MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V Review – Sleek, Slim, Stealthy Power Machine

Joining the ongoing trend of slim and light laptops with robust gaming specs is the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V, a sleek new addition that balances work and leisure while staying portable. This beast is truly a looker, having a sharp appearance and a Mg-Ak Alloy Chassis, which keeps the laptop clean, stylish, and Fingerprint Proof. Our review unit is in the Star Blue color, which while not in your face, is an eye-pleasing machine that gives off a premium and classy look. Weighing in at only 1.99kg and measuring 19.9mm in thickness, this laptop is highly portable, allowing you to game and work on the go, with no problem.

Display and Audio 

As games become more graphically demanding and artists require more precise color reproduction, a powerful display becomes something highly desirable for many users. The MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V, does take a lot into consideration when building its display, featuring a 16:10 4K Mini LED Screen with a matching 120Hz Refresh Rate, producing accurate color perception, smooth visuals, and overall, eye satisfaction. 

If you are the kind of person who always forgets to charge your wireless headphones, no worries here. MSI Stealth 16 comes with 6 Speakers which are 2 Audio Speakers and an astonishing 4 Woofers by Dynaudio. MSI Stealth 16 pleases not only your eyes but your ears as well with its great-sounding speakers. 

Keyboard and Touchpad

On to the keyboard and touchpad. Personally, as someone who loves to customize keybindings, I really appreciate the add-on Illumination configuration for all my single-keys backlit through SteelSeries GG. Being able to color code certain keybinds gives the laptop a more personal feel. The bonus here is that the RGB backlit is not too striking or distracting. 

When it comes to its touchpad, MSI Stealth went ahead and made it 14% larger, which allows users’ fingertips to have more freedom and removes the hassle of swiping around the touchpad to get from one end to the other. 

Connection

This laptop is built not only for gaming, but also for work, and thus it would need to include the essential ports for your daily needs. Starting off from the right side of the laptop, MSI Stealth 16 has; 

• DC-In 
• USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A 
• Thunderbolt™ 4(w/ PD 3.0 Charging)
• Audio combo jack. 

On the left side;

• RJ45
• HDMI™ 2.1 (8K@60Hz / 4K@120Hz)
• microSD Card Reader
• USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C / DP

The main star that you would be constantly using would most likely be the Thunderbolt™ 4 for all your high-speed data transfers and the option to connect to multiple devices.

MSI Center

One of the main factors that made MSI Stealth 16  a standout is their incorporation of AI into their system. MSI AI Engine has the ability to sense its users’ scenarios and toggle its systems function accordingly. From their MSI Center, you can select if you wanna turn the AI Engine ON and which systems you allow the AI to optimize. The AI will study your usage behavior and provide real-time optimization to your current needs.

You can let the AI adjust your audio or performance. When the MSI AI Engine is activated, the screen will have a quick pop-up on what the system has detected what you are doing and categorize it into either Intelligent Work, Intelligent Meeting, Intelligent Gaming, or Intelligent Work.

Hardware and Performance

In terms of specs, MSI Stealth 16 is equipped with Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 processor 155H with Intel® AI Boost (NPU) 16 cores (6 P-cores + 8 E-cores + 2 Low Power E-cores), Max Turbo Frequency 4.8 GHz. It also comes with NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060 Graphics Card, with DLSS technology for high frame rate performances. 

With great performance comes great power consumption. Stealth 16 took their battery source seriously and thus implemented the world’s largest battery capacity with a whopping 99.9 WHr. Don’t worry about using it on flights, because it is still within legal flight limits.

Here are some benchmarks to fully grasp their performance.

• Cinebench (Multi Core) = 15287 pts
• Cinebench (Single Core) = 1032 pts

Game Test

Onto gaming benchmarks, we tested out 3 games on the MSI Stealth 16, namely Tekken 8, Hogwarts Legacy, and Valorant. 

During our time with Valorant, our Graphics were all set to High and we had our FPS clock in at between 160-180 FPS. While many abilities were used and the screen became a particle effect galore, there is a tiny drop in frame rates, dipping to 140-150 FPS at the lowest. Such frame rate drops is not painfully obvious, and they certainly won’t affect you while you climb your rank in Competitive. 

Moving onto Hogwarts Legacy, which is far more visually demanding than the previous title. We ran the game on DLSS Ultra Performance with Ultra RayTrace turned on, and we got an average FPS of 60-70. That said, we did experience an intense drop in performance, dropping to 25 FPS on some occasions, especially when during highly visually cluttered environments.

With Tekken 8, however, in DLSS Ultra Performance mode we had a consistent 60 FPS throughout even when Rage Art and Heat were activated with particle effects sparking everywhere. In other words, the MSI Stealth 16 is no doubt a great portable machine for your intense on-the-go Tekken 8 training. 

Cooling

MSI Stealth 16 introduces shared-pipe design, attaching the heat pipes to both the CPU and GPU helping improve the thermal capability, and did I mention their design also combined with MSI Cooler Boost 5? MSI Strive for a revolutionary cooling system because they understand that intense gaming and heavy rendering workloads would really heat up the laptop and the last thing we want is overheating, which eventually leads to crashing.

Verdict

Overall, the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V is not only a looker, but one that delivers in terms of performance. The Star Blue color choice with minimal RGB lights keeps the “stealthy” theme going, not announcing you to the world of your hobby, reducing the shame of using it in public.

Not only that the addition of MSI AI Engine eases my trip toward the settings, knowing that I don’t have to constantly swap around in-between GPU modes. Yes, for a laptop trying to be both a working tool and a gaming machine, MSI Stealth 16 is one sleek, thin, premium-looking yet powerful laptop.  

With the price of RM9,999, I would recommend eyeing MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V, if you want to have a more comfortable work and game life balance.

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