MSI STEALTH 15M

amazon MSI STEALTH 15M reviews

In the MSI gaming laptop lineup, the Stealth 15M model will be the top name for users looking for a balance between work and play, with a “champion” design.

“Gaming Ultrabook” is becoming more and more a popular term, and bulky gaming laptops of several kilograms are gradually becoming a thing of the past, thanks to the continuous development of technology. One of the most popular names in the ultrabook gaming market is MSI with its Stealth line. Recently, the company has launched the latest variant equipped with the 11th generation Intel Core I chip called Stealth 15M, which is also the main character of this article.

MSI Stealth 15M will compete with Asus ROG Zephyrus GA502IV, Lenovo Legion 5P, or Dell G5 5500. Razer Blade Stealth is also a name that MSI Stealth 15M needs to pay attention to, including portable and imported goods.

Unlike most gaming laptops on the market with a fashionable design, dominant black tone, the Stealth 15M is covered by MSI wearing a white shell called Pure White. The machine’s edges are gently curved, so overall; the MSI Stealth 15M looks more like an ultrabook for office people than a gaming laptop.

The entire shell of the machine is made of aluminum-magnesium alloy, covered with a scratch-resistant carbon layer. As a result, the MSI Stealth 15M weighs only 1.69 kg, a respectable number for a 15.6-inch gaming laptop with a discrete graphics card. The thickness of the MSI Stealth 15M is 16mm, slightly better than the Asus ROG Zephyrus GA502IV (19mm), Lenovo Legion 5P (25.8mm), Dell G5 5500 (24.95mm), and only lose to the Razer Blade Stealth (15.3mm), but the This laptop only has a 13-inch screen.

The white color of the MSI Stealth 15M is beautiful and unique, but it also takes a lot of work to maintain. Sweat stains are more noticeable and will linger if not handled quickly, and the case is particularly sensitive to even the slightest dusty surfaces.

The hinge of the MSI Stealth 15M is placed out on the edge of the machine, an option that the reviewer is not optimal when they can be affected by external forces. The lid can be opened at a 180-degree angle with the body for content sharing needs when meeting, and users can easily open the device with one hand.

With such a thin and light size, the MSI Stealth 15M is given a lot of machine space for heat dissipation. Inside the machine is MSI’s exclusive Cooler Boost 5 cooling system, while the outside is honeycomb-shaped heat dissipation holes that appear on both the top and bottom. At the same time, the two sides of the machine are heat vents, and interestingly, MSI designed them to be square like the USB-A port, and the writer himself also inserted the wrong mouse into this hole because… wrong.

The number of ports of the MSI Stealth 15M is also not “rich” when this is the first thing that must be sacrificed to have a slim and light design, and MSI has devoted a large amount of area to the heatsink. On the left, we have a USB-A 3.2 gen one port, a 3.5mm combo jack, a microSD card slot, and a charging port. On the other side, the MSI Stealth 15M has one more USB-C port with the latest Thunderbolt 4, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, and one HDMI 2.0 port. The fact that the machine still keeps the HDMI port is a plus; when you need to edit photos, you can connect to a separate monitor.

Display quality: Focus on gaming

MSI Stealth 15M is equipped with a 15.6-inch screen, Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels), traditional 16: 9 aspect ratio IPS panel. Regarding the refresh rate, the machine has two versions of 60Hz and 144Hz; of course, we gamers will want to buy the high-frequency version to experience better scrolling and reduce ghosting. The screen’s brightness is 250 nits with a matte finish to limit reflections to help you focus on gaming.

Displaying content, the MSI Stealth 15M gives bright colors, wide viewing angles, no color distortion when viewed from the side. Still, the color difference is wide – the panel only covers about 60% of the sRGB color space, so it is not suitable for photo and video editing; anyway, this is not the main task of the MSI Stealth 15M. The 144Hz refresh rate maximizes the effect when playing fast-paced games like CSGO, Apex Legends, but even MOBA games like League of Legends show a clear difference.

The screen border of the MSI Stealth 15M is not “ultra-thin” like today’s ultrabooks, especially the thick bottom border, but that is the manufacturer’s intention when the content displayed in the lower corners will not be covered by your hand while working on the keyboard. The top edge has a 720p HD webcam, with no special features like Windows Hello face recognition, but users can turn off the webcam when not using a shortcut on the machine.

In terms of sound, MSI Stealth 15M uses dual speakers with a total capacity of 4W, Hi-Res Audio standard integrated with Nahimic 3 technology. Practical experience, this pair of speakers has a large volume, clear sound quality, but for gaming, Seriously, you should still invest in a “genuine” headset.

Beautiful keyboard, shimmering RGB LED, a good typing experience.

Due to the sacrifice of the area for the heatsink honeycomb, the MSI Stealth 15M keyboard is quite narrow compared to the 15.6-inch size of the machine. The keys are close together, the travel journey when typing is shorter, but it is easy to press the wrong button. The left Control key is doubled as usual, while the Function key is halved in size and placed to the right, convenient for gaming but will be a bit annoying when manipulating daily use.

The font on the keycap of the MSI Stealth 15M is neat; below are the RGB LEDs that users can customize through the Mystic Light application in MSI’s Dragon Center. At maximum brightness, the RGB LED is still gentle on the eyes, does not cause glare when used at night. Unfortunately, they are only single-zone LEDs, and it is not possible to customize the color for each key.

Regarding the typing experience, the MSI Stealth 15M has key travel of about 1mm, good bounce, can feel the “tactile” feedback, although not as hard and firm as the HP Specter or Lenovo ThinkPad keyboard softer. If you have to compare, it is similar to the typing experience on Asus laptops like ZenBook or VivoBook.

Although small in size and likely to be rarely used (as true gamers, we use a separate mouse!), the machine’s trackpad still feels smooth and accurate thanks to the glass cover and full support for Windows drivers Precision.

where can you get a MSI STEALTH 15M online

MSI Stealth 15M Gaming Laptop: 15.6″ 144Hz FHD 1080p Display, Intel Core i7-11375H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Thunderbolt 4, WiFi 6, Win10, Carbon Gray (A11UEK-009): Buy it now

MSI Stealth 15M Gaming & Business Laptop (Intel i7-1185G7 4-Core, 32GB RAM, 1TB PCIe SSD, RTX 2060 Max-Q, 15.6″ Full HD (1920×1080), WiFi, Bluetooth, Webcam, 1xHDMI, Win 10 Home) with Hub: Buy it now

MSI Stealth 15M A11SDK-063 (i7-1185G7, 16GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, GTX1660Ti 6GB, 15.6″ FHD 144Hz, Windows 10) Gaming Notebook: Buy it now

MSI Stealth 15M 15.6″ FHD 144hz Gaming Laptop, Intel Core i7-11375H, Discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (32GB DDR4 RAM | 2TB PCIe SSD) 720p Camera, Windows 10 Home Bundle with JTD Pad: Buy it now

Powerful performance, efficient heat dissipation

Don’t be fooled by its thin and light body; MSI Stealth 15M owns a respectable hardware configuration with Intel Core i7-1185G7 Tiger Lake CPU, 16GB of Dual Channel RAM (upgradable to 32GB), 512GB NVMe SSD, and card Graphics GTX 1660Ti Max-Q. It is unclear whether MSI will launch a version using Ryzen processor chips shortly.

Inside Dragon Center software, users can set performance settings to suit their usage needs (Extreme Performance, Balanced, Battery Saving). In the performance evaluation, the writer always leaves the device in the Balanced option, plugs in the charger to ensure performance.

The MSI Stealth 15M is equipped with a 512GB NVMe PCIe SSD in terms of storage. When measured with Crystal Disk Mark software, this SSD has sequential read/write speeds of up to 2167 MB/s and 1128 MB/s. Tasks from starting Windows to accessing heavy applications Photoshop, Lightroom, playing games are completed quickly, with almost no lag.

GTX 1660Ti Max-Q graphics card can play almost every game at the moment with Full HD resolution. Due to the limited experience time, the writer took advantage of recording the process of playing League of Legends with Nvidia Shadowplay. The highest graphics settings, the continuous fighting ARAM map can’t make it difficult for the MSI Stealth 15M, and the fps are even higher when not recording.

MSI Stealth 15M integrates MSI’s exclusive Cooler Boost 5 cooling system, including two cooling fans and five heat pipes. When playing heavy games or rendering, the temperature of components such as CPU or GPU can go up, but they will drop quickly when the cooling fan starts working without lowering the clock too much, a trade-off with a rather loud noise.

Average battery life, fast charging

We will not play games on the battery with a powerful configuration machine but will plug in the charger to ensure maximum performance. However, when we need to bring the machine out for light needs, the MSI Stealth 15M is still equipped with a 52 Whr battery, enough to use 3-4 hours.

The machine is a charging adapter with a capacity of up to 150W, while current ultrabooks mainly have 60W. The power consumption of the 1660Ti Max-Q GPU alone is 60W; such a high charging capacity is necessary. In the idle state, to fully charge the MSI Stealth 15M takes less than an hour.

Summary

One of the thinnest and lightest gaming laptops available today, the MSI Stealth 15M also impresses its delicate white tone design, high refresh rate display, and powerful performance in its price range. There are points where MSI could do better, such as allowing per-key LED customization or higher screen brightness. Still, overall they don’t affect the overall experience too much or overshadow the features. The obvious strength of the MSI Stealth 15M.