Overwhelmed and restrained by Taitra safety guards, I am hauled again to the MSI sales space from whence I got here, the laptop computer I might tried to spirit away handed again to MSI whereas members of the North American PR workforce take a look at me in stony silence. I elevate up my head and meet their eyes, one after the other.
“It belongs in a museum!” I yell over the clamor and din of the Computex 2025 showfloor.
One of many reps that I’ve recognized for years shouts to be heard: “John, what the hell, man? Have you ever misplaced your thoughts?”
“It belongs in a museum!”
OK, in order that scene did not play out something like that yesterday after I first set eyes on the MSI Status 13+ AI Ukiyo-e Version laptop computer, but it surely rattling properly might have. All that I wanted was a method of escape by means of the packed crowd on the MSI sales space, all of whom gawked together with me at what’s undoubtedly probably the most lovely laptop computer any of us has ever seen.
The MSI Status 13+ AI is already among the finest laptops MSI’s put out in recent times, however the one on show at Computex was one thing completely totally different. Splashed throughout the lid is a hand-laquered replica of The Nice Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese artist and printmaker Hokusai, a grasp of the ukiyo-e artwork type that dominated Japan from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.
I am not as into Japanese artwork and tradition as a lot of my mates are, a couple of of whom communicate various levels of Japanese as a second language and all of whom personal just about each Manga that has been launched in the USA (in addition to many who they’ve needed to pay additional to order immediately from Japanese retailers), however I do love ukiyo-e..
I grew up in New York Metropolis and spent plenty of time going to the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork all through my childhood, and the Met has a fairly spectacular assortment of ukiyo-e prints, together with an authentic print of The Nice Wave, first produced in 1831.
One thing in regards to the bourgeois market scenes, manor intrigues, and quaint private moments between mates and lovers that outlined the ukiyo-e type resonates with me to today.
But it surely was all the time the depictions of weak humanity within the presence of unassailable pure forces that spoke most strongly to me. And no murals captures that in addition to The Nice Wave, with its unstoppable water cresting over a pair of fishing boats, the house owners of that are nowhere to be seen. The one proof of their existence is the boats left behind, pilotless and on the mercy of nature.
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The Status 13+ AI Ukiyo-e Version reproduces this masterful scene because of the work of OKADAYA, a Japanese firm famend for its lacquerwork on superb chinaware and pottery.
Just like how ukiyo-e prints had been made in steps and layers again within the day, OKADAYA’s course of for creating The Nice Wave on the Status 13+ AI lid entails making use of eight skinny layers of lacquer by hand, incrementally build up the coloring and texture of the scene earlier than sharpening it to a easy, resilient end.
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The method is not restricted to simply the lid, both. The keys of the keyboard have additionally been stepped as much as a cultured, piano-key-like end with gold-colored key labels to match the MSI brand on the within of the machine and on the lid, in addition to the labels for the machine’s ports.
Whereas the paintings on the machine steals the present (and by present, I imply Computex, because the Status 13+ AI Ukiyo-e Version received Computex’s Greatest Selection Award this yr), the underlying laptop computer remains to be spectacular as properly, with as much as an Intel Lunar Lake SoC, as much as 32GB LPDDR5x reminiscence, 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, and a 13.3-inch 2.8K OLED show.
As an Artisan Assortment product, the brand new laptop computer could have a restricted run of 1,000 models, with every getting its manufacturing quantity laser-etched onto the underside of the machine. Given the handscrafting that is gone into these laptops, you’ll be able to think about that they will not be low cost, and I would not be shocked if nearly all of them have already been bought earlier than they even made their debut at this yr’s present.
Nonetheless, even when it is not attainable to personal one your self (until you get very fortunate), possibly one of many patrons might do their good deed for the yr and donate certainly one of these masterpieces to a museum someplace so we are able to all benefit from the artistry that is gone into this machine.
Having seen it up shut and held it myself, I can let you know it would not be misplaced among the many best ukiyo-e prints on show on the Met, and it is one thing I might fortunately take the time to go see at any time when I am there.
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