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Meet the all-new slim gaming laptop: the MSI GS75 Stealth. For $2,999 (starts from $2,099), this device gives you everything you ever wanted in a sleek gaming laptop. The incredible stunning design of the GS75 Stealth is packed with a powerful Nvidia RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU, a vibrant 17.3-inch panel of 144 Hz and a great pair of Dynaudio speakers with high sensitivity. The only drawback is that the life of the battery is below average and during gaming is pretty hot. But overall, the GS75 Stealth is a fantastic premium gaming laptop that packs a ton of power in a sleek design. Let’s know more about this laptop in our MSI GS75 Stealth Review.
MSI GS75 Stealth Review – Design
This is a sexy machine. As I sat at my desk thinking about how to describe the MSI Stealth GS75, I noticed that I was lost in his aluminum hood – pierced by the sparkling, sandblasted finish that enclosed a seemingly endless black space. The golden cut diamond and the Dragon Shield layered over the hood looked like stardust that was gradually drawn into the singularity, while the golden hinges and exhaust grids were the chains that kept the demon from consuming everything.
And the interior was just as exceptional. I was greeted by each individual key on the keyboard that flared up with the whole of the RGB spectrum, while the ultra-thin bezel screen was almost winking at me for a test drive. After some use, the GS75 Stealth pulled a few fingerprints here and the re, but it was nothing big.
For a gaming laptop that is so thin, the GS75 Stealth has a decent variety of ports. On the left is the power connector, an RJ45 port, a USB 3.1 port, a microSD card slot and separate headphone and microphone inputs. The right side has space for a lock, an HDMI port, a USB Type-C port, two USB 3.1 ports, and a Thunderbolt 3 port.
The GS75 Stealth shames its competitors with its slim and sexy body, measured at 5 pounds and 15.6 x 10.2 x 0.7 inches. The Aorus X9 (8.1 pounds, 1.2 inches), the Alienware 17 R5 (9.8 pounds, 1.2 inches) and the Origin PC Eon17-X (8.6 pounds, 1.6 inches) are almost double the length and weight of the Stealth GS75, but that is mainly due to their full GPUs.
Keyboard and TouchPad
Typing on the GS75 Stealth’s SteelSeries keyboard felt natural and satisfying, but the extended touchpad was occasionally in the way. Usually, the touchpad is placed under the spacebar, but here it is exactly in the middle of the card game, where my palm would rest and accidentally click on the touchpad. If the touchpad had to be absolutely in the middle, MSI should have left the numeric keypad so that the keyboard could be properly aligned with the trackpad.
As far as the design is concerned, the typeface of the keyboard is fluent in its own cyberpunk way. And each key is individually illuminated by RGB backlighting, which warms my heart and my eyes. You can adjust all backlighting through the SteelSeries Engine 3 app, which is incredibly thorough, but also confusing because of the many options spread across the user interface. It took me 15 minutes to adjust the settings to make a rainbow color-shifting effect.
Do not get me wrong about the 5.4 x 2.5-inch touchpad – I absolutely loved it. It is soft, offers a fleshy click and offers so much room for my fingers to roam free. In addition, MSI has included Windows precision drivers in this build so that I can easily disable my arch enemy: one click. Windows 10 gestures such as three fingers tabbing and two-finger scrolling were responsive.
MSI GS75 Stealth Review – Display
Gazing at the 17.3-inch 1920×1080 panel of the GS75 Stealth, it seems like you’re witnessing a light prism with the full power of a rainbow at 144Hz with a response time of 3 milliseconds – I’m feverishly in love. Although Peter Parker slid through the web at high speed in the Spider-Man trailer: Far From Home, the stitching in his Spidey suit was sharp and the distinctive red pattern appeared when the titular hero made his way across the Thames defeated. And when he and Nick Fury nonchalantly made a boat trip in the middle of the night, I could clearly see the surrounding docks in the background.
At the opening of Battlefield V, I was struck by the aurora borealis floating above Norway – I literally stopped in the middle of the war just to stare at the bright green light that hung in the snow. When the enemy shone a spotlight on my unit, it bounced off the snow, making darker blacks and livelier whites that the Stealth accurately represented.
Embrace the color! The GS75 Stealth panel covered 161 percent of the sRGB color gamut, crushing the 136 percent premium gaming laptop average. It even disgraced the Eon 17-X (104 percent), the Alienware 17 (110 percent) and the Aorus X9 (122 percent).
With 339 nits brightness, the GS75 Stealth overturned the category average (278 nits), the Aorus X9 (243 nits) and the Eon17-X (252 nits). However, the screen of the Alienware 17 came with 352 nits of brightness.
Audio
The Dynaudio top-firing loudspeakers of the GS75 Stealth have successfully taken me into the Second World War. When I jumped on a turret in Battlefield V, the heavy rounds shredded my enemies and my ears with a satisfying penetrating sound. In the following scenario, the narrator’s philosophical dialogue was crystal clear and even reasonably good to hear about the sound of the GS75 Stealth fan. And as I was walking through a desert in a tank, my ears were overwhelmed by explosions in tank shells and the sharp buzz of warplanes that whizzed past me – I was in the middle of it.
When I let the “Devil Trigger” of Casey Edwards pass through my room, the low-tuned vocals and electronic beats had asymmetrical mix during the opening. When the choir started, the vocals transcended into a hypnotic style. I could even identify every strum and beat on the electric guitar and drums if they were seamlessly interwoven by the end of the song.
The high quality of the sound is supported by the Nahimic audio app, which offers presets for music, film, communication, and gaming. Although it does not have a full equalizer, you can adjust the presets individually with settings such as Voices, Bass, Treble and Surround Sound, which is much easier for non-audiophiles like me.
MSI GS75 Stealth Review – Graphics and Gaming
This streamlined laptop is powered by an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU with 8 GB VRAM, which turned Battlefield V at 57 frames per second on Ultra settings at 1080p (ray tracing on) while I was in and out of World War II a plane roared through the Second World War. Despite the good speed, I noticed a little screen break during my playing time.
At the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark (very high, 1080p), the GS75 Stealth hit 65 fps and moved past the 61-fps premium gaming laptop average. Meanwhile, the Alienware 17 (68 fps), the Eon 17-X (69 fps) and the Aorus X9 (73 fps) could produce better results thanks to their full-size GTX 1080 GPUs.
Despite the heavier competition, the GS75 Stealth 96 fps nailed on the Hitman benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), which climbed above the category average (93 fps) and corresponded with the Aorus X9 and the Eon17-X neck-to-neck. The Alienware 17 (99 fps) surpassed them with only 3 extra frames.
The GS75 Stealth hit 77 fps on the Grand The ft Auto V benchmark (very high, 1080p) and beat both the category average of 73 fps and the Eon17-X (55 fps). The Alienware 17 and the Aorus X9 had an average of 85 and 86 fps, respectively. Like its powerful competitors, the GS75 Stealth hit a perfect 11 on the SteamVR performance test, which beat the 10.6 premium gaming laptop average.
MSI GS75 Stealth Review – Performance
Armed with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor with 32 GB of RAM, the GS75 Stealth cut through 40 Google Chrome tabs and five 1080p YouTube video as nothing while Battlefield V ran in the background. On the overall performance test of the Geekbench 4, the GS75 Stealth scored 20,921, and thus hardly came under the 21,037 premium gaming laptop average. Although the Core i9-8950HK (20,890) of the Alienware 17 could not reach the average, the Core i9-8700K (21,273) and the Core i9-8950HK (25,915) of the Eon 17-X even outperformed it.
The GS75 Stealth collected 65,000 names and addresses in our Excel test in 44 seconds, just below the 0:41 category average. The Alienware 17 performed a little faster at 0:42, while the Aorus X9 took off at 0:31 as a racehorse.
MSI’s 512 GB SSD copied 4.97GB of data in just 6 seconds for a speed of 848 MB per second, exceeding the average gaming laptop of 544. The 1TB SSD of the Aorus X9 fell back with 424 MBps, while the 256GB SSD of the Alienware 17 and the 512GB SSD of the Eon17-X both reached 565 MBps.
Heat
Do not put the GS75 Stealth on your lap, especially while gaming. After only 15 minutes of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the bottom touched 135 degrees Fahrenheit and flew over our 95-degree comfort threshold. Meanwhile, the center of the keyboard and the touchpad recorded 113 and 91 degrees respectively. But the hottest the machine got was 142 degrees, which was in the middle of the air vents at the bottom.
The GS75 Stealth still broke our comfort threshold with our basic temperature test (streaming a 15-minute HD video) by 113 degrees. The center of the keyboard hit 106 degrees, while the touchpad measured 86 degrees.
MSI GS75 Stealth Review – Battery Life
Even for a gaming laptop, the battery life of the GS75 Stealth is disappointing. After surfing the web continuously via Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the battery lasted only 2 hours and 29 minutes and fell below the average gaming laptop average of 3:17. To be honest, the Aorus X9 (2:20) and the Eon17-X (1:52) did worse, but the Alienware 17 was managed 3:47. So, we recommend you to carry your charger if you are going out with this laptop.
MSI GS75 Stealth Review – Conclusion
The design of the MSI GS75 Stealth is amazing and packs an amazing amount of power into a 0.7-inch thin chassis. I am also impressed that the display of the GS75 Stealth is such an improvement over that of its predecessor and that those vivid images are accompanied by great audio. But all that power is at the expense of battery life and the laptop gets so hot under the hood.
If you’re interested in something with a bit more power and do not mind using a thicker design, you can get the Alienware 17 R5 for $2,799 with stronger graphics, a brighter display, a deeper travel keyboard and a better lifetime of the battery.
However, if slimness is your priority, MSI GS75 Stealth is one for the Best light and sleek premium gaming laptops you can buy. Let us know what you think of this MSI GS75 Stealth Review by commenting in the box below.