MSI Stealth 15M: Should You Buy a Thin Gaming Laptop?

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At first glance, the MSI Stealth 15M doesn’t resemble a gaming laptop; if you asked anyone, they would say this thing looks like it belongs in an office environment.

If you picked up the Stealth 15M, you might be shocked to find how thin and light it is for a gaming laptop (seriously, it’s just 3.7 lbs). But don’t be fooled by its understated looks. This laptop packs many notable features that are suited for gaming.

The perfect way to describe this laptop to someone would be to say it’s a gaming laptop designed to hide your gaming addiction from your family, friends, and colleagues. However, the question that remains is, should you buy an ultralight gaming laptop at all?

Design

The MSI Stealth 15M has one of the sleekest looking designs of any 15-inch laptop on the market, let alone a gaming laptop. Coming in at just 3.7 pounds and 0.6 inches in thickness, the Stealth 15M is by far one of the thinnest and lightest gaming laptops you’ll find. The laptop has an all-aluminum chassis which allows it to achieve its super lightweight form factor. During testing, the device felt quite sturdy with minimal keyboard and flex.

The Stealth 15M comes in two styles: Carbon Gray and Pure White. The Carbon Gray unit we got to test out is incredibly minimalistic and understated; you won’t find any crazy RGB or sharp angular cuts anywhere. Even the MSI logo has discretely set onto the back of this laptop. All to say, this laptop looks great; you aren’t going to turn any eyes with it, but you also won’t be stuck with obnoxious design choices that stick out like a sore eye. If you do end up getting the Carbon Gray version, you might want to have a microfibre cloth on hand as this gets dirty with fingerprints quite fast; this is typical of most gray/black laptops, but it’s worth mentioning.

Once you pop open the laptop, you’ll see the device’s 15-inch screen, its blue-backlit keyboard, and its unique honeycomb vents going along the top portion of the deck. The bezels of the display are slim, but this laptop certainly has a chin.

The honeycomb vents and the blue-backlit keyboard are the most gamer-esque part of the laptop, and they add to a nice look and feel.

When it comes to port selection, you won’t be disappointed with the Stealth 15M. You’re getting two USB-A 3.2 ports, microSD, HDMI (with support for 4K at 60Hz output), two USB-C ports (one of which supports Thunderbolt 4), a headphone jack, and a separate DC charging socket. The inclusion of Thunderbolt 4 is excellent, as you can achieve 40GB per second throughput.

Overall, if you’re looking to turn heads with the Stealth 15M, you would be disappointed, but conversely, if you’re looking for a super minimal gaming laptop, this is it, and it looks excellent.

Display

The display on the Stealth 15M is a mixed bag; while it’s a respectable FHD+ panel with 144Hz, the display panel itself is not color accurate, nor does it get that bright.

The laptop maxes out 255 nits of peak brightness. While that brightness is acceptable in a dimly lit room, it’s not a great viewing experience if you plan on bringing it around campus or putting it in a generally bright area.

I watched Lucifer on this display, and the experience was less than optimal; the screen lacked contrast and general detail in darker scenes, and while the screen was sharp, you’ll notice the colors feel off.

While this laptop’s display may not have the most accurate colors or the highest peak brightness, the screen does have a matte finish, making it ideal for gaming and reducing glare.

Keyboard and Trackpad

When it comes to the keyboard, MSI did a great job here. The keys have decent travel, the backlighting is uniform, visible, and the general layout of the keys makes it ideal for gaming, with the arrow keys covering a massive area on the deck.

The trackpad on the MSI Stealth 15M is decent, but there’s room for improvement. Sure, as a gaming laptop, the trackpad isn’t a priority, but at close to $2000, MSI could’ve put in a more tactile and premium trackpad. It’s not to say this trackpad is terrible by any means. It gets the job done just fine, but when comparing the Stealth 15M to the rest of MSI’s lineup, with laptops like its Summit 13 Evo, MSI could have easily put in a larger trackpad here (there’s certainly the space for it too).

Repairability and Upgrades

The MSI Stealth 15M has user-upgradeable RAM and storage, and getting into the laptop is straightforward. When you flip the device over, there are 13 Philips head screws you need to undo. To get into the machine, you have to pry open the bottom plate with a credit card or plastic pick.

After that, you need to take out the motherboard; to do this, you need to unplug the battery, the M.2 SSD and disconnect the ribbon cables attached to the motherboard. Then you can unscrew the motherboard from the chassis and flip it over to see the dual-channel RAM slots, which support a maximum of 64GB.

Getting into the device and upgrading the RAM or storage can be daunting for first-timers, but it’s nice to see that there’s an option to upgrade your RAM and storage. You can get your device to last for a higher period down the line.

When it comes to the battery, the cell is not user-upgradeable but can be replaced. You can refer to our guide to caring for non-removable batteries if you want to maximize the longevity of your Stealth 15M. Generally speaking, it is easy to get into the laptop to replace the battery yourself, so you shouldn’t have any issues there. Batteries for MSI laptops tend to cost from $30-50.

Performance and Gaming

When it comes to performance, the Stealth 15M is excellent but with a couple of caveats. The device’s CPU and GPU are top-of-the-line components that can manage to deliver consistent performance for almost any task. The device is equipped with the Intel Core i7-11375H and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 discrete graphics. Our review unit also came with 1TB of SSD storage and 16GB of RAM.

During my testing, the device can effortlessly render 1080p or 4K video in Premiere Pro, and when scrubbing through the timeline, the playback was uninterrupted. I also used the computer for moderate gaming with titles like Ori and the Will of the Wisps through Xbox Game Pass for PC, and the Stealth 15M can deliver 60 frames per second or higher without much issue. Despite the screen not being very bright or color accurate, the 144Hz panel provided a responsive and smooth experience for gaming. The speakers are decent, but like most other laptops of its class, you will notice distortion at higher volumes. The fans on the Stealth 15M are loud when you put the device through its paces, but if you’re wearing a headset while you’re gaming, it shouldn’t be a noticeable issue.

GeekBench 5 showed good performance, comparable to other 2021 devices. The Stealth 15M scored 1562 on the Single Core score and 5227 on the Multi-Core score. However, with computers like Dell’s G5 Ryzen Edition, you can get similar (if not better) performance for a lower price.

Generally speaking, you won’t be disappointed with the performance. The Stealth 15M is a great midrange gaming laptop that provides you with a consistent experience, but with its higher price than some of its competitors, you’d be hard-pressed to justify buying this laptop at full price.

Battery Life

The battery life on the Stealth 15M is fine for light usage, but if you plan on gaming or video-editing on the go, you need to bring along the 150W power brick. The Stealth 15M has a three-cell 52Wh battery, and on typical usage, you can get 5 hours of screen on time. But if you crank up your workflow with graphic or CPU-intensive tasks, you’ll feel the limits of the laptop’s battery capacity.

During my testing period, I averaged around 4.5 to 5 hours of battery life with basic tasks like going into Zoom calls, light photo-editing, and browsing the web. More intensive days with gaming on top of typical laptop usage, the Stealth 15M got around 4 hours.

Frankly, the battery life on this laptop is not great, but it’s not surprising considering the device’s lightweight design, 144Hz display panel, and powerful GPU and CPU. It’s helpful that the Stealth 15M comes with a 150W charger in the box. Sure, it’s large and bulky, but it charges up the laptop very quickly and can sustain top performance for longer periods.

Should You Buy the MSI Stealth 15M?

Overall, the MSI Stealth 15M is a decent gaming laptop that packs excellent performance, an enjoyable typing experience, and an attractive yet understated design. That said, the quality of the display is not the best, and when it comes to battery life, the device suffers from its thin and light form factor. When you put the Stealth 15M into the context of other gaming laptops released this year, like Dell’s G15 Ryzen Edition, which also features an RTX 3060, the near $2000 Stealth 15M doesn’t seem all that attractive.

If you plan on picking MSI’s Stealth 15M, we recommend you do so if it’s on sale as it would better justify buying it over its cheaper competitors. We also recommend this laptop for those who plan on using it mostly in one place because the hefty power brick can be a hassle to lug around.

Source: makeuseof.com