gaming media, on the other hand, had better need little more than the Intel UHD graphics solution, so hopefully you’re a fan of SNES emulators. At least the pixel art will look better than it ever did on an old CRT.

Get to work

Everything else about the Asus ExpertBook P3 is geared towards high-performance office work (or very well-camouflaged goofing off). Asus steps up its security game with a TPM 2.0 security chip behind the fingerprint sensor (which also doubles as the power button).

The 1080p webcam integrated above the screen is backed by AI features (in the form of Asus’ AI ExpertMeet software), while a physical shutter lets you block off the camera so your boss doesn’t see that you didn’t bother with pants for this meeting. AI also gets involved in noise-cancelling during those ‘important’ meetings.

There’s an obligatory Copilot key on the keyboard, since Microsoft is entirely convinced that the world will use AI to make itself progressively dumber. Summoning the AI is simple enough; convincing it to do something useful is entirely up to you.

Asus ExpertBook P3 (P3405CVA) verdict

The Asus ExpertBook P3 isn’t the most exciting laptop we’ve ever encountered. If we were talking about a gaming setup, that might be a point against it. But in the workplace, you don’t really want exciting (unless your job is disarming landmines with a pogo stick). It’s solid, dependable, and works hard, all while not trying too hard to call attention to itself. It’s Bill from that unspecified department that always manages to fix problems in minutes. That’s not a bad thing.

The only drawback that we can see is the competition from Apple’s MacBook Air range. Similar pricing means it’s very easy to discard the ExpertBook P3 as a choice if the prevailing office culture favours Tim Cook’s fruit-flavoured machines. But if you’re in a Windows workplace, your IT guy will probably love setting you up on the company network on this machine. There are no real surprises. Just quiet, quick productivity.

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The ExpertCenter P400 is a customisable (if you’re a company) desktop all-in-one running Windows 11 Pro. Orderable in bulk (and to spec) or as single units from Asus, this is what you want on your desk at an office job. It means that a) you don’t have to take your work home and b) you can if you have to. It also means more desk and leg space, since you don’t have a clunky old tower getting in the way. But is it for the regular user? That’s… kinda up to you, but we can think of a few instances of it being useful.

On the face of it

Anyone encountering the ExpertCenter P400 in an office setting would have a hard time telling that it was anything more than a standard office monitor. It hosts a 23.8in LED display with a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 and a brightness of 250 nits. If that were all we told you about this critter, you wouldn’t even question the somewhat thicker profile backing the screen. That’s just what the IT department buys, right?

Except that the extra space has a few extra goodies stuffed inside that make this an all-in-one. Our review model came with a 13th-gen Core i7-13620H, a 2.4GHz processor, backed with 16GB of RAM, but that can’t be taken as fully representative of the range. As we’ve mentioned, these can be made to spec, but you’ll need your people to speak to Asus’ people directly. Retail pricing won’t apply. Whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on IT’s negotiating skills, we suppose.

Working for it

The ExpertCenter P400 was always supposed to be for work, and you can expect strictly utilitarian performance from it. The 24in display offers enough space for spreadsheets or browser windows (whatever your boss lets you get away with). The picture is clear enough, though not up to the standard of Asus’ AMOLED laptop screens. It’s more likely to be used for email or data capture than design, so that’s not an issue.

Intel’s 13th-gen chipset is getting on a bit, but at R18,000 — the price of our review all-in-one — it’ll turn any computerless household into a computered (that’s totally a word) one simply by plonking it on the desk. It’s enough for basic tasks, and it’ll even handle a game or three if you stick to older titles that don’t demand an external GPU. It’s not like you’ll be cramming an install of Call of Duty onto the 500GB NVMe solid-state drive Asus has outfitted this desktop machine with anyway.

Just a note on peripherals — The Asus ExpertCenter P400 is supplied with a mouse and keyboard, but we’re told it isn’t the pair you see in our image here. Retail units will feature better quality gear, according to the folks at Asus in SA, but we found that the supplied items weren’t out of keeping with standard office gear. In fact, some companies’ staff would jump at the lightweight but sturdy mouse Stuff used. Even a few gamers might like the airy feel as it glides over a surface.

Another variable is the stand. Ours was mounted on a static column with basic vertical angle adjustments. Height-adjustable or VESA-mount versions are also options for the ExpertCenter P400. Again, you’ll need your IT procurement folks to sort that out.

Asus ExpertCenter P400 verdict

Asus’ enterprise all-in-one was never intended to be a commercial machine, but it would serve the role admirably for folks who don’t know how computers work. Your tech-impaired parents (or university students) will appreciate the simple setup, screen and PC integration, and peripheral options the Asus ExpertCenter P400 provides.

It’s even more attractive for companies, which can roll out cloned machines that are assembled in minutes and dumped on a desk for the new guy who will totally last the week.

It’s a harder sell for the dedicated tech nerd, but if that’s you, you’re not the target market here. That does mean you can see the benefits Asus’ machine provides, even if you have no desire to use it. It’s a work machine. One that… well, works.

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To be fair, it’s also not nearly as capable as something sporting a six-figure price tag, but MSI does a damn good job trying. Our review model turned up with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, an Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti GPU, 32GB of DDR5 physical memory, and a 1TB NVMe SSD (with room for a second). Of course, if it’s the MSI Vector name you’re after, it’s not hard to get this bad boy up to a six-figure price, with 96GB of RAM and 16TB of storage.

Call me Atlas

‘Nondescript’ is a word that we, and likely a whole bunch of others, would use to describe the MSI Vector 16 HX AI. ‘Weighty’ is another one. There’s no mistaking the gaming focus with this MSI laptop, but with the Cosmos Grey scheme, lifeless MSI logo atop the lid, and complete lack of outer RGB, MSI’s hoping you’ll leave this one at home.

That’s less out of fear of your other gamer friends remarking on the Vector’s thick body, and more out of necessity due to the hefty 2.7kg weight that’s countered somewhat by the relatively light 330W adapter. As it turns out, leaving this beast hooked up to a monitor and external peripherals at home is the best choice already. Not that the display isn’t great on its own. If you don’t have another monitor, it will more than suffice. But the bottom edges near the trackpad tend to dig into the wrists if you’re using the built-in keyboard for long periods.

No shade intended for MSI’s designers. It achieved what it set out to do — build a gaming laptop — even if we aren’t thrilled about the results. It’s clear more attention was paid inwardly. The full-sized RGB keyboard immediately stands out and offers plenty of travel, even if we weren’t very fond of the mushy keys.

The sharp lines and lack of any real colour here immediately make us think someone had their life changed after walking out of The Brutalist. While not the prettiest, it’s certainly high-functioning. Two USB-C Thunderbolt 5 ports adorn the laptop’s left-hand side, while two more Type-A USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports sit on the other side with a 3.5mm audio combo jack to boot. An SD card reader is also there, while the rear is home to the DC input, a single HDMI 2.1, and an Ethernet port.

They’re all working around the vents’ busy schedule here, bolstered by two fans and six heat pipes that you’ll definitely become familiar with over time. You’ll catch a glimpse of the copper heatsinks through those vents, but their full glory will be exposed if you find yourself whacking a second SSD in there.

Not-so-public display of affection

It’s not that MSI needed to make up for the low-key profile, which might even be preferred by some folks. But if you weren’t all that impressed by the chassis, MSI more than makes up for it with some excellent performance chops and a gorgeous 16in 2,560 x 1,600px IPS LCD that chugs along happily at 240Hz. MSI does offer other display options with this model, like the 4K mini-LED variant, but we’d wager that will drive the price up.

The IPS panel in our review unit performed admirably, even if it was missing HDR support. The picture quality was sublime, and the motion was as smooth as promised. It’s got some weight to throw around when it comes to colour accuracy, full coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut should make this a decent creative arthouse as well as a proper gamer. We could have done with a couple extra nits, but considering this thing will hardly ever see the daylight, it was plenty bright enough with the lights turned down.

Up to scratch?

We’ve already listed the important specs (full spec sheet here), but it’s worth knowing what you’re up against. The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX inside sports 24 cores (8 performance, 16 efficiency), and will consume around 65W if you’ve got the GPU chugging power as well, or potentially more if you just need CPU power.

Sticking with the balanced profile MSI offers turned out to be a delight and was easily the best way to start most gaming sessions on the Vector 16 HX AI. Unless you’re booting up something rather hectic, the noise saved from the two fans buried deep in this thing is well worth it. We spent most of our time hunting down monsters and climbing the Plat ladder in The Witcher 3 and Rocket League without performance issues.

We maintained a stable 240fps in Rocket League without sacrificing on the graphics side. The same goes for The Witcher 3. We weren’t hitting a consistent 240fps there, but the steadfast 70fps we did get when nearing the best setting was more than enough to offer an enjoyable experience in our few weeks with the device.

Bump it up to the extreme profile to handle your heavier games — Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong — and you’ll want to keep a set of headphones handy. Seriously, this bugger gets loud once the fans spin up and will quickly have you reaching for the subtitles button. Not that the extra performance is anything to scoff at, particularly if you can effectively drown out the Vector 16’s whining.

Of course, MSI claims you can always bump that up to an RTX 5090 for even more power, but we haven’t managed to find one of those floating around in SA. It’s probably for the best. Considering the R81,750 price for a model sporting a 5080. Picking up a 5080 Vector 16 HX AI seems a far more attainable goal, locally speaking.

Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive

You can’t have everything in life, yeah? While the Vector 16’s performance was unquestionably commendable, its ability to stay alive wasn’t. Yet another reason to leave this bad boy at home and plugged in; we measured roughly an hour and 45 minutes of juice under the strictest of conditions with the 90Wh battery inside. Scale back those ambitions, and you can easily double that life and more if you’re frugal about your choice of settings.

MSI Vector 16 HX AI (A2XWHG) verdict

It may not sound like it, but the R64,000 price for our review Vector 16 HX AI is actually on the safe side of reasonable. Sure, it’s lacking the looks of a more qualified gamer, but it’s what’s under the hood that really counts. The Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti offer decent gaming performance when paired with this choice of display.

Bumping up the resolution might make things look a little sharper, but that will also affect your framerates if you’re aiming for a balance between pleasant visuals and smooth gameplay. It might leave a few boxes unticked, but the display of our review unit is more than enough for most folks. It’s a pity that the battery life isn’t quite as capable, but what does it matter? You’ll be leaving this one at home, right?

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That’s almost entirely a good thing, as the last one looked great and proved capable of handling any creative workloads we threw its way. It could also hold its own with some gaming, but if that’s what you’re doing, Asus has a few other options that will bring you more joy.

If you just need something to process your creative energy, this year’s ProArt P16 is a great option to consider, provided you’ve got at least R69,000 to spend and you’re not interested in buying Apple (or can’t find stock of last year’s model).

Another solid slab

This new ProArt P16 continues with the understated, professional look of the last one. So much so that we’d doubt anyone could spot the difference if you got them side by side.

That’s not a knock; you won’t have to relearn where all the I/O ports are, and the minimalist matte black design suits this purpose-built machine, as do its 14.9mm thickness and sub-2kg weight.

If you’re a creative who also likes to spend time outside, the new ProArt also boasts the MIL-STD 810H certification, meaning it can survive in all sorts of exotic environments, like the Amazon rainforest. The place where most people do their creative work.

Looks inviting

Cracking the slab open (figuratively, of course) presents you with a similarly fantastic 16:10 4K (3,840×2,400) OLED display from last year’s effort. A small difference is that this review unit came with a fully touch-supported display, although there wasn’t a stylus included in the box this time (just a snazzy backpack).

It has all the specs a creative doing colour accurate work could hope for, including factory calibration out of the box and Pantone and DisplayHDR True Black 500 certifications. It’s still only 60Hz, which probably isn’t a big deal if you don’t plan on doing any gaming. But as we said with the last one, even a small bump up to 90Hz would offer a smoother overall experience.

Also taken from the last model, the only physical aspect we feel needs a rethink is the top lid’s hinges. The fantastic display wobbles a little and can’t open all the way to lie flat, which might make digital doodling a little trickier. Maybe that’s Asus’ way of telling you to go for the ProArt PZ13 instead.

Renders done quick

The substantial difference with this ProArt P16 is the upgraded internals, well… one of them at least. Asus has kept the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU and upgraded the RTX 4070 laptop GPU to the shiny new RTX 5070. It still only comes with 8GB of VRAM, so 4K gaming could present an issue if you’re trying to play new AAA titles with huge textures on the highest settings.

While it’s technically possible to play games, this laptop is focused on creative workflows and is happiest doing that. That’s clear from its impressive PCMark10 score of 8,142, which beats the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX’s score of 7,185 in the significantly more expensive ROG Strix Scar 18.

It might not have the most performance, but at least that means it won’t fry your thighs if you want to stay toasty in winter. We noted maximum temperatures of 80-ish degrees and a stable 76 degrees from the CPU and GPU, respectively. Thankfully, all that heat is kept well away from your appendages.

Our review unit came with double the base model’s RAM and storage, 64GB and 2TB a piece, but it’s also R4,000 more expensive. Considering the RAM can’t be upgraded, it’s probably worth going for the more expensive model, as you can still drop another NVMe SSD in down the road.

Considering not much has changed and you get another 90Whr battery here, we weren’t surprised to see roughly the same runtimes – about 90mins under a full load with max brightness and between seven and eight hours with a ‘medium’ load (browsing the web, listening to music over Bluetooth, keyboard backlight on, and brightness at 50%). Charging still takes around two hours for a full charge, but you’ll only have to wait around 30 minutes to get most of it back.

Asus ProArt P16 (H7606) 2025 verdict

Asus hasn’t made any drastic changes with this year’s ProArt P16, yet we’re still fans of this creative workhorse. We can’t get enough of the gorgeous 4K OLED display and were surprised to find the sleek all-black design grew on us every time we reached for it or pulled it out of our bag – ‘if it ain’t broke’ and all that.

But that’s a two-edged sword. As of writing this, Asus still offers last year’s ProArt P16 with the same fantastic CPU, a slightly older RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD for R65,000. If you don’t strictly need more RAM, that’s a pretty good deal and could make this one a tougher sell to most folks.

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