In the late 1820s, legendary Japanese Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai published a series of landscape prints in a collection called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The most famous artwork, called The Great Wave off Kanagawa, depict three boats sailing through a stormy ocean while Mount Fuji looms on the horizon, its distant gaze fixed on the fate of these brave sailors. Centuries later, we find one of the greatest pieces of art ever created etched on the frame of MSI’s Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition – a stunning blend of modern tech meeting traditional Yamanaka lacquer craftsmanship. And like its artful design choice, MSI has crafted a masterpiece of a notebook.

The MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition is the single most beautiful notebook I’ve ever seen, and I say that without exaggeration. The detailed lacquer handcraft depicting The Great Wave is stunningly etched onto its body, accentuating the dark/light blues of the crashing waves, with glimmering gold highlighting the boats. MSI has combined the impressive modern tech of the Prestige 13 AI+ with Hokusai’s iconic print, inadvertently creating a piece of “tech art” in the process. While MSI has explored stylistic Japanese influences before (one of my favourites being my own home laptop, the Katana GF76), this is the company’s boldest, most intricately designed notebook yet from an aesthetic standpoint and I adore it.



That thoughtfulness extends to the materials, texture and careful build of the Ukiyo-e Edition. It’s crafted with gold leaf powder via traditional maki-e artistry built atop a very lightweight magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis, finished off with a mirror-like coating for that sleek modern look. This is a productivity notebook designed with the highest respect for Japanese artistry, and the passion MSI shows here is evident from the moment you first set your eyes on it.

The MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition is the single most beautiful notebook I’ve ever seen, and I say that without exaggeration.

I could spend much more time talking about the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition’s mesmerising aesthetic, but if you have a good eye for business and productivity notebooks, you also want one that’s going to perform. On that front, the notebook simply excels and ticks every single box for what I want in a notebook – and you’ll want it too.



First of all, the 16:10 OLED display is absolutely stunning, bursting to life with vivid colours, rich and deep contrasts, and striking smoothness. I mainly used the notebook for work but between that, it became my hub for watching movies and anime too (with the odd detour to play games). Naturally, the 2.8K OLED screen enhances the viewing quality significantly, to the point where I had to force myself away from it in fear that I’d get too attached. Given its smaller scale and dimensions, the notebook is easily portable and can be moved around without any strain, so it followed me around the house constantly.

Combine its excellent portability, quiet nature, and visually gorgeous OLED display. For both home and business usage, the Ukiyo-e Edition is an outstanding over-achiever.

Admittedly, the tighter spacing of the keys on its smaller form factor took some getting used to, but once it clicked, it became second nature. Typing on the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition is remarkably silent, and without RGB lighting dancing around the keys like a little rave, there’s nothing to distract – or rather, detract – from its professional, low-key aesthetic. Now combine its excellent portability, quiet nature, and visually gorgeous OLED display. For both home and business usage, the Ukiyo-e Edition is an outstanding over-achiever.



The notebook’s capabilities are backed up by an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, 2x ThunderBolt 4 Display Ports, 1x Type-A USB port, 1x MicroSD card reader, and 1x HDMI 2.1 port (for 8K @ 60hz or 4K @ 120Hz). Some might lament the lack of more USB ports, but if you’re solely using the notebook for anything other than gaming, you don’t really need those extra ports. The notebook’s own complementary mouse connects wirelessly through Bluetooth without the need for a dongle either way.

The top-of-the-range CPU ensures you have enough processing power for some pretty strenuous multitasking, making it more than ideal for productivity and business use. Standard for most modern notebooks, it also comes equipped with Windows 11 Home. With a 1TB SSD on board, that’s more than enough space to stack your work files, videos, music, photos or whatever personal storage you require.



As far as gaming goes, MSI doesn’t market the Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition as a gaming notebook at all, nor would I particularly recommend it for intensive gaming. That said, with the notebook’s Intel Arc 140V Lunar Lake GPU (more or less putting it in line with the power of top-tier modern handheld PCs), it’s not completely without gaming capabilities either. While you should be able to play games like Cyberpunk 2077 on low/medium settings at a 1080p cap and a somewhat stable 30FPS, it should run less-demanding titles without a hitch such as Minecraft, Roblox or a wide selection of indie games (Hollow Knight: Silksong included). This isn’t a gaming laptop in the end, so it’s not the focus of the package, but admittedly, I am impressed at its fairly decent gaming output.



MSI also boasts that the Prestige 13 A+ Ukiyo-e Edition has a battery life of up to 24 hours unplugged, so I put this to the test. I know I just said gaming isn’t a big part of the experience here but if you’re going to be using it for lite gaming, the notebook will last between 4-5 hours or less depending on how demanding a game is. I played Hollow Knight: Silksong comfortably for about that time before I had to plug it back in to charge. If you’re solely going to use the notebook for personal or business use, I discovered that the battery life really holds up. After roughly 16-18 hours, I had to plug it back in and this included doing mild workloads and watching videos. I’m sure with Energy Saver on, you can push it to that 24-hour mark but I didn’t want to put too much stress on it.

This isn’t the kind of notebook I’d personally want to wear out through daily use; I’d put it in a glass cabinet somewhere and have a Louvre-level security system on it.

The final thing I’d like to touch on is whether or not the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition feels a bit like a gimmick. When it was revealed, this thought crossed my mind as well, but after having extensive hands-on time with it, I can safely say that those worries are unfounded. Some might raise an eyebrow at the retail asking price of +- R32,000 but taking into consideration that there are only 2,000 of these limited edition notebooks available globally, I’d actually argue that’s very fairly priced. This isn’t the kind of notebook I’d personally want to wear out through daily use; I’d put it in a glass cabinet somewhere and have a Louvre-level security system on it. A collector’s item, sure, but it also reliably caters to your every need if you choose to use it as your primary work or home device.



The MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Ukiyo-e Edition is one of the best productivity notebooks I’ve ever had the pleasure of reviewing on Nexus Hub – a masterfully designed, well-crafted passion piece by MSI that successfully blurs the lines between tech and traditional Japanese artistry. When Hokusai published his magnum opus two centuries ago, I don’t know if he imagined how impactful his art would one day become. We’ve seen it in media across film, television, anime, manga, and even other artworks that directly draw inspiration from it – but now, MSI has brought the Great Wave crashing into its most refined, magnificent notebook yet.