MSI Modern 15 F13MG Review

Introduction

MSI isn’t a brand best known for its attempts at productivity laptops, gaining stronger recognition for gaming machines.

However, the Modern 15 F13MG may just look to change that. This is part of MSI’s more basic Modern lineup of laptops designed to take it to well-established competitors such as the Acer Aspire Vero 16 (2024, Base Model) and even the canon of well-specced Chromebooks such as the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 (Intel 13th Gen).

My test machine has a 13th Gen Intel Core i5-1335U, which is getting a little old these days but can still be a capable chip, as well as 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. It also has a 15-inch Full HD IPS screen and one of the best port selections I’ve seen on a laptop in a long time. Priced at £669/$749, it’s a more affordable laptop in Windows circles and could offer decent price to performance.

I’ve been testing the Modern 15 F13MG for the last couple of weeks to see how well it fares. Let’s take a look, and find out if it’s one of the best laptops we’ve tested.

Design and Keyboard

• Chunky and quite heavy frame
• Fantastic port selection
• Full-size keyboard and a smaller trackpad

The Modern 15 F13MG may not be the slimmest nor lightest laptop I’ve tested, coming with a chunky plastic frame that gives it a bit of a dated aesthetic against the modern and sleek Chromebook Spin 714 and innovative Aspire Vero 16. To be clear, I don’t mind the dark grey colourway MSI has gone for here, but it doesn’t necessarily stand out too much.

It weighs 1.7kg, which is on the heavier side for a 15-inch laptop, not least one that doesn’t have a dedicated GPU inside. Nonetheless, the mid-range size makes this a reasonably okay laptop to take on your travels, even if it is a bit hefty.

The 19.9mm thickness means it isn’t the most svelte laptop in MSI’s range, although it has the benefit of meaning it can fit some larger ports on the sides. It’s got one of the best port selections I’ve seen on a laptop at any price, not least one that’s this cheap.

The left side features a USB-C with support for display and power delivery, as well as the first USB-A port, an HDMI and a barrel jack for power. The right side has a headphone jack, a further two USB-As, a Micro SD reader and an Ethernet port for wired networking.

Opening up the lid reveals some thicker bezels around the 15-inch display, as well as a full-size keyboard that offers reasonable tactility in a decent form factor.

The only issue with the keyboard is that the number pad is tacked onto the right side as a bit of an afterthought and is a bit cramped. The entire keyboard is at least backlit in a bright white, so after-dark working is possible.

For a laptop of its size, the trackpad is a little on the smaller side, but it is at least quite responsive, with decent tracking and solid button action.

Display and Sound

• Meagre brightness and contrast
• Poor colour accuracy
• Thin speakers

It’s usually on the front of displays where more affordable laptops skimp out against their pricier counterparts, and unfortunately, that seems to be the case with the Modern 15 F13MG. On paper, a 15-inch Full HD IPS screen isn’t a bad thing for a cheaper laptop. However, things are quite different in practice.

As much as IPS screens are usually known for excellent colours, that isn’t necessarily the case here. My colorimeter measured just 68% of the sRGB gamut, meaning mainstream colours for productivity workloads are only partially well-represented, while the 51% coverage of both DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB gamuts means this isn’t a laptop suited for colour-sensitive workloads. Colours can look quite washed out with this screen.

A peak brightness of 230.1 nits also doesn’t hit our 300-nit target, so it is only suitable for indoor working, and leaves images looking dim, as does the meagre 1190:1 contrast ratio, meaning images lack a bit of punch.

On a better note, the 6900K colour temperature is reasonable, as is the 0.11 black level measured at 50 percent brightness. It means images can have a bit of depth.

As is typical with more affordable laptops, the speakers with the Modern 15 F13MG aren’t necessarily the strongest, offering a thin sound that just makes them suitable for casual listening. You are much better off using the headphone jack for any serious working, though.

Performance

• Decent performance for productivity workloads
• Intensive tasks may be more of a struggle
• Decent RAM headroom with nippy SSD

The Modern 15 F13MG is available with a range of 13th Gen Intel chips, with this model shipping with the Intel Core i5-1335U chip, complete with Iris Xe iGPU. It is a couple of generations old now against the latest ultrabooks, but still holds up well for day-to-day workloads.

This chip’s single-core performance in Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23 still keeps up with slightly more modern hardware, such as the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H inside the Huawei Matebook 14 (2024) and the newer Lunar Lake Core 200V chips in the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro.

With this in mind, it’s in the multi-threaded workloads where the Modern 15 F13MG begins to falter. The sub-7000 scores in both Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23 sit noticeably below more modern hardware. While the Core i5-1335U is a 10-core processor, they’re nowhere near as potent for intensive workloads as more modern chips. This means you will be limited to more casual workloads with this laptop.

This is also backed up by the sub-1500 score in 3DMark Time Spy, which is on par with some of the Arm-based Windows ultrabooks I’ve tested. It means this laptop isn’t necessarily suited from a graphical perspective to workloads such as video or photo editing, or anything beyond very light gaming.

You do at least get 16GB of RAM to provide enough headroom for multitasking, and the Modern 15 F13MG didn’t experience a notable slowdown when opening a load of Chrome tabs and having Spotify and Slack open in the background while working. It also comes with a decently-sized 512GB SSD, which is quite brisk for the price, with measured read and write speeds of 5033.15MB/s and 2840.30MB/s respectively.

Software

• Not enough AI power to be a Copilot+ PC
• Clean Windows install
• MSI’s own software is handy for general configuration

Despite this MSI laptop having a slightly older Intel chip inside, it is bang-up-to-date in terms of software. This is evidenced by the inclusion of the Copilot key on the bottom of the keyboard, even though this machine does not pack enough AI horsepower to be a fully-fledged Copilot PC.

Nonetheless, the key is there to call up Microsoft’s AI assistant, although you only get access to some of the recent AI smarts included with the recent Windows 11 update, such as the generative AI in MS Paint.

Otherwise, it’s a reasonably clean Windows 11 install here, with the only unwanted bloatware being Norton antivirus. MSI’s apps are limited to the catch-all MSI Center S, which is where you can do everything from checking on your system’s vitals to fiddling with settings such as the noise cancellation on the laptop’s built-in microphone and its performance mode.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 6 hours 13 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting for one working day

The Modern 15 F13MG’s endurance also falters behind key rivals, with its 47Whr cell being smaller than what’s available in the competition, leading it to only last for 6 hours and 13 minutes in our PCMark 10 battery test.

This misses our 10 hour target by quite some distance, and means you may be struggling to last for an entire working day away from the mains with this laptop. Some hypermiling will get you there, but you’ll want to keep the charger nearby just in case.

When the Modern F13MG eventually conks out, you at least won’t be waiting around for too long for it to get going again. It comes with a 65W power brick, which allows it to go from zero to 50% in just shy of 40 minutes.

Should you buy it?