MSI GS76 Stealth

Potent power in a slick, stealthy chassis

- SAM LEWIS

LAPTOPS WERE DESIGNED as a portable and practical on-the-go alternative to your desktop computer. However, 17-inch laptops tend to fall somewhere between the two. As good as they are at providing you with the equivalent of desktop power or more, plus they often have better cooling solutions and specs than smaller alternatives, what they can’t deliver is the same level of practicality. You can’t sling one of these into a backpack, as they aren’t the easiest nor the lightest devices to carry around. Yet, they offer something pretty cool and if you are unsure whether to get a desktop or a traditional laptop, they are an ideal compromise.

MSI is no stranger to 17-inch devices and the GS76 Stealth is certainly a looker, with some pretty hefty specs under the hood. Let’s start with the design, which certainly lives up to the Stealth name. Compared with the MSI GE76 Raider, another 17-inch MSI laptop we tested recently, this is a more slick and premium-feeling device. Finished in full-core black metal, it’s one of the best designs we have seen from MSI.

It’s pretty subtle for such a large device and that gives it an illusion of being smaller than it actually is. It’s also pretty slim for this configuration, coming in at 0.8-inches thick. At a glance, and with the RGB keyboard turned off, you’d struggle to know that this was a gaming-focused laptop—it seems like a more mature step up from its GE76 Raider sibling.