MSI Cyborg 15.6" A13VE-218US Black 2023

The Cyborg is out of stock everywhere right now. When it was available near $460, it offered an RTX 4050 in the top quarter of our gaming benchmarks inside a 1.98kg chassis. The new top five, including the MacBook Pro M4 Max and Legion Pro 7i, have moved the goalposts, so the Cyborg's appeal is now purely about price, and you cannot even buy one today.

The RTX 4050 in the Cyborg is the real star. In our synthetic and gaming benchmarks, it lands in the top quarter of all laptop GPUs, which means smooth performance in esports titles at the full 144Hz and 60+ fps in AAA games with a few settings dialed down. The i7-13620H is no slouch either—it handles Premiere Pro and compile tasks without hiccups, and 16GB of DDR5-5200 keeps things snappy. You even get an upgrade path to 64GB, which is a nice bonus for a budget machine. Storage is the bottleneck; the 512GB NVMe drive fills up fast, but the slot is easy to access if you want to swap in a bigger drive.

The competitive field has shifted around the Cyborg. Heavy hitters like the Apple MacBook Pro M4 Max, ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10, MSI Raider, and Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition now dominate the top of our rankings, and they all outclass the Cyborg in build quality, display, or raw GPU muscle. The Cyborg still holds a niche as a budget RTX 4050 machine, but against this new top tier it looks more like a value play than a performance contender. For pure fps per dollar, it can still make sense if you find it at the right price, but the gap to the leaders has widened.

The Cyborg's value hinges on where you shop. At the low end of its eye-popping $460-to-$4127 spread, you're getting a dedicated GPU gaming laptop for less than many Chromebooks. At the high end, you're overpaying; for that money you can get a far more premium ultrabook like the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition with a better screen and build. Shop carefully and you can walk away with a steal.

The MSI Cyborg A13VE-218US is a curious machine. On one hand, it packs an RTX 4050 and a 10-core i7-13620H into a 1.98kg chassis, and if you shop around you might snag it for as low as $460. On the other, it's a plastic shell with a middling 1080p/144Hz screen and a cramped 512GB SSD. The numbers tell a similar story: the GPU sits comfortably in the top quarter of our gaming laptop benchmarks, and its social proof score is a standout, ranking in the 90th percentile among gaming laptops. But build quality and display fall back to average territory, and the price spread is wild—from $460 to over $4000 depending on the vendor.

Skip this laptop if you demand a premium metal design or a high-res, color-accurate display. Creators who need a better screen for photo work will be frustrated, and the 512GB drive will have you constantly deleting games. Look at the ASUS ProArt PX13 or Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition for a more luxurious experience.

The MSI Cyborg A13VE-218US remains a capable budget gaming laptop on paper, but right now it is out of stock across every vendor we track. That makes the verdict simple: you cannot buy it. If listings return at a sane price, the RTX 4050 and i7-13620H still deliver solid 1080p gaming, but the new top five, led by the MacBook Pro M4 Max and Legion Pro 7i, have raised the bar for what a premium laptop should feel like. The Cyborg's plastic shell and 512GB SSD feel even more dated in that company.