After having enjoyed my Lenovo laptop for 5½ years (although the last year was not always enjoyable) it was high time for a new laptop, preferably a slightly thinner model. (And of course again at Coolblue for the excellent service and warranty that I also had with my previous laptop).
I was looking for a powerful laptop, thin and light, and with enough storage space. I may have made a concession to the latter with the MSI Stealth Thin (which I eventually found worthwhile), but we'll get to that in a moment.
Start at the beginning. The MSI has a nice sleek design, with a deep black color and subtle golden details. The dragon is not too conspicuous and is nicely recessed in the front of the screen. All this ensures that the laptop doesn't really come across as a game monster (which it is a little bit of course), and is therefore a fairly elegant laptop. Unfortunately, it is very fingerprint sensitive. Furthermore, the laptop has the necessary outputs (enough USBs, LAN output, HDMI output, etc.). The bezels around the screen are very thin, which really brings the screen to life. It may not be 4K, but I certainly think it is a screen with a beautiful and sharp/clear image quality. Definitely an improvement compared to my previous laptop. I also have nothing to complain about the audio quality.
The keyboard took some getting used to at first, because I felt the keys were slightly less deep or a bit more superficial than on my previous laptop. This will contribute to the 'thickness' of the laptop. After getting used to it, I do like the keyboard typing. I just miss a little bit of a numpad. Furthermore, the keyboard has a nice design and I'm a big fan of backlight keyboards, they just work much better. In addition, with this MSI you can design the backlight keyboard yourself: the standard gold color, each key an individual color, rainbow colors that light up in a wave over your keyboard. A very nice and original extra.
I find the keypad a bit less pleasant. The keypad responds/works well, I just find the location a bit less pleasant. Like the keyboard, this one seems to be a bit more superficial, it pushes down less far and more difficult in my opinion. Although I usually prefer to use a wireless mouse anyway, so it doesn't bother me much (and that can just be me).
The laptop works very fine. It starts up quickly, and programs and games are also started in no time. Furthermore, there were few pre-installed apps on the laptop, and it came with 1 month of Microsoft Office and 3 months of Norton Security. I find the MSI Dragon Center a handy and user-friendly addition. Here you can clearly check and adjust the performance of the computer; check and clear memory; check and calibrate battery; create security disk; and so on. All in 1 clear program.
So you can use the laptop for work/study (Office, e-mail, internet) without any problems, and then switch seamlessly to gaming. That was a big reason why I chose this laptop. I wanted a laptop that was good looking, thin, easy to carry, and suitable for work/study as well as heavier processes like the latest games. The MSI Stealth Thin was the perfect laptop here with Intel Core i7, SSD hard drive, 32Gb ram, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070. I don't think you will find a thinner laptop with these specifications at the moment. I also checked many reviews beforehand and the MSI Stealth Thin often came out on top as one of the best gaming laptops.
I have to admit, I haven't played much at all in the last few years. Although I always really liked it. All this makes me just a little happier with this laptop, on which the latest games can be played without any problems. For example, the laptop now plays Final Fantasy XV without any effort. Although the laptop does get very warm at the bottom and the fan starts to blow hard (which I personally sometimes find disturbing, but I have NC headphones that exclude that well). This was often stated in the online reviews. It is also a pity that without power you only have 30 fps. This sometimes gives you a kind of whiplash effect when the camera moves from left to right. With power you will certainly get above 60fps. Incidentally, I have this a little less with slightly 'older' games (not from the past 2 years). Then the fan just continues to do its job quietly, the laptop does not get really hot, and the lower fps are not always very noticeable.
This means that the laptop actually depends on the power while gaming. Without power, the battery also lasts long enough, about 5 hours (not bad for a gaming laptop). I found it striking that when the laptop is connected to the power, it does not charge further than 97% during normal work. This seems to be better for the battery. However, while gaming, the laptop charges back to 100%, which might have been better (standard) 97%.
Of course there are always some downsides. Fortunately, they are not too bad, because for such a price you don't want to have too many.
To start with the price. That makes a hard dent in the piggy bank, which was a bit of a swallow. However, in the end I don't regret it (after about 2 months, that 'blow' has already softened/reduced a bit). It's a dream laptop that was worth it, and it met the (perhaps too) high requirements that I had set myself.
The storage is perhaps my biggest objection. For such a laptop – and also such a price tag – I would have liked 1TB storage and I think 500GB is just a bit too little. It is basically enough for your documents, but still very cramped. I have a lot of photos and when I put them all on the laptop, my D drive was already 2/3 full. (By the way, the laptop already came with a split C and D drive.) This means that I have not put these kinds of files on the laptop. There are external hard drives for that, but even if you install a game that can take up quite a lot of space (eg Final Fantasy XV was 70/100GB). So it would have been nice to have a little more storage space.
The build quality – especially the hinges of the screen – were often mentioned in reviews. The hinges do indeed seem a bit less sturdy. Perhaps this is to keep the laptop light and thin – it's also just a thin screen -- and so that the screen can be completely flat. I can't say yet whether this will really become a problem, but this ensures that you handle the laptop carefully and that the screen is closed.
All-in-all I am very happy with this laptop. It is a real all-rounder, which you can enjoy a lot. The only one who is unfortunately less happy with it is the dog (which wants all the attention undisturbed and its place on your lap).
