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There’s a logical strategy that laptop vendors have quietly embraced that involves using the same base components for B2B and B2C devices. Nothing surprising here as it’s essentially economies of scale applied to entire product ranges and in my deal today, gaming and creative laptops.
To that end, Walmart has dropped the price of the MSI GF63 Thin notebook to $599, a price that includes free shipping. This is supposed to be a gaming laptop - and MSI makes a fair few of those - but its hardware is powerful enough to be used as a mobile workstation for AutoCAD 2024 (which has just launched) or indeed any other Computer Aided Design (CAD) applications. And MSI does a few of them like the WF66-11UX.
The device is the cheapest new, branded laptop that I have found that comes with a new-ish processor and a recent dedicated graphics card at that price point. Plus on top of that, it weighs less than 2kg - meaning that although it is not an Ultrabook, it isn't that far.
MSI GF63 Thin: A brief look
As we noted in our best laptop for AutoCAD 2023 guide, gaming laptops tend to be cheaper than creative-focussed ones or portables with a specific use-case, such as laptops for engineering students. With an emphasis on graphics, gaming laptops typically surpass the recommended requirements for AutoCAD 2023. As a bonus, they can fulfil two separate use cases with ease: working and playing and the MSI GF63 Thin is the perfect embodiment of this.
It has an 11th generation six-core Intel Core i5-11400H CPU with a dedicated Nvidia Geforce GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB GDDR6, 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a 256GB NVMe Gen3 SSD, all powered by Windows 11. Its battery is a small-ish 51WHr (which MSI, optimistically, says will last you seven hours) and its display is a 15.6-inch full HD IPS one with a 60Hz refresh rate.
It does come with Wi-Fi 6, a spare bay for a 2.5-inch storage drive (SSD or HDD) and because it is a traditional laptop has more ports than your usual thin-and-light laptop: 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, 3x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 2.0 video output, Gigabit Ethernet, 3.5mm headphone, 3.5 mm microphone.
A couple of things to note: there’s several versions of this laptop on sale. The one listed here specifically is the 11SC-693. The memory is a single 8GB module one but you can always upgrade it should you want to; up to 64GB RAM (two 32GB). MSI also bundles an intriguing application called App Player that is an Android emulator geared towards gaming but should also allow you to run any Android applications.
Our review on TechRadar delivered a great verdict and a 4.5 stars: “A sensibly-priced gaming laptop that doesn’t feel cheap? Decent 1080p performance without horribly noisy fans? A sturdy chassis with a comfortable, responsive keyboard? Yes, the MSI GF63 Thin has all this and more, making it a fantastic value option despite its unimpressive battery life”, wrote our colleague Christian Guyton.