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A critique of the MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V: High-level performance in an impressively small, portable package
The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V delivers astonishing performance in a surprisingly small package. It also features a QHD+ 14-inch, 240Hz display, which is one of the quickest available in a laptop.
Positive aspects: – Exceptional 14-inch, 240Hz screen- Top-tier performance- Perfectly adjusted speakers- Stylish design despite the high performance- Convenient for daily use due to its portability.
Downsides: – Lacks an SD Card – Mediocre battery life – The 720p camera is underwhelming considering the cost – Heat dissipation could have been improved
Cost: Rs 1,75,890/- Score: 4 out of 5
In the realm of gaming laptops, MSI often sets itself apart. We examined two MSI Titan GT77s in the past couple of years and they are undoubtedly the superior gaming laptops, regardless of cost. Yet, similar to other producers, MSI also finds it challenging to create a fully equipped gaming laptop that is also compact. However, this isn't the case if you opt for their Stealth series.
The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V, as implied by its name, is not only designed for dedicated and professional gamers, but also for committed content creators who require unmatched performance. This sleek and elegant laptop, which is both visually appealing and highly functional, is ideal for both home and office use due to its considerable power. Moreover, it is excellent for creating various forms of content such as videos and artwork, as well as for gaming.
The combination of the Intel Core i7 13700H and NVIDIA's RTX 4060 laptop graphics card makes this a high-performance machine that far surpasses its rivals. Additionally, it features an impressive QHD+ IPS screen with a refresh rate of 240Hz.
Despite all that's been mentioned, the MSI Stealth 14 Studio is, at its core, a gaming laptop and is not immune to the typical issues found in most high-performance portable devices. However, does this in any way detract from its appealing performance capabilities? Let's discover.
Review of MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V: Structure and Aesthetics The MSI Stealth 14 Studio adheres to a straightforward design, which I find quite appealing. It is a gaming laptop with a minimalist approach that I find very attractive. I prefer not to have excessive RGB lighting on my laptop. If you share my preference, you'll likely admire the subtly elegant design of the MSI Stealth 14 Studio.
The MSI Stealth 14 Studio boasts a stylish aesthetic, characterized by a white cover embellished with the MSI dragon emblem on a magnesium-aluminium alloy body. The underside of the laptop maintains the white color scheme, whereas the inside showcases an eye-catching semi-gloss black hue. Upon lifting the cover, the black, Chiclet-shaped keys become noticeable, each featuring white lettering and individual RGB illumination.
The structure and RGB configuration do not overtly indicate "gaming," allowing it to blend in seamlessly in professional environments without drawing excessive attention. Nevertheless, there are subtle hints of RGB lighting sprinkled throughout, demonstrating that MSI has achieved a nice equilibrium.
The rear side of the laptop, near the display hinges, has a black grill designed for cooling and RGB illumination, which marks it as a Stealth 14. You can also spot soft pink and blue RGB shades at the back corners. MSI has named this feature the Afterburner Lighting, which is built into the rear grill. The grill also sports the term "Stealth," visible due to the RGB lighting. Despite the irony, this is a cool design element that confirms its identity as a gaming device.
In terms of construction, the Stealth 14 Studio is extremely robust. Its dimensions are 12.4 x 9.69 x 0.75 inches and it weighs approximately 1.7 kg, making it quite compact and light. This is largely due to its chassis made from a blend of magnesium and aluminium.
The device's metallic structure gives it a lightweight feel, making it easy to tote around in a laptop case without feeling bulky. Its stylish appearance, with a contrasting outer and inner design, draws the eye, whether you're stationed at a coffee shop or moving around.
The Stealth 14 provides a decent variety of ports and I/O that should fulfill the needs of many users. On its right side, there's a 3.5mm combined audio jack, a USB Type-A port, and a Thunderbolt 4 port. Meanwhile, on the left side, it houses a USB Type-C port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and an AC power port. Alongside these, there are a few air vents on both sides for airflow. However, it lacks a card slot or a MicroSD Card slot, features that are typically essential for gamers and particularly for content creators.
The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V review focuses on its keyboard and trackpad. Given the laptop's slim and elegant design, the keyboard is somewhat small, which is not surprising considering its dimensions. The keyboard's RGB lighting is preset to Disco Mode right from the package, which could be a bit too flashy for some users. Nonetheless, the SteelSeries GG software included allows users to customize the individual key's RGB backlighting. The software makes it straightforward to create and manage customized profiles, making it much simpler to change the mood of your setup for gaming or streaming.
Regarding the keyboard, it features adequately large keycaps with consistent spacing, and provides a fairly pleasing response due to the quick key switches. It might require a bit of familiarisation, but once you master it, typing on it becomes a pleasurable experience. Regrettably, the keyboard exhibits some flex, detracting from the high-end impression of the laptop. Additionally, the preset colour setting of the RGB lighting comes across as less refined, even a bit tacky and low-cost. Furthermore, it would have been better if MSI had opted for slightly brighter RGB lights with less intense colours for the keys.
The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V, despite being a gaming laptop, impresses with its reasonably large touchpad. The touchpad is placed on the left side to make typing more comfortable and leaves additional space on the right. It provides accurate tracking and sensitivity, ensuring its ease and precision of use. While it's ideal for routine activities, gamers may prefer using an external mouse to alleviate any minor touchpad issues.
Review of MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V: Webcam and SpeakersThe webcam performance of the MSI Stealth 14 Studio is mediocre at best. It falls short compared to other Windows laptops within the same price bracket, mainly due to its 720p/30FPS webcam. The picture quality leaves much to be desired for a laptop in its price category. It has noticeable graininess even under good lighting conditions. It's barely sufficient for video calls, and that too only with decent lighting.
Nonetheless, it comes with a privacy cover, providing reassurance against unintended triggering during video chats. On a positive note, the microphone arrangement yields crisp and evenly distributed sound.
The Dynaudio-adjusted quad-speaker system boosts the overall sound quality. The MSI Stealth 14 Studio is compatible with SteelSeries' Nahimic audio program, which provides features comparable to DTS-X audio and Dolby Atmos. Users have the ability to modify spatial audio and presets based on their likes, with choices such as Music, Movie, Communication, and Gaming presets. The Smart Profile feature automatically adjusts the sound for particular tasks, offering more personalized options.
The final outcome is that the speakers generate a full-bodied sound with great depth, powerful bass, and respectable treble, offering a harmonious output. They can reach high volumes without any loss in sound quality, comfortably engulfing a room without the necessity to crank up the volume to its maximum.
Review of MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V: Screen
The 14-inch screen of the Stealth 14 Studio that we tested appears bigger than its actual size due to its 16:10 aspect ratio. The display features a clear, QHD+ resolution of 2560X1600. Although it may not have the same level of clarity as 4K screens found in premium workstation laptops, it still provides sufficient sharpness for portable tasks and stationary media work, particularly gaming.
When it comes to gaming, the standout feature of the display is its remarkable 240Hz refresh rate. Currently, there are few gaming laptops available that provide such elevated refresh rates. This superior refresh rate guarantees that images on the MSI Stealth 14 Studio are seamless, with no tearing or any other distortions. Honestly, engaging in a rapid game, such as Valorant, feels extremely smooth and provides an exceptional gaming experience.
The use of an IPS display in this model does mean that you won't experience the extremely deep blacks and vibrant hues that other displays may offer. However, the color quality is still quite satisfactory for viewing your top OTT programs. This is due to the display's full DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, which guarantees precise and lively colors across the board. While it would be nice if it supported HDR or Dolby Vision, the sharpness and accuracy of the display are praiseworthy.
The peak brightness of almost 450 nits makes the display extraordinarily clear indoors. Even outside, the screen maintains its visibility when the brightness is fully increased, saving me from having to squint in the sunlight.
The viewing angles are impressive as the colors typically maintain their brightness, even when viewed from unusual perspectives. The laptop also includes MSI True Color, a feature that lets users adjust and calibrate the display to their liking. It offers around seven different modes to select from, along with extra settings for more in-depth customization.
The screen holds a lot of promise and requires you to sharpen and adjust things. Once you've done that, both consuming content and playing games become highly pleasurable activities. Despite its impressive accuracy and vibrancy, and its suitability for most professional content editing tasks, you'll still need to properly set up and calibrate the display, especially if you're planning to color grade your videos or color correct your photos.
Review of MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V: Capabilities: The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V comes loaded with a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700H Processor that can ramp up to 5 GHz. It boasts 6 Performance cores and 8 Efficiency cores, adding up to 14 cores in total, along with a 24M Cache. It also features 16GB DDR5 RAM in a dual-channel setup, operating at 5200 MT/s, which ensures impressive functionality.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, which operates at a speed of 2250Mhz and has 8GB of GDDR6 Memory with a 128-bit bus, is responsible for managing the graphics. This setup guarantees superior performance from the Stealth 14 Studio, particularly when taking into account its cost value.
The i7-13700H processor shines in numerous artificial benchmarks, finding a happy medium between high-intensity tasks and regular applications. Its standout feature is its exceptional performance in single-threaded tasks, aided by its maximum boost clock of 5GHz.
While performance ratings provide some understanding, actual usage gives a more detailed view. In terms of gaming, the Stealth 14 Studio performs impressively, providing one of the top-notch experiences in its price category. The evaluations were carried out in Discrete Graphics Mode, with power and performance settings pushed to the limit. Games operated seamlessly at a resolution of 1920×1200 and the highest possible settings, consistently providing superb frame rates without any noticeable lags or substantial decreases.
We carried out performance assessments using games such as Forza Horizon 5, GTA 5, Control, F1 2022, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The outcomes aligned with our simulated benchmark results. The evaluation was done in performance mode with the laptop connected to a power source.
In the game Shadow of The Tomb Raider, we managed to get an average frame rate of 133. When playing Forza Horizon 5, the average frame rate was 139 fps. We were also able to maintain an average frame rate of 160 fps in Grand Theft Auto 5. In F1 2022, the average frame rate observed was 122. High-speed multiplayer games such as CS: GO and Valorant showed an average frame rate of 315 fps and 280 fps, respectively.
Taking into account the strong hardware capabilities of the Stealth 14 Studio, these figures are truly remarkable. Users can attain even greater frame rates without sacrificing a lot of visual quality by making minor adjustments to settings, such as choosing high over ultra graphics or turning off antialiasing.
In terms of how the MSI Stealth 14 Studio handles heat management, it's comparable to other top-tier gaming laptops that contain high-performance components. The keyboard, notably towards the top, can heat up when used intensively for gaming or benchmarking. However, the Stealth 14 Studio features a smartly designed ventilation system.
Each side of the frame has a pair of exhaust vents, and there's another one at the rear, behind the hinge. As for air intake, there's a sizable vent at the laptop's base. Moreover, the MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V incorporates a Vapor Chamber that greatly enhances the cooling efficiency.
Additionally, the MSI Centre enables you to select various performance modes and fan speeds. In our artificial and gaming tests, we maximized the fan speed using the Cooler Boost mode, maintaining the temperatures within the usual range for the Intel i7 13700H & RTX 4060 bundle. The fans can be quite noisy, but this shouldn't be a problem if you're wearing headphones.
Overall, the Stealth 14 Studio is an incredibly powerful device that performs as strong as it sounds. It has significant force and provides an impressive performance bundle, particularly when you take into account the size of the laptop.
Review of MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V: Battery Performance
The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V is equipped with a 72W 4-cell battery and a large 240W charger. Given that this gaming laptop has a dedicated GPU and an extremely fast CPU, the battery performance is commendable. This is largely due to its ability to manage the use of the GPU effectively and switch between the integrated Intel GPU and the RTX 4060 when permitted. However, if it operates solely on the separate graphics, the battery performance significantly deteriorates.
To put it differently, throughout a typical workday involving heavy writing, some image modification, extensive web surfing, and considerable content viewing on YouTube and Netflix, we managed around 4-5 hours with roughly 60% screen brightness, which is reasonably satisfactory. We repeated the same experiments and use cases, but this time using only distinct graphics, and observed that the battery lasted just slightly more than 3 hours.
Fortunately, the package comes with a 240W charger, ensuring the device stays powered up constantly. Nevertheless, bear in mind that charging the laptop from zero to full capacity requires more than an hour.
Review Verdict on MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V: The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V successfully manages to deliver an ideal combination of speed, convenience, and efficiency.
Though it outperforms in numerous aspects, some crucial features are surprisingly absent. It would have been desirable to see an improved HDR support and an enhanced webcam. Also, it's odd not to have an SD card slot, especially for a laptop designed for content creators who depend on such facilities. Nonetheless, the laptop's exceptional performance makes up for many of these deficiencies.
The MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V, as per our testing, offers ample performance for both gamers and mobile content creators. We didn't experience any frame loss or screen glitches, and even handling 4K video editing was seamless. Throughout our evaluation, we never found ourselves wanting for more processing power.
This laptop stands out due to its remarkable efficiency, despite its compact size. While an enhanced battery longevity and superior heat control would be appreciated, the immense capabilities of the Intel i7 13700H CPU and NVIDIA RTX 4060 GPU cannot be disputed.
Certainly, you might find alternatives that are marginally superior or more economical, particularly if you're open to a screen larger than 14 inches. Nonetheless, if you're in the market for a 14-inch display that provides a 240Hz refresh rate and a resolution exceeding 1080P, along with exceptional performance capacity, the MSI Stealth 14 Studio A13V is your best bet.
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