![]() ![]() Audio, while passable for the stray YouTube video, can only be described as sharp. What isn’t so great are the speakers or webcam. The touchpad is also very good, taking up a full third of the bottom deck, and offering reliable gesture controls, which isn’t always the case (the Stealth 15M from 2021 was much less reliable). The layout is a touch cramped with the Ctrl button and arrow keys sharing real estate with Fn and the navigation buttons, but it feels good to use and isn’t mushy. MSI partnered with SteelSeries to deliver its per-key lighting effects and programming options, and it’s better for it. Since you don’t actually see it in use, you can safely turn the lights off if you’d rather have a touch more battery. When it’s powered up, some subtle RGB lighting illuminates “stealth” inside the rear vent with two more tiny lights in each corner. There’s a simple silver logo on the lid that accents the field of white and a black hinge for contrast. I was sent the white version and it simply looks fantastic. This year, MSI has shifted to a magnesium-aluminum alloy, available in white or black, that’s solid, lightweight, and more smudge-resistant. ![]() The last two Stealth 15M laptops were sturdy enough but their dark, matte finishes picked up fingerprints much too easily and quickly looked messy. This year’s model brings major changes to the chassis. You can expand the memory yourself by popping off the back of the case, but it would have been nice to see a 32GB option from the start for those of us who don’t want to disassemble their expensive new laptop. Adobe Premiere Pro will burn through 16GB quickly if you’re not careful, especially if you use motion graphics or video effects. That’s enough for gaming and some light background applications, but for actual content creation, it’s a bare minimum. No matter which model you choose, you can only select 16GB of memory. The Stealth 14 Studio has creators in its sights, which makes its memory choices – or lack thereof – confusing. Upgrading the graphics card also comes with a bigger, 1TB SSD, which is a borderline necessity when single video games often require more than 100GB. 6GB), and the base model could realistically run short when playing newer games. Bumping to the more powerful graphics card nets you more video memory (8GB vs. Ours was sent with the RTX 4060, and I would suggest saving for that model if possible. It comes with an Nvidia RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 mobile graphics card. It splits its 14 cores between six performance cores with eight efficiency cores to make sure games are never splitting processing power with background tasks and that side-activities like streaming to Twitch won’t bog your system down. Its Intel Core i7-13700H processor clocks all the way to 5GHz for higher in-game frame rates. It now measures 12.4 x 9.69 x 0.75 inches, saving just shy of two inches of width, so it’s even easier to fit into a bag.ĭespite its small size, the Stealth 14 Studio offers nimble performance for both gaming and content creation. It also allowed MSI to shave off precious ounces, dropping the Studio to only 3.75 pounds, about a six percent decrease from the prior version. Having reviewed two other 14-inch laptops for IGN (the Alienware x14 R2 and the Razer Blade 14), I’m always struck by what a good middle ground it is, balancing portability with screen size without ever really feeling like a downgrade. The smaller screen also plays perfectly into the Stealth’s portable aspirations. According to our colleagues, the last generation struggled to hit 300 nits and didn’t cover half as much color. I tested the QHD version and measured it at 437 nits of peak brightness and 100% of DCI-P3 color coverage. The base model features a Full HD (1200p) screen that runs at 165Hz or you can upgrade to a QHD display that bumps the resolution to 1600p at 240Hz. ![]() It now uses a 16:10 ratio, which gives you more vertical space to work with, and is much brighter and more vibrant. The shift to a 14-inch display might seem like a downgrade at first but in truth is anything but. It’s smaller, lighter, and more portable, offering a dramatically improved screen, a bigger battery, and a stylish new design. There was another 15-inch model released last year that made a handful of tweaks, but this revision offers much bigger changes. It’s a slimmed-down, beefed-up version of the Stealth 15M we looked at in 2021. The MSI Stealth 14 Studio is the latest entry in MSI’s Stealth series. MSI Stealth 14 Studio – Design and Features
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