The Bravo laptops are part of MSI’s budget-oriented gaming lineup that usually features a decent CPU dGPU combo, but sacrifices quality in the screen and connectivity department. With the arrival of AMD’s Strix Point Ryzen AI processors, most of the gaming laptops featuring last year’s Phoenix Ryzen 7040 chips are now on clearance. Walmart currently has the best offer for a Ryzen 7 7840HS gaming laptop, as an MSI Bravo 15 model equipped with an entry-level Radeon RX 6550M is priced at $649.99.

While the RX 6550M dGPU with 4 GB VRAM is not a bad feature at this price point as it offers performance in line with an Nvidia RTX 3050, maybe MSI could have dropped it in favor of a better display. The Ryzen 7 7840HS already offers decent gaming performance with the Radeon 780M iGPU and the RX 6650M certainly cannot provide framerates in line with the 144 Hz screen refresh rate, so instead of the 1080p IPS panel with 65% sRGB color gamut, MSI could have provided a 1920 x 1200 screen with 60 Hz refresh and 100% sRGB gamut.

Complementing the processor is a 16 GB of DDR5-5600 RAM SO-DIMM upgradable to 64 GB via 2 slots and there also are two M.2 slots, of which only one is populated with a 512 GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. Port selection does not offer any high-speed connectors, but, for this price, it satisfies most requirements, with 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (DP mode), 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB 2.0, HDMI 2.1 video output and GbE jack.

What sets this model apart is the exclusive teal backlit keyboard with fully lighted WASD keys and integrated numpad. Surprisingly, MSI includes a Wi-FI 6E BT 5.3 card for fast wireless internet access. The system weighs 2.35 kg including the 53.3 Wh battery and the chassis is mostly made of plastic, with a 24.9 mm profile. As always, MSI offers a one-month free MS Game pass Ultimate.

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