The MSI GS75 Stealth 85E Gaming Laptop Reviewed

When I get a chance to check out a piece of hardware, I usually, of course, accept. When I was offered a look at the MSI GS75 Stealth 8SE, one of MSI’s latest RTX-based, ultra-thin, gaming laptops, of course, I said send it! I anxiously awaited its arrival over the next few days.

There are a few variations on the GS75 Stealth ranging in configuration starting at the top with the fully decked out 32 GB DDR4, an Nvidia RTX 2080, and dual SSDs set up in RAID 0. Still, the one I will be looking at is the GS75 Stealth 8SE, which is the Intel i7 8th Generation with 16 GB DDR4 and the RTX 2060 with a single 512GB SSD. This 17.3-inch gaming laptop also features a 144Hz IPS panel with a skinny bezel, a keyboard made by SteelSeries, Killer networking components and all housed in a beautiful metal-looking exterior with copper accents.

First Impressions

I am not going to be doing a What’s in the Box with this review as what I received was strictly the MSI GS75 Stealth 8SE, and it’s a relatively thin power pack. A full retail experience would be different, of course, but then there is not a whole lot needed when it comes to a laptop itself.

Ths first thing I noticed was how thin this laptop is.  My first ever gaming laptop was an ASUS G51Jx that was at least twice the thickness and felt super chunky compared to this MSI GS76 8SE. The MSI gaming dragon adorns the top of the chassis with a copper-accented trim around the edge of the super-thin screen.

The MSI GS75 Stealth 8SE has a plethora of I/O ports that should suit anyone’s needs. On one side, you have two USB 3.1 Type-A, one USB 3.1 type-C, thunderbolt, a full HDMI port and, of course, the cable lock. You can see one of the copper accented exhaust ports as well.

Rotate the laptop to the other side, and you can see the power port, the full-size Ethernet port, another USB 3.1 Type-A port, a microSD card slot and gold-plated headphones and mic jacks. The cooling system expands across both sides of the MSI GS75 Stealth to help ensure adequate heat dissipation.

The profile of the MSI GS75 Stealth is the same between the models in this series. Here you can see how thin the 17-inch 144Hz panel compares to the rest of the laptop. Not only is it thin, but the bezel is also as thin, which provides a great viewing experience.

The keyboard is from SteelSeries and has per-key RGB lighting. Users may find the keyboard hard to get used to as the keys are different than some more standard layouts. The small Numpad on the left is handy, as I personally always prefer to have a Numpad available. The trackpad, even positioned in the centre, is in an odd place. When your fingers are on the keys, the trackpad will be positioned more on the right side than the middle. It may be a bit awkward for some users who navigate the keyboard and trackpad at the same time. I’ve also noticed that the trackpad was not as accurate as other trackpads I have used in the past.

You might also notice that there is only one Windows key and located on the right side of the keyboard. I understand how sometimes the windows key can become a nuisance when gaming, but I prefer the key on the left side but with the ability to either disable it or remap it while gaming. Perhaps not a big deal for most people, but it was a bit of an annoyance for myself.

The power button, located above the speaker grill at the top of the keyboard, took me a little bit to find. It is nice that it is not an in-your-face type of thing.

As I mentioned, the keyboard is per-key RGB and being SteelSeries; you can configure the lights via the SteelSeries Engine. There is an almost infinite amount of options when configuring the lighting of the keyboard itself, and of course, RGB lighting is a personal preference. If you like it, great, you can customize it to your lighting. If you don’t like it, then you can easily disable it and carry on with your day. The above image has the keyboard’s lighting scheme set to “Disco.”

It might be a bit hard to see on the above image, but there is a webcam located in the center of the top bezel. Typically, laptop webcams are of the 720p variety, and quality is nothing you would want to use if you were to be streaming. On that note, it is nice to have one included, and one that is almost hidden from sight as it would be good for quick Skype calls if on the road or something.