MSI upgrades its Stealth gaming laptop and more with new chips and AI features

MSI’s gaming laptops are known for balancing price and performance with a bunch of RGB lighting thrown in for good measure. For CES 2024, it’s returning to that formula once again with its new Stealth, Raider, Cyborg, and Titan laptops and adding in upgraded chips with a touch of “AI.”

I had the chance to briefly see some of MSI’s new laptops in December, and perhaps the most exciting new feature is the use of 16:10 displays all around. I’ve personally been hoping for years to see the terribly limiting 16:9 aspect ratio abandoned in gaming laptops, and MSI’s new offerings pack more screen real estate into the same chassis thanks to the switch.

Among its many laptops, the new MSI Stealth balances the thinness and performance scales with more subdued looks and styling. The Stealth 18 AI Studio A1V (oof, what a name) is a $3,299 laptop configurable with an 18-inch 4K Mini LED display, up to Intel’s Core Ultra 9 processor and Nvidia’s RTX 4090, and a large haptic-based trackpad — all weighing in at 6.39 pounds / 2.9kg.

The $2,499 Raider 18 HX A14V (which I only saw at my briefing as a nonfunctioning mock-up) is the look-at-me RGB option of the bunch, continuing its reputation of having a wide strip of colorful lighting across its front deck. The 7.94 pound / 3.6kg laptop weighs just as much as the ridiculous $5,000 Titan 18 HX A14V, but the Raider is the spec-heavy model regular folks may actually consider. It can be configured with up to a 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU and RTX 4090, and it has an 18-inch QHD 16:10 (2560 x 1600) display with a very fast 240Hz refresh

As for the much smaller Cyborg 14, one of its coolest features is the return of its see-through design — only this time, MSI corrected a mistake of the previous 2023 model by making the new Cyborg much more translucent. The laptop comes in a compact package with a 14-inch 1920 x 1200 display with 144Hz refresh in a chassis weighing a relatively svelte 3.5 pounds / 1.6kg. The Cyborg 14 has a starting price of just $1,099 and is configurable with up to an RTX 4060 but is limited to last-gen 13th Gen Intel processors.

All three of these new laptops support DLSS 3.5 and MSI’s new AI Engine, which is designed to automatically switch between preset profiles for gaming, work, meetings, and entertainment, as well as based on what you’re doing — complete with on-screen visuals that prominently show when the software picks a profile, because, you know, everything must be AI now.

Color me skeptical of how helpful this use of AI may actually be — it seems a bit shoehorned, like lots of AI things these days. It doesn’t necessarily take some wild innovations in artificial intelligence for a computer to detect an identified game is running and go, “Welp, better go into game mode.” The set profiles sound a little rigid as well. What will be more interesting is how it blends across those profiles to adapt to an individual user. (If it does at all, frankly.)

Regardless of AI features that may be borderline bloatware, the new crop of MSI gaming laptops show some promise if you value gaming specs above most everything else — especially if you’re partial to slightly aggressive stylings and, of course, RGB lighting.