MSI upgrades its Stealth gaming laptop and more with new chips and AI features

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By Antonio G. Di Benedetto, a writer covering tech deals and The Verge’s Deals newsletter, buying guides, and gift guides. Previously, he spent 15 years in the photography industry.

MSI’s gaming laptops are known for balancing price and performance with a bunch of RGB lighting thrown in for good measure. For CES 2024, it’s returning to that formula once again with its new Stealth, Raider, Cyborg, and Titan laptops and adding in upgraded chips with a touch of “AI.”

I had the chance to briefly see some of MSI’s new laptops in December, and perhaps the most exciting new feature is the use of 16:10 displays all around. I’ve personally been hoping for years to see the terribly limiting 16:9 aspect ratio abandoned in gaming laptops, and MSI’s new offerings pack more screen real estate into the same chassis thanks to the switch.

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Among its many laptops, the new MSI Stealth balances the thinness and performance scales with more subdued looks and styling. The Stealth 18 AI Studio A1V (oof, what a name) is a $3,299 laptop configurable with an 18-inch 4K Mini LED display, up to Intel’s Core Ultra 9 processor and Nvidia’s RTX 4090, and a large haptic-based trackpad — all weighing in at 6.39 pounds / 2.9kg.

The $2,499 Raider 18 HX A14V (which I only saw at my briefing as a nonfunctioning mock-up) is the look-at-me RGB option of the bunch, continuing its reputation of having a wide strip of colorful lighting across its front deck. The 7.94 pound / 3.6kg laptop weighs just as much as the ridiculous $5,000 Titan 18 HX A14V, but the Raider is the spec-heavy model regular folks may actually consider. It can be configured with up to a 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU and RTX 4090, and it has an 18-inch QHD 16:10 (2560 x 1600)