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日本MSI Vector 16 HX A13V vs Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) – Which 16-Inch Laptop Should You Choose?
Gaming laptops in 2024 come in all shapes and sizes, with 14-inch up to 18-inch machines all sporting powerful CPUs and GPUs, along with all the rest of the bells and whistles that a gaming device should have. Today we’ve got two 16-inch laptops, though. The form factor has become very popular, probably the most popular right now, thanks to taller 16:10 displays that offers advantages for both gaming as well as productivity.
Today’s contestant #1, the MSI Vector 16 HX, is the third most powerful series of laptops in the MSI totem pole, behind the Raider and the almighty Titan. Contestant #2 is the pinnacle of Lenovo’s Legion lineup, the Legion Pro 7i, which takes gaming and content creation as a first priority. The two laptops are offered with very similar hardware, Intel’s 14th Gen Raptor Lake HX-series processors, as well as RTX 40-series graphics. There are also some really great displays, with up to a QHD+ resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate.
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx): Full Specs / In-depth Review
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9): Full Specs / In-depth Review
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) configurations:
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) configurations:
Specs table
| Specification | MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i9-14900HX Intel Core i9-13980HX Intel Core i9-13950HX | Intel Core i9-14900HX |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (Laptop, 175W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (Laptop, 175W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (Laptop, 140W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (Laptop, 140W) | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (Laptop, 175W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (Laptop, 175W) |
| Display | 16.0″, WUXGA (1920 x 1200), 144 Hz, IPS 16.0″, QHD (2560 x 1600), 240 Hz, IPS | 16.0″, WQXGA (2560 x 1600), 240 Hz, IPS |
| Memory | up to 192GB | up to 192GB |
| Battery | 90Wh | 99.9Wh |
| Weight | 6 lbs (2.70 kg) | 5.8 lbs (2.62 kg) |
| Dimensions | 14.06″ x 11.18″ x 0.87″ (357 x 284 x 22.20 – 28.55 mm) | 14.31″ x 10.32″ x 0.86″ (363.5 x 262.1 x 21.95 – 25.9 mm) |
| Ports |
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Unboxing
Both laptops bring powerful 330W chargers. The Legion Pro 7i, depending on the region, can also come with 4 swappable keycaps for the keyboard, as well as a Lenovo Legion Gaming Speed Mouse Pad M. If you’ll take the Legion on the go and need a smaller charger, Lenovo offers a 140W USB Type-C adapter.
| MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) | |
|---|---|---|
| Charger power | 330W | 330W |
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Design and construction
The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is slightly thinner and lighter. In terms of design, the MSI Vector appears much bulkier and chunkier, as well as a more aggressive rear end that fits the gamer vibe. Lenovo was a key player of revolutionizing laptop design, with their Legions kicking off the incognito gaming niche.
| MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) | |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 6 lbs (2.70 kg) | 5.8 lbs (2.62 kg) |
| Dimensions | 14.06″ x 11.18″ x 0.87″ (357 x 284 x 22.20 – 28.55 mm) | 14.31″ x 10.32″ x 0.86″ (363.5 x 262.1 x 21.95 – 25.9 mm) |
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Keyboard and touchpad
The MSI Vector provides a SteelSeries keyboard, with transparent WASD, Arrow, and Power buttons. The board itself features a per-key RGB backlight, as well as plenty of key travel and responsiveness, so typing is very comfortable. There’s also a NumPad, albeit its a bit bunched up. As for the Legion, the board here looks like one you’ll find on an IdeaPad. However, the key travel, clicky feedback, and large, spacious keycaps. There is a choice between a White and a per-key RGB backlight.
In terms of touchpads, they are big, smooth, and responsive. The unit on the Vector is a bit bigger, so take that as you will.
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Ports
Both laptops bring tons of ports. The Legion Pro 7i has more total USB ports, however, the MSI Vector 16 brings an SD card reader.
| MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) | |
|---|---|---|
| Ports |
|
|
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Display and Sound Quality
| MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) | |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1920 x 1200 | 2560 x 1600 |
| Aspect ratio | 16:10 | 16:10 |
| Panel technology | IPS | IPS |
| Pixel density | 141 PPI | 189 PPI |
| Dot pitch | 0.18 x 0.18 mm | 0.13 x 0.13 mm |
| Retina distance | 24″ (61 cm) | 18″ (46 cm) |
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Here you can check the viewing angles of the two displays, which deliver excellent viewing experience from wherever you look.
The screen on the Legion 5 Pro almost reaches 500 nits of brightness, much higher than the Vector 16, making it great for outdoor use.
| MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) | |
|---|---|---|
| Peak brightness (middle of the screen/average for the entire display area) | 304/305 nits | 492/483 nits |
| Max deviation | 5% | 4% |
| Color temperature (on white screen) | 6510K | 7210K |
| Contrast ratio | 1500:1 | 1340:1 |
Color coverage
Here are some illustrations (Fig. 1) & (Fig. 2). The whole “sail-shaped” map below consists of all the colors we can see, while the black crooked line shows all the colors from real-world scenes and nature around us.
Then, we’ve drawn some of the most important and interesting color spaces, compared to the colors that the panels of the laptops can display:
Standard/For Web: sRGB – widely used color space for most consumer devices, ideal for Web design and development
For Print: AdobeRGB – used in professional photo editing, graphic design, and print
For Photographers/Video Editors: DCI-P3 – used in high-end film production, post-production, and digital cinema
Premium HDR: Rec.2020 – the widest consumer ITU color standard, covering a massive 75.8% of the visible spectrum, a benchmark for premium HDR content
The yellow dotted line shows the color coverage of the MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) and the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9).
The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) can display many more colors than its competitor, offering a much more vivid picture.
| MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) | |
|---|---|---|
| sRGB | 53% | 100% |
| DCI-P3 | 42% | 99% |
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Color accuracy
Now let’s see how big the difference is between the real colors and the ones you’ll see on the three laptops. We measure that distance in DeltaE – the bigger the number, the more different they look.
For the next illustration, we’ve chosen 24 common colors like dark and light skin, blue sky, green grass, etc.
Below you can see the results of the two laptops with our Web Design and Office Work profile applied. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) is the more accurate of the two, with a dE value of 1.0.
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)MSI Vector 16 HX A13V 16.0″ Innolux N160JME-GTK (CMN1621) (1920 x 1200) IPS: Buy our profiles
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16″, Gen 9) 16.0″ BOE NE160QDM-NZB (BOE0C8B) (2560×1600) IPS: Buy our profiles
Response time (Gaming capabilities)
We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.
The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i has a lower Fall Time + Rise Time = 7.6 ms. Short pixel response time is a prerequisite for a smooth picture in dynamic scenes.
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)PWM
PWM, also known as flickering is how some panels adjust brightness. The problem with it is that it’s tiring to your eyes, which means you need to limit the use of said device. Thankfully, both displays here show no usage of PWM.
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Sound
Both speaker setups provide loud and quality audio with no frequency deviations across all frequencies. The Lenovo laptop gets a HARMAN-tuned setup, while the Vector 16 brings a Nahimic Hi-res audio setup.
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Performance – CPU, GPU, Gaming, Storage
Below we’ve highlighted the configurations that we’ve tested.
| Specification | MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) | Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i9-14900HX Intel Core i9-13980HX Intel Core i9-13950HX | Intel Core i9-14900HX |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (Laptop, 175W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (Laptop, 175W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (Laptop, 140W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (Laptop, 140W) | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (Laptop, 175W) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (Laptop, 175W) |
CPU benchmarks
The Core i9-14900HX is only slightly more powerful than the Core i9-13980HX. It’s only 1% faster in Cinebench R23 and only 0.03 seconds quicker in the Photoshop benchmark. However, the Vector 16 can be purchased with the same Core i9-14900HX, which might perform even better in the Vector than in the Legion. Even if you go with the 13th Gen Core i9 though, you won’t feel a performance difference.
Here, we evaluate the CPU's performance using a real-world 3D rendering task, assessing its ability to handle complex computations and rendering workloads efficiently.
Results are from the Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core test (higher is better)
GPU benchmarks
Here we tested two RTX 4080s, both with a 175W power limit. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is 1% quicker in both 3DMark Time Spy and Fire Strike. On the other hand, the MSI Vector 16 is 6% more powerful in Unigine Superposition.
The results are from 3DMark Time Spy (Graphics). Higher is better.
Results are from 3DMark Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)
| Borderlands 3 | Full HD, V.Low (Check settings) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Badass (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Vector 16 HX – RTX 4080 175W | 253 fps | 225 fps | 193 fps (+1%) | 161 fps |
| Lenovo Legion Pro 7i – RTX 4080 175W | 260 fps (+3%) | 227 fps (+1%) | 191 fps | 162 fps (+1%) |
| Far Cry 6 | Full HD, Low (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Vector 16 HX – RTX 4080 175W | 200 fps | 163 fps | 153 fps |
| Lenovo Legion Pro 7i – RTX 4080 175W | 226 fps (+13%) | 179 fps (+10%) | 167 fps (+9%) |
| Gears 5 | Full HD, Low (Check settings) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Vector 16 HX – RTX 4080 175W | 320 fps | 244 fps | 231 fps | 209 fps |
| Lenovo Legion Pro 7i – RTX 4080 175W | 331 fps (+3%) | 253 fps (+4%) | 231 fps | 210 fps (+0.4%) |
| Metro Exodus | Full HD, Low (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Extreme (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Vector 16 HX – RTX 4080 175W | 191 fps | 147 fps | 81 fps (+37%) |
| Lenovo Legion Pro 7i – RTX 4080 175W | 250 fps (+31%) | 172 fps (+17%) | 59 fps |
[eBook Guide + Tools] How to MAX OUT your Laptop
You can make your laptop Faster. LaptopMedia has tested thousands of models in the last 15 years, and we have yet to see a notebook that couldn't be made more powerful through modifications.
That's why we decided to bundle everything we know about how to achieve this in an Easy-to-Follow, Step-by-Step, and Laboratory-Tested, all in one project.
Read more about it here:
[eBook Guide + Tools] How to MAX OUT Your Laptop
🛠️ GPU Modifications: vBIOS, Overclocking, Undervolting
⚙️ Building Fast/Reliable RAID configuration
💻 Hardware upgrade tips for best results
🖼 Display enhancing
💾 OS Optimization for best performance
Battery
In the battery tests, the MSI Vector lasts for 24 minutes more in video playback while the Legion has an extra 1 hour 40 minutes more in the web browsing test.
Brightness: 180 nits; Display Mode: SDR
Time to Full Discharge: Higher is Better
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
Cooling and temperatures, Gaming comfort
Here we have a regular cooling setup with heat pipes (MSI Vector) going against a vapor chamber (Legion Pro 7i).
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx)
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9)Real-life gaming
The clock speeds wattages and temperatures are very similar after 2 minutes of testing. Prolonged testing (after 30 minutes) shows the Legion Pro 7i maintains higher clock speeds and lower temperatures.
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min) |
|---|---|---|
| MSI Vector 16 HX A13V | 2400 MHz @ 78°C @ 174W | 2364 MHz @ 83°C @ 174W |
| Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16″, Gen 9) | 2403 MHz @ 80°C @ 172W | 2406 MHz @ 80°C @ 172W |
Upgradeability
Both laptops provide 2 SODIMM slots for RAM upgrades and two M.2 PCIe Gen 4 (or Gen 5 in the case of the Vector) slots for SSDs.
Verdict
The MSI Vector 16 and the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i give you the best possible gaming performance from a 16-inch machine. However, depending on what you’d like to do outside the gaming world, these two do differ in some aspects. First of all, though, let’s tackle gaming. Both laptops push their RTX 4080s to the limit, with high TGPs, high clock speeds, and low temperatures. In our gaming tests, the Legion Pro 7i was the better-performing laptop, with higher FPS across the board.
Secondly, the display on the Legion Pro 7i is brighter and covers a lot more colors, making it the preferred option if you want to create content and tackle color-related work. Also, the panel of the Legion has a lower Response Time, which is much better for gaming. With that said, the MSI Vector can be configured with a QHD+ display, which will probably match or exceed the Legion in all categories. The CPU performance jump from the Core i9-13980HX to the Core i9-14900HX is really small and rather negligible.
Battery life overall is pretty even when it comes to video playback, however, the Legion does lead in web browsing. The rest, like upgradeability and port selection, are great on both laptops, with some small differences. One rather annoying hassle on the Legion is the lack of an SD card reader, but you can solve that using a dongle.
Looking at the pricing of the two models with Core i9 CPUs and RTX 4080 GPUs, there’s a $200 difference in favor of the Vector. However, the Legion has a 2TB SSD while the Vector has a 1TB SSD. A terabyte of storage costs around $100, for which you can get a pretty fast SSD (Check our SSD Ranking) You can check the pricing below as well as on the series page.
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx): Full Specs / In-depth Review
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9): Full Specs / In-depth Review
MSI Vector 16 HX (A13Vx / A14Vx) configurations:
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16, Gen 9) configurations:
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