MSI Thin THINA15B7218 2024, Ryzen 5 7535HS, 8GB, 512GB SSD, RTX 2050, Black

The MSI Thin A15's 144Hz display is the real highlight, and the RTX 2050 at the 72nd percentile is decent for a budget card. But the 8GB of RAM at the 21st percentile is a serious bottleneck, and the 3.37kg weight makes the Thin name feel ironic. At $798 USD, it's a fair deal for esports gamers, but anyone wanting modern AAA performance should look elsewhere.

Let's talk numbers. The Ryzen 5 7535HS is a solid mid-range chip, 6 cores at 3.3GHz base clock. It lands at the 56th percentile in our CPU rankings, which means it's about average for laptops in this category. Fine for everyday tasks, fine for most games at 1080p, but it won't blow anyone away. The RTX 2050 is the more interesting piece. At the 72nd percentile for GPU, it's actually one of the better budget discrete cards we've tracked. But here's the catch: 4GB of VRAM is tight. Modern AAA titles at higher settings will choke on that. You'll be dialing textures down to medium or low on anything released in the last couple years.

The 144Hz display is the real performance story here. That refresh rate is genuinely good for competitive gaming, and it's the one spec that punches above this laptop's weight class. The 8GB of DDR5 RAM, though, is a bottleneck waiting to happen. At the 21st percentile, it's one of the weakest memory configs in our database. Windows 11 alone will eat a chunk of that. Add a game and a browser tab or two, and you're hitting the ceiling fast. The 512GB SSD is fine, about average, but you'll fill it quickly with modern game installs.

Stacked against the competition, the MSI Thin A15 is in a tough spot. The Lenovo Legion 5i and Acer Predator Helios Neo both offer significantly more powerful GPUs and more RAM in their base configs, though they cost more. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is lighter, faster, and has a better screen, but you're paying a premium for that. The Apple MacBook Pro M5 Pro is in a completely different league for creator work, though it's not a gaming machine in the traditional sense. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition is thinner and lighter with better build quality, but its integrated graphics can't touch the RTX 2050 for gaming. The MSI's main advantage is price. At $798 USD, it undercuts most of these competitors significantly. But you're giving up RAM, build quality, and battery life to get there.

At $798 USD, the MSI Thin A15 is priced like a budget gaming laptop, and that's exactly what it is. The 144Hz display and RTX 2050 are decent value at this price point. But the 8GB of RAM is a real problem. You're likely going to want to upgrade that immediately, and that's extra cost on top of an already tight budget. The 512GB SSD is also going to fill up fast. When you factor in the cost of a RAM upgrade and possibly more storage, the value proposition gets murkier. For the base price, it's a fair deal for esports-focused gamers. For anyone wanting to play modern AAA titles, you'll be spending more than the sticker price suggests.

The MSI Thin A15 is a budget gaming laptop that gets one thing very right: that 144Hz display. At 15.6 inches and 1920x1080, the screen sits right at the 50th percentile in our database, but the refresh rate is the headline here. For fast-paced games, that matters more than raw resolution. The Ryzen 5 7535HS is a 6-core, 3.3GHz chip that lands at the 56th percentile for CPU performance. Not a barn burner, but respectable for the price. The RTX 2050 with 4GB of VRAM sits at the 72nd percentile for GPU, which sounds better than it is. That's a budget-tier discrete card, and it'll handle esports titles and older games fine, but don't expect ray tracing miracles despite what the marketing copy says.

The bigger story is what's missing. 8GB of DDR5 RAM puts this thing at the 21st percentile for memory. That's rough in 2025, especially for a gaming machine. The 512GB NVMe SSD is middle of the pack at the 52nd percentile. And at 3.37kg, this laptop is not thin by any stretch of the imagination. The name says Thin, but the scale says otherwise. Our database puts it at the 15th percentile for compactness. That's a chunky boy.

If you're planning to play modern AAA games at decent settings, skip this. The 4GB of VRAM on the RTX 2050 and the 8GB of system RAM are going to frustrate you constantly. The user sentiment score of 72/100 at the 36th percentile tells the story: owners are lukewarm on this machine. If you need something portable, the 3.37kg weight at the 15th percentile for compactness is a dealbreaker. And if battery life matters to you, the recurring complaints about gaming battery drain should give you serious pause. This is a desktop replacement in all the worst ways.

The MSI Thin A15 is a budget gaming laptop that makes one smart choice and several questionable ones. The 144Hz display is the star here, and it's genuinely good for competitive gaming. The Ryzen 5 7535HS and RTX 2050 are a reasonable pairing for esports titles and older games. But the 8GB of RAM is a dealbreaker for a lot of use cases. At the 21st percentile for memory, this thing is going to struggle with multitasking and modern games. The 3.37kg weight also makes the Thin name feel like a joke. If you're on a strict budget and mostly play games like Valorant, CS2, or Fortnite, this could work. For anything more demanding, save up for something with at least 16GB of RAM.