My previous experiences with MSI laptops have often amounted to ambitious, flexible machines with nagging caveats. My MSI GS 66 Stealth laptop, for example, has remained a faithful, lightning-fast hub for my streaming and on-the-go gaming needs years after its release, but it’s also loud as all hell, with a strangely noisy fan that pretty much necessitates I bring a pair of headphones wherever I use it. The ‘Stealth’ name is more than a little ironic, in this case.
I find myself in a similar position with the MSI Stealth 16 Studio laptop sitting in front of me in 2023. On the one hand, this is a wonderfully built laptop that’s highly compact, with very beefy graphical specs, and plenty of healthy battery life to spare. On the other hand however, my time with this otherwise impressive rig has been plagued by performance issues, especially while streaming, leading to an experience that feels like it’s built significantly more for flexing features than it is for sheer, frame-chewing power.
If you want an office-friendly laptop that still has plenty of gaming capability, you do indeed get that flexibility with the MSI Stealth 16 Studio model. For about $2,500 CAN or thereabouts as well, you’re getting a decent deal for the specs here in the Great White North at least. Once again though, the trade-offs are apparent. The Stealth laptop line continues to strain its specs in some unwelcome places here, making the Stealth 16 Studio a solid jack-of-all-trades option that’s still unfortunately outpaced by its competitors in some noteworthy areas.
The MSI Stealth 16 Studio is a fantastic laptop in terms of its GPU and graphical fidelity. It’s not quite as outrageously speedy as my GS 66 Stealth, with its beastly 300hz display potential, but video options in the Stealth 16 Studio are definitely nothing to sneeze at.
I threw a slew of 2023’s best and most graphically demanding games at the Stealth 16 Studio’s lofty NVIDIA RTX 4060 GPU, and pretty much all of them achieved a strong 1440p resolution at High to Ultra settings without breaking a sweat. Only technical powerhouse, Alan Wake 2 necessitated a drop to medium settings for best results. Meanwhile, other major PC releases from 2023 that I tested, like Starfield, Lies of P, Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, The Last of Us: Part I, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Mortal Kombat 1, could operate fairly smoothly, even when their settings were cranked higher. Likewise, some visually ambitious PC ports from last year, such as Elden Ring, Gotham Knights and A Plague Tale: Requiem, also delivered similarly impressive benchmarks.
Even better is that the Stealth 16 Studio can chug on for quite a while without its power supply plugged in. While playing less intensive games, or doing simple writing tasks, the battery would last for several hours, no problem. More intensive gaming experiences will reduce that, naturally, and those are best played with a power supply plugged in anyhow, but if you’re taking this laptop on a trip for some creative work and/or light gaming, you can rest easy about having to do so without an outlet handy.
“The MSI Stealth 16 Studio is a fantastic laptop in terms of its GPU and graphical fidelity.”
What ruins this otherwise gorgeous suite of 1440p-ready PC gaming visuals however is the Stealth 16 Studio’s surprising tendency to bleed frames and crash. Despite a respectable 32GB of DDR5 RAM available, and despite a plenty competent 13th-gen Intel i7-13620 processor under the hood, with 10 cores and 2400 mhz of computing power, this laptop demanded several hard reboots, and even a full hardware wipe at one point, while I was gaming on it. Even post-wipe, it could barely sustain several games’ performance while any kind of background task was being run, or even while a modest number of games were installed to the SSD. For someone like me, an affiliated variety streamer on Twitch, that’s a major sticking point, as streaming software necessitates a computer that can multitask, and the Stealth 16 Studio surprisingly wasn’t very good at multitasking during my gameplay.
Part of the reason why this issue can be especially frustrating is the fact that the Stealth 16 Studio is otherwise excellent when it comes to feature flexibility. It’s good at a lot of things, with a decent-quality trackpad and a very comfortable keyboard layout on the hardware end to boot. Watching Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other streaming apps on this laptop is also sublime, as long as that’s all you’re doing. The fact that the Stealth 16 Studio can’t juggle its features more effectively ultimately limits its potential though, leaving its highly impressive graphical capabilities feeling more compromised than they deserved to be.
One element that does make the Stealth 16 Studio feel like it earns its name, considering that the fan is still a little noisier than it ideally should be during gameplay (albeit nowhere near as obnoxiously loud as the GS 66 Stealth’s fan), is the fact that it doesn’t scream the appearance of a gaming laptop. The rainbow-lit keyboard is perhaps the most indicative hallmark here, but otherwise, the Stealth 16 Studio presents the first impression of a professional computer, rather than one explicitly designed for one’s playing pleasure.
There’s less of a clearly-defined line between office computers and gaming computers these days, and nowhere does that feel more apparent than the Stealth 16 Studio. Its smart, well-constructed design is reliably portable and very easy to transport, with minimal weight, even if it does feel just barely heavier than the GS 66 Stealth. Likewise, its USB power supply is not overly large, and similarly easy to carry around, making this laptop a natural fit for a backpack or briefcase.
The ergonomic comfort behind the Stealth 16 Studio is also impressive, a fact that’s further highlighted as I comfortably type this review on it. The built-in keyboard is easy to use, well-built, and definitely doesn’t feel cheap or clacky. Likewise, the track pad is just the right size, and feels responsive. Bluetooth mice and keyboards may remain ideal for more intensive gaming sessions, but as rudimentary options, both the built-in keyboard and mouse support on this laptop are solid, particularly for less fast-paced gaming sessions.
Once again, the Stealth 16 Studio is meant to be something of a hybrid between gaming and professional computing, so you’re not getting something that’s going to outperform the appeal of a more dedicated gaming laptop here, should that be your end goal. What you do get is a strong hybrid option if you want a well-made office laptop with enough gaming muscle to run the latest PC games, if you’re willing to pay for the privilege of that high-end GPU.
The MSI Center app that comes ready on the Stealth 16 Studio is another testament to the flexible potential of this laptop. It contains a handy set of pre-arranged apps that you can install that further tailor the machine towards pursuits like gaming, streaming, creation, education, and more. It’s convenient for sure, though the way its finer information is organized can sometimes be a bit of a nuisance, as it’s not always readily apparent where information is located, outside of Windows-baked solutions like Task Manager anyway.
“The fact that the Stealth 16 Studio can’t juggle its features more effectively ultimately limits its potential though.”
On the bright side, the Stealth 16 Studio also comes outfitted with a ton of ports for all of your gaming and extra hardware needs: An HDMI 2.1 port, three separate USB ports, an Ethernet port, and a MicroSD Card reader. There’s even an audio jack built into it, if you prefer to keep your headphones tethered. On the hardware end, you’re stacked and ready to go for just about any laptop pursuit you could think of, even if the MSI Center could have used another pass when it comes to how its finer information is catalogued.
MSI’s Stealth 16 Studio laptop is reliable enough, if you want something between a solid gaming laptop, and a flexible office computer. Outside of its robust graphical capabilities and its excellent build quality however, the Stealth 16 Studio is often outdone by competing laptops with more specified hardware and software features. This makes it an overall decent laptop that’s a bit of a tough sell to some degree, both in terms of its $2,500 CAN price tag, and its struggle to stand out for reasons beyond aesthetic appeal.
It’s also worth considering that some of the struggles this laptop presents, most notably its head-scratching performance issues, further hold it back from what it could have been. Sure, its gaming resolution, creative and home theatre potential is absolutely gorgeous, but gamers in particular won’t want to risk sacrificing performance during heated, competitive play, making the Stealth 16 Studio especially difficult to recommend to the online shooter and fighter crowd.
MSI seems to want to cater most to the jack-of-all-trades consumer with its latest laptop model, specifically those willing to sacrifice standard-setting performance and revolutionary features in favour of a well-balanced machine that emphasizes reliability over focus. That’s fair, I suppose, but those processing hiccups especially hamper what’s otherwise a sleek, fancy-feeling laptop for your buck.