MSI Stealth 14 Studio review - An expensive gaming laptop that has made too many compromises

[Redaktion]

The new MSI Stealth 14 Studio was presented at the beginning of this year and aside from targeting gamers, the device also aims to speak to users who are searching for great performance within a compact 14-inch case. The Core i7-13700H and GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop's performance has hit the mark, however, the laptop isn't without its flaws: its keyboard and short runtimes, to name a few.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-Stealth-14-Studio-review-An-expensive-gaming-laptop-that-has-made-too-many-compromises.734249.0.html

[prajaybasu]

I have this laptop for 3 months now. The noise levels got really annoying until I repasted it with PTM7950 and Upsiren UX Pro thermal putty. The issue is that the stock thermal paste used by MSI is really bad which causes high idle temps that keeps the fans on.

Also the rubber feet on the bottom are inadequate, the laptop is much more silent and performant if you lift it off even a little bit more.

[Mark0]

While MSI got a few things right it will be a hard PASS on this model.

First the good: what TWO things do owners/users interface with? The screen and keyboard/trackpad. Here they DID outfit the device with a decent resolution panel with a preferred matte finish (and thankfully stayed away from the gawdly 16:9 aspect ratio). However good the screen might be to look at, the user has to be able to INPUT using the keyboard+trackpad.

As technology moves forward and draws less and less power one would THINK that we'd see longer and longer battery life right? The problem here is that OEM's keep putting smaller and smaller WH BATTERIES in the devices that while this makes the devices smaller and lighter it limits the usefulness of the device if it can only be used for a mere few hours at a time without external power.

Even more disturbing is the use of the almost WORSE Nvidia GPU - the 4050. It might be useful for 15-20yo games but mostly useless for most titles released in the last 5-10yrs. (that Intel CPU is likely NOT giving battery life any favors ether!)

While at a minimum a 4060 or 4070 would of been a better match the lack of enough WH battery would make such a pairing have even worse battery run time.

[Neenyah]

Even more disturbing is the use of the almost WORSE Nvidia GPU - the 4050. It might be useful for 15-20yo games but mostly useless for most titles released in the last 5-10yrs.

What are you even talking about here, lol. 4050 for Quake 3 Arena (about 20 years old game)? 4050 is far stronger than a 1080 MaxQ (from 2017). Put that into perspective.

[HughC]

The talk of screen flex makes me think of the GE40 I owned. A sub par enclosure with broken hinges after a few years' use. All the repasting in the world didn't fix the excessive fan noise.

Seems MSI have learnt little in the intervening years, I'm not sure they can trusted to build something that lasts.

[Edward223]

We should be seeing Longer Battery Life in Gaming Laptops now. I mean everyone knows you need to plug them in to game. But for everyday use they should be up to Eight or Ten Hours by now.

I get the inclusion of the 4050 card as if your serious gamer then get a desktop.

[Drek4]

Well I for one have the i7-13620H with the RTX 4060.
Thermal wise, I have none of the issues described in this article, but I might add, that the laptop is on a laptop stand (folding type) when I use it, fan speeds are never annoying, except when gaming, but that's a given, also the temperatures of the CPU and GPU are cool compared to my heat pipes MSIs, my GP66 12UGS is the ones that comes closest, but still not as cool.
Never really tried bending the lid, but the display is great while gaming, didn't use it much for other purposes than that and some browsing.
Battery I always disable the GPU when I use it and switch to my power plan, reduce screen brightness, make sure it's @ 60hz and I easily get 6.5-7 hours with it, didn't use it a lot on battery to confirm with all different usage type, mainly I ran a film in loop until low battery.
Would have liked to have more battery life same as my PS63 8RDS, but it has a U CPU not H.
Would have been nice to have an extra TB4 or USB-A, but it's a 14", I get it.

[George]

Even more disturbing is the use of the almost WORSE Nvidia GPU - the 4050. It might be useful for 15-20yo games but mostly useless for most titles released in the last 5-10yrs.

What are you even talking about here, lol. 4050 for Quake 3 Arena (about 20 years old game)? 4050 is far stronger than a 1080 MaxQ (from 2017). Put that into perspective.

While looking at all the benchmarks I'll admit that Nvidia 'pulled out all the stops' and the 4050 in some laptops performs 2x better than some 3050's and even better than some 3060's and 3070's!!

So bottom line: would I purchase something with a 4050 in it? 'Maybe' - if the product was < $1000.

As mentioned THIS product has a number of not-so-good trade offs:
- runtime/battery life - I'd expect 9-11hrs when not using the dGPU (IE: not gaming)
- the 4050+6GB VRAM might be fine for HD gaming, not so much for QHD gaming
- the >$1600 cost places it to compete with far better and powerful choices

[PrinceKropotkin]

I got the 4060 version for $1299 on sale at BestBuy this weekend. With frame generation and RT overdrive preset (ray reconstruction) on the 2.01 update of Cyberpunk 2077, I'm averaging 56 FPS with a low 1% of 33. Time will tell, but right now the thermals are good, and fan noise is about what you'd expect with a gaming laptop with GPU under heavy load. The unplugged battery life when not using GPU heavy apps is mid at best. Currently sitting in class taking notes. Been on and off it, basically doing web browsing and editing a powerpoint, and after 1.5 hours, with screen brightness at 35%, I'm down to 50% battery remaining. I'll play with the power consumption settings some, but this is disappointing. I was hoping this would last my whole four hour class day without needing plugged in.