MSI has elevated its leading lineup of laptops to elite position using the MSI GS65 Stealth for 2018, which makes the absolute top of the technologies given it. Making our Editor's Choice award, MSI's gaming laptop brings enormous electricity into some subtle and appealing package unlike any effort before.

The end result is a slick, portable 15-inch laptop in just a 14-inch device that is capable of high-end gaming in addition to extreme productivity work to get a nice price -- more economical compared to key rivals. If you're seeking the best crowd pleaser laptop, you have just found it.

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Price and availability

If it launches later this season, MSI will request $1,799 (roughly £1,289, AU$2,349) to begin because of the GS65 Stealth. That cost includes all you find on the best save to get a lower-tier GTX 1060 and half an solid-state storage (SSD) capability from the NVMe format.

For the setup you see to the best in full, which will cost you $1,999 (roughly £1,429, AU$2,609), meanwhile the highest-end model only doubles the memory to 32GB and maxes from the storage into 2 512GB NVMe SSDs for $2,999 (roughly £2,139, AU$3,919). This places the GS65 Stealth fairly near its Most Important opponents, such as the Asus ROG GX501 Zephyrus and Gigabyte Aero 15X.

Asus's laptop requires $2,299 (roughly £1,639, AU$3,000) if not available for comparable hardware inside, albeit a somewhat slower, 120Hz 1080p display that for its own merit is an Nvidia G-Sync panel. In addition, it attracts half as much storage into the table and does not yet contain Intel's newest H-series processor.

Meanwhile, the Gigabyte's Aero 15X needs $2,199 (£1,999, AU$3,199) for almost indistinguishable hardware inside, save to an old Kaby Lake Intel processor.

For all intents and purposes, the GS65 Stealth conveniently outclasses its nearest rivals from a value perspective. This laptop delivers exactly the exact same or more inside its true gorgeous chassis for significantly less money than the remainder -- plain and simple. Speaking of that, let us discuss this design.

Design

MSI has thankfully gone into another direction concerning the appearance and texture of its flagship thin-and-light gaming laptop, focusing on a device having much wider appeal. You won't find plain angles or red LEDs around this laptop -- instead, you will discover a slick, all-black apparatus with gold accents on its own lid, inside its double hinges and encircling its touchpad.

These gold accents can also be found emphasizing the laptop's heat vents, but nowhere else on the brushed, black aluminum frame. The outcome is one of the most understated gaming laptops we've seen so far -- one which we would have no problem whipping out at a coffee store less in a eSport tournament.

In terms of the way the laptop feels, the GS65 Stealth weighs only 4.14 lbs (1.88kg) and steps measly 0.69 inches (17.53mm) lean. The laptop fits just fine in our backpack and does not weigh us down, which is remarkable considering MSI informs us it might have gone even lighter and thinner but chosen for an Ethernet port and also the aim of eight hours of battery life.

Nevertheless, while MSI clearly made an attempt to improve how big its own charging brick, its dimensions negates a little the hard work. Regardless, this remains among the very portable gaming laptops all over.

Being thin enough has given the laptop not just room for lots of ports, but in addition a SteelSeries computer keyboard with loads of traveling and solid feedback. Additionally, the keyboard is RGB backlit with 16.7 million colour choices and SteelSeries's GameSense, which alters the light behaviour to sync gameplay in supported games.

The glass-coated touchpad feels only fine and does not activate movements when studying, telling us it's powerful hands on rejection.

Now, another reason why we guess MSI went somewhat thicker with all the GS65 Stealth's framework and thicker with its own weight was supposed to make space for its three-fan Cooler Boost Trinity sustainable system. More importantly in a little bit. But with this excess room, MSI did not loan much of it into the tiny and tinny speakers, which firing from under its foundation. Only make a headset and you're going to be fine -- particularly thinking about the amount of tuning MSI has done to improve that experience.

Display and Screen

On the flip side, we've got little to no complaints regarding the brilliant, almost bezel-free display MSI has inserted into the lid of the laptop. Particularly, the display achieves an 82% screen-to-body ratio using bezels only 4.9mm broad, cramming a 15.6-inch display into a 14-inch frame.

Even still, MSI was able to keep up the usual webcam position with an adequate resolution of 720p, but straight back to this screen. Sadly there is no Windows Hello facial recognition technology built into the webcam, there's a fingerprint reader built into the power button, and MSI informs us that its performance will be unlocked in a future upgrade.

Refreshing at 144Hz and using a 7ms reaction time plus in-plane switching (IPS), this screen makes games such as Grand Theft Auto V look just captioning, producing little to no screen tearing when thumping corners.

The screen is awfully bright too, showing the contents of shadowy corridors in matches just fine at 50% brightness. Additionally, MSI's True Shade 2.0 produces color gamuts that fulfill 100% of Adobe RGB and near 100% of the sRGB normal, and also supports game-specific colour manners in addition to anti-blue light manners.

Another neat addition is the ability to flip the display contents upside down whenever the screen is bent 180 degrees. This ought to arrive in plenty useful for screen sharing through meetings or other collaborative endeavors.

In the end, this is actually the smartest, quickest and many color-rich display we have seen within an Nvidia Max-Q laptop nonetheless. On the other hand, the deficiency of Nvidia G-Sync is a miss, as we would love for the assurance of silky smooth movement in matches, though that's seldom -- if ever -- a problem we have found using the rig.

Performance

Obviously, the principal driver behind purchasing a gaming laptop is the way that it performs if the going gets tough. The H-series Intel Core i7 processor, paired with this Nvidia Max-Q GTX 1070, make fast work of what we throw in the GS65 Stealth.

As you can see by our benchmark results, the GS65 Stealth completely tore through each extreme test we can throw it, setting up overall performance numbers that crush, or keep parity with, its nearest rivals. Certainly this is a rig that is equally prepared to churn out enormous spreadsheets or leave movie documents as possible to provide your next epic game session.

Exactly the same has been the situation in regards to gaming, together with the GTX 1070 pushing the laptop during the aforementioned standard games and the most recent games, such as Grand Theft Auto V, such as a hot knife through butter. Nonetheless, this is the only place in which we anticipate that the Asus laptop mentioned here in order to outperform the MSI system due to the former GTX 1080 graphics processor.

With rights for exactly what this laptop expenses, you need to expect to just glide through the most recent games at all but the absolute best configurations of polish and detail. With it fast refreshing display with ultimate coloration, this gaming laptop is excellent for all kinds of games, from twitch shooters to lively, story-driven experiences.

Nevertheless, watch out for just how sexy this laptop might get in your lap while under load. While MSI's newest Cooler Boost Trinity system -- with three, 0.2millimeter fans every with 47 blades along with five heating pipes -- retains each the heat from our hands while enjoying, we certainly cannot say the exact same to the base of the base. We suppose that the heat has to go somewhere, right?

Battery life

Unless this is the first time searching for a gaming laptop, you should be aware that nearly none of the devices bring adequate battery life into the table. Nevertheless, these light and thin versions have turned the corner on that premise, but there is still room to develop.

For example, while MSI promises around eight hours on a fee from this laptop, our tests do not come quite close to that amount. On the other hand, the times we have listed are much superior than, say, 90% of gaming laptops on the market, with nearly four hours of juice at the PCMark 8 evaluation and almost 5 hours at our battery rundown test. That is not too bad to get a gaming laptop -- and yet one this slim.

The Asus laptop does not even come near number in exactly the very same tests -- however, the Gigabyte machine way outclasses them by a couple of hours.

Nevertheless, you are able to in the minimum, expect to endure for a couple hours away from a socket on this laptop, also watch it live flights between many significant cities in the United States, Europe and Australia.

Software and features

MSI has admittedly packaged the GS65 Stealth using a great deal of pre-loaded applications, but it artfully avoids'bloatware' standing by providing functionality that is actually helpful. (Well, except for the antivirus.)

Especially, MSI's Dragon Center 2.0 brings with it plenty of system monitoring and performance improvement programs, such as component load levels and also the capacity to consume memory space. Additionally, with supported games, then you may use MSI's new Gaming Mode to automatically tune up platform components to do best inside said game.

Finally, this program can improve your audio output in matches in the applications level to improve output signal when chatting, so you do not need to shout to compensate for inferior mic profit.

In terms of connectivity, the Killer Network radio and applications inside the laptop balances for as many as 50% more secure connections and lower stand prices when gaming. On the other hand, the distinction is hard to see or step between our home and office Wi-Fi connections.

General assessment

The MSI GS65 Stealth is formally the very remarkable Nvidia Max-Q gaming laptop that we have tested thus far. The laptop matches or outclasses its performant competitions and possibly trounces them in terms of design and fashion.

Nevertheless, we wish to get a few more niceties awarded the price tag, such as Nvidia G-Sync and much better native sound, along with the laptop tends to get somewhat hotter than we would like on our hands while under load.

All told, for the price tag, the GS65 Stealth is one of the greatest gaming laptops you can purchase today. As you are going to need to make some compromises in sound, and there is no biometric login accessible yet, these are little conceits to create to get a laptop you can both take in to work into your next gaming session.