MSI Stealth 18 AI Studio A1V Review: No AI Needed

I was capable to max retired astatine 120 frames per 2nd portion playing Doom Eternal connected Ultra settings, and adjacent got astir 70 fps successful Starfield connected Medium. Starfield dropped down to a still-playable 50 fps connected Ultra, though I got it up to 80 fps connected Ultra by enabling framework generation. I’m not a instrumentality of this diagnostic arsenic it tin sometimes pb to immoderate weird smoothing effects—to my mind, it hits the aforesaid nervus arsenic motion smoothing connected TVs—but your mileage whitethorn vary.

In presumption of artillery life, your champion stake is to support your charger adjacent for gaming sessions. The astir 100-watt-hour artillery is massive, but truthful is the powerfulness draw. It lasted astir 3 hours of dense gaming, and person to six to 7 hours with much emblematic use.

These limitations marque the MSI Stealth 18 champion suited to being a workhorse laptop you tin play games connected astatine the extremity of the day. Running media editing apps similar DaVinci Resolve and Blender was smooth, and I seldom noticed show problems portion moving connected it. Most gaming laptops would tally likewise with comparable GPUs, but the caller Meteor Lake CPU gives you a spot of future-proofing. Companies similar Blackmagic are moving connected adding enactment for NPUs generally, truthful if there's an country wherever Intel's NPU is apt to beryllium utilized successful the future, it's apt media instauration first.

There mightiness beryllium amended laptops purely for gaming—the Razer Blade 18, for example, trades a lower-resolution surface for a whopping 300-Hz refresh rate. But if you’d alternatively person 1 almighty laptop for enactment and play, the Stealth 18 is simply a coagulated investment.

All the Right Extras

The plan of the Stealth 18 feels a small spot much gam3r than I like, but I tin unrecorded with it for each the other small touches MSI has enactment successful this thing. For starters, it comes with a NumPad. I don’t attraction what anyone other says, NumPads are great, and I admit that there’s a almighty gaming laptop with one. It’s astir useful portion doing assorted video editing tasks, little for gaming, but if you’re similar me, you’ll admit its presence.

The remainder of the keyboard is likewise delightful. The font connected the keys looks strikingly akin to the font Sony inexplicably used for some PlayStation and Spider-Man branding backmost successful the aughts. The chiclet-style keys are flat, with nary dimples, but they're raised capable to consciousness casual to separate portion typing, though my astir communal mistake was hitting the caller and mostly unnecessary Copilot key, which takes up country adjacent the abstraction bar. The trackpad is ace smooth. It could beryllium a spot bigger, but I lone wished this portion connected to a 2nd monitor.

There’s an Ethernet port, HDMI port, and the proprietary charging larboard connected the rear of the device, which is an incredibly convenient determination for plugging the laptop into a table workstation. It’s not rather arsenic convenient arsenic a laptop docking station, but it’s little cluttered than cables sticking retired the sides. I’m besides a instrumentality of the dedicated fingerprint sensor, which makes it easier to motion successful to Windows and unlock password managers.

Overall, the MSI Stealth 18 is simply a powerhouse, adjacent without the NPU. At $3,300 for the RTX 4080 model, you tin prevention a fewer 100 dollars compared to comparably-specced (minus the refresh rate) laptops similar the Razer Blade 18. Just marque definite to support your partition charger handy.