MSI STEALTH 15M - SLIM, SHARP, STYLISH

MSI STEALTH 15M

 The Stealth 15M has a black metal finish on both the interior and lid, and the build quality still

 feels good despite the thinner size, there’s not much flex to the chassis. It’s just 17mm thin, or a little

 over 0.6 inches, and it weighs less when compared to most other 15-inch gaming laptops too, making

it \easier to travel with. It fits easily into MSI’s included backpack, which you get bundled with the

laptop when buying in Australia using the links below the video. An area where thinner more portable

 gaming laptops like this one really shine this year is in CPU performance, as Intel’s 12th gen

 processors just objectively offer a big leap compared to what was available last year.  Intel’s

 Core i7-1280P is a 14-core 20-thread part with 6 P cores and 8 E cores. Just last year, the

 best CPU you could get from Intel in a thinner portable laptop design like this was a quad-core from

 either the U or  H35 series. Actually, for some reason, the year before that with the 10th gen they did

 offer a 6 core  U series part, and then the core count got lower with 11th gen… But I digress. The point

is you can get way more CPU power these days with 12th gen as a result of Intel’s new hybrid design

Multicore performance was an area where I criticized the Stealth 15M last year, but now just a year

 later, 12th  gen gets us a 132% higher score in Cinebench - more than double the performance in the

 same laptop just a year later, crazy stuff. This year’s Stealth 15M is even ahead of Apple’s current-gen

 MacBook Pro 16. They’re both actually quite similar in size, but the MacBook almost costs double the

 money in my country. Despite the thinner design, this laptop still has Nvidia’s RTX 3060 graphics

 inside,  which is a great mid-range option for gaming. The tradeoff is of course a lower GPU power

 limit compared to thicker laptops, but even so, it’s still running above 60 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at

 high settings, and we’re not even using features like DLSS or FSR here to further boost performance.

It’s very close to the Legion Slim 7i just below it, which not only has a higher GPU power limit, but

 also a  higher tier H series CPU and a MUX switch, so the Stealth is holding up well comparatively.

 This year’s thicker gaming laptops with full powered RTX 3060s were anywhere from 6 to up to 18%

 faster, in the case of MSI’s Vector GP66, but that’s the thing, those laptops are thicker, bigger, heavier,

 and just less portable. If we compare this year’s Stealth 15M against the last-gen model with 11th

 gen  CPU and RTX 2060 graphics, we’re looking at a nice 54% improvement in Shadow of the Tomb

 Raider. Not bad at all considering the laptop is still otherwise about the same size. In my experience,

 thinner gaming laptops are usually limited to soldered memory, because in such a thin machine there’s

 just less physical space to fit memory sticks. Fortunately, that’s not the case here, there are two

 DDR4memory sticks here, but with a flipped motherboard there’s a bit more work involved to access

 them  It’s got an RGB keyboard with three different highlighted areas. The colors can’t be changed, but

 it’s got 3 levels of brightness and all keys and secondary functions get lit up. The key presses are a little

 shallow feeling, but that’s just going to be a limit of the thinner design, but I still liked typing on it, and

 the smooth touchpad felt nice and accurate to click with. 

The left side has an air exhaust vent, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack,

 while the right has two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, a second USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, an HDMI

2.0 output, and there's an air exhaust on this side too. There's no MUX switch, but the front Type-C 

port offers DisplayPort output, which bypasses optimus and connects directly to the Nvidia RTX 3060 

graphics, meaning higher FPS in games is possible if you connect an external screen. The 1TB PCIe 

Gen 4 M.2 SSD performs a bit better compared to a top-end Gen 3 drive. Just like all of MSI's other 

gaming laptops, there's almost an endless amount of customization possible through their advanced 

BIOS, which is something that most other laptops simply do not offer. It’s basically a dream for 

anyone  that wants to tweak or tune their laptop. I could see this being perfect for someone that wants a 

thin and portable 15-inch gaming laptop to take to school or work, but also might want to do some 

gaming. If you are after portability, then there are even smaller 13 or 14-inch gaming laptops out there, 

but as tech gets smaller it tends to also get more expensive too. And personally,  playing games on a 

bigger 15-inch screen just looks better. It’s personal preference, it’s a great sweet spot as you get plenty 

of viewable screen space without making the laptop's body too big. It’s using the same 1080p 144Hz 

screen as the last model, so the color gamut isn’t anything special. You don’t really notice when just 

playing games though, at least we can’t say that we were paying any attention when playing, but 

people doing content creation work would want something better. MSI also has their Stealth GS66 

gaming laptop, which is a bit thicker compared to the Stealth 15M here, but it’s also available with 

higher-tier CPUs and GPUs for even more performance. 

SPECIFICATION

Brands	MSI
Model	Stealth 15M B12UE
Processor	Up to 11th Gen. Intel® Core™ i7 U-Processor
Display	15.6" FHD (1920×1080), 144Hz, IPS-Level
Memory	32 GB
SSD	1TB
Graphic Card	6GB Nvidia Graphics
USB Port	Yes
Audio Port (Out)	Yes
HDMI	Yes
Backlit Keyboard	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
WiFi	Yes
Operating System	Windows 11 Home
Color	Carbon Grey
Dimension	358 x 248 x 17 mm
Weight	1.8 kg
Warranty	International Warranty