It doesn’t take very long to notice that the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin-051 is different from other ultraportable gaming laptops I have recently reviewed. Though it has the same innards as others –hexa-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, VR Ready, and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q graphics card– this laptop elevates everything to elite status with the absolute best of technology.
It brings immense power in a sleek, thin-and-lightweight package that easily earn our Editors’ Choice award. Not that the build quality is he most impressive compared with its competition, but it looks sharp and considering that it is the least Max-Q system around, it easily gets the top honors. If you need an ultraportable system for both gaming and work on a budget, this mighty easily be the best choice ever.
Design
When resting on a desk, the GS65’s style is easily noticeable, thanks to an attractive matte black frame edged in gold, also around the touchpad, with the same accents on the hinge, ventilation and MSI logo at the center of the lid. MSI takes a different approach regarding the look and feel of this ultraportable, by focusing on a gaming laptop with a far wider appeal.
It doesn’t have the curvy angles and red LEDs allover the chassis – rather you unbox the most understated gaming laptops we’ve seen to date – one that you have no qualms using in the office, at an eSports tournament or whipping out in a coffee shop to finish an urgent project.
The laptop feels premium and very light, weighing just 4.14 pounds and a meagre 0.69 (17.33mm) thin, against the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501’s 4.97 pounds and 0.7 inches –it has held the bulb for thin-and-lightweight gaming laptops, until the MSI Thin–051 happened. It will slide easily into any backpack and won’t weigh you down, which is impressive considering that it’s a device meant for daily commute.
If anything, it would have grown even thinner and lighter only that MSI didn’t want to sacrifice the Ethernet port and the more than eight hours of battery life. All said, the Max-Q technology used on the GS65 allows for a system that is quite thin, which the big factor being sleekness.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Even with the thin profile, MSI managed to include plenty of ports and a SteelSeries keyboard with good travel and a very comfortable feedback. The keyboard is RGB backlit with 16.7 million color options that adapts with the gaming mode. It also features SteelSeries GameSense technology, that matches the lighting theme to sync with gameplay on supported games.
Below the keyboard is a glass-coated touchpad that feels just fine, with strong palm rejection, meaning it doesn’t trigger accidental touches. Another reason for making the Stealth GS65 a little thicker was to, perhaps, make room for its three-fan Cooler Boost Trinity thermal system. However, with the extra space MSI didn’t use it for bigger speakers, instead opted for tiny speakers that fire down from beneath the base.
Features and Configurations
The MSIStealth Thin is available in many configurations, all bearing the same resolution but some with a GTX 1070 and differing amounts of RAM and storage. For anyone out here looking for an ultra-thin gaming laptop, the Series offers some degree of choice to match your needs, but it’s not anything close to fully customizable. Our review model, the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin-051 is outfitted with a full HD (1920 x 1080) 144Hz screen, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 GPU and 256GB SSD NVMe storage and supports MSI Dragon Center controls.
Surprisingly, even with the thin footprint it gets an excellent set of I/O ports: An Ethernet jack, a pair of USB 3.1 ports, and headphone and mic jacks – all on the left flank. The right panel holds another USB 3.1 port, a USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3, a HDMI port, and a Mini DisplayPort connection. Ethernet connectivity is provided by Killer E2500 chipset that prioritizes gaming network traffic to prevent lag and lower ping –alongside dual-band 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0.
Display
MSI fused an excellent display into the Stealth Thin-051 that attracts little to no complaints, thanks to a a thin bezel display embedded into the laptop’s lid. It is interesting to see how a gaming laptop manages to achieve an 82% screen-to-body ratio with the thinnest bezels (4.9mm wide) and cram a 15.6-inch display into a 14-inch body. Still, the webcam maintains its normal position with a decent resolution of 720p, though it doesn’t support Windows Hello facial recognition and there is a fingerprint reader embedded into the power button.
The in-plane-switching (IPS) has a 144Hz refresh rate and has a 7ms response time, which is just about the best you can expect for games like Far Cry 5 look crisp, producing little to no screen tearing when negotiating dark scenes.
The screen is impeccably bright, putting forward a strong showing of dark scenes just fine at 50% brightness. It is further enhanced by MSI’s True Color 2.0 that produces colors that meet 100% of Adobe RGB and nearly 100% sRGB standard, with extra support for game-specific color modes and anti-blue light modes. Plus, the display rotates up to 180 degrees, which is very handy for meetings and presentations.
Sadly, the Stealth Thine-051 lacks Nvidia’s G-Sync, which would sallow you play games with fluid-motion, though that is not a rarity –in most cases– but just about the only omission we’ve found on this rig. All said, this ultraportable boasts the brightest, fastest and color-perfect display we’ve seen on a Nvidia Max-Q laptop at this price.
Performance
The major boost on the GS65’s performance is the 8th Gen Intel “Coffee Lake” processor, in this case the six-core Intel Core i7-8750H (2.2 GHz-4.1GHz). This is an eight-generation processor that gets better scores than its “Kaby Lake R” predecessor with the addition of two more cores, whose benefit mainly shows on strenuous multicore tasks like media projects or epic gaming sessions. With two more cores in tow, it will churn out massive spreadsheets and render video files without lagging.
The same applies to gaming, with the GTX 1060 pushing the laptop through modern titles at the very best frame rates. It is a VR-Ready laptop, meaning you can hook it with HTC Vive or Oculus and you’re on your way to desktop-level gaming on a mobile system. While not the most powerful among ultra-thin gaming laptops, some equipped with GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 cards, it does put a muscular showing over GTX 1060-powered gaming laptops.
It scores well on 3D tasks, especially if you need to use the Thin-051 for media tasks or modelling projects when not plying. For gaming, that is the most obvious focus of this models, 60fps in HD at maximum settings is an easy task for this system. When running the Rise of the tomb Raider (very high, 1080p) the system delivers 45fps, which is past the 30-fps playability threshold. However, it is slightly below the 58-fps premium gaming average, which is also below the Asus Zephyrus G15 and Razer Blade 15’s scores of 54 and 53 fps, respectively – though both are fitted with GTX 1070 card.
Battery Life
If you’re looking for a gaming laptop for the first time, you might not be aware that almost none of these devices bring along decent battery life. But, the MSI Stealth Thin-051 breaks the paradigm, and so do other thin and light models including the Asus Zephyrus and Alienware 15.
It now brings decent battery life to a category where even four hours is a rarity, and goes ahead to promise up to eight hours on a single charge. This is far better than, say, 90% gaming laptops out here, but there’s still room to grow.
The Bottom Line
The MSI GS65 Stealth Thin-051 looks sleek, performs well, and has a long-lasting battery. It is easily the most impressive Nvidia Max-Q gaming laptop that we’ve tested to date. The laptop delivers better and outperforms most of its ultra-thin rivals with the same components and arguably trounces them on both design and style. Compared with other Max-Q models, this is the least expensive entry into high-performing graphics card packed into a thin and light design.
As “Coffee Lake” arrives into more laptops, the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin-051 offers the best benefits before new chips roll out –if that is the main draw for you. Still, we expected a few more niceties like Nvidia G-Sync and better native audio, but we are pleased with whatever it has to offer. It earns our Editors Choice award for thin and light high-performance gaming laptops.
Our Pick
