MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (2026) review: A gaming laptop master
MSI's sleek laptop is a beauty
A beautiful new design cements MSI's sleekest gaming laptop as a fantastic contender in 2026, albeit at a price that means it can't be called a bargain. It's right up there with the best, though, and that gorgeous OLED panel is a big part of its superb performance.
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Really nice new design
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Great build quality
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Excellent specs
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Superb display
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It's not as light or thin as some of the competition
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Pricing isn't exactly undercutting others either
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When MSI gave me a glimpse of its upcoming laptop slate late last year, my eye was caught in particular by the new Stealth 16 AI+, which redesigned the MSI laptop that I would most want for myself. The new version was sleeker and slimmer, but it took months to get to the market (like so many recent laptop launches).
Now I've had the chance to use the 2026 champion for a couple of weeks, though, and to finally put the Stealth 16 AI+ through its paces. The slimline gaming laptops market is only getting more competitive, so how does this compete with the Razer Blade 16 and Asus ROG Zephyrus? Read on to find out.
Price and Availability
The MSI Stealth 16 AI+ is available now, having launched earlier this summer, and if you were wondering whether it's the machine to buck the trend of ever more expensive laptops, look elsewhere. As the "Stealth" label suggests, this is a high-end option for those who want a sleeker build, and it's priced accordingly.
The Stealth 16 AI+ starts from $2,099 in the US, but in the UK right now, the cheapest version in stock (as linked by MSI's own site) is at Overclockers for a whopping £2,599.99. That's a serious chunk of change, and confirms that the rebrand has made this a really high-end bit of gaming kit.
Design and Spec
Really, the biggest news about the Stealth 16 AI+ in its 2026 guise is its all-new design, and given it had been a few months since the last time I saw it in person, I wondered if it would live up to my memory of its quality. Well, no worries there – this is a really gorgeous gaming laptop, make no mistake.
MSI has taken things right back to the drawing board, so there's very little common ground shared with last year's Stealth 18 HX AI, for instance. Rather than that older, blockier and more sharp-edged design, this new version is way more rounded in the corners, and has far less ornamentation.
It's black all over, in the mould established by Razer's Blade lineup – that being a T3 Awards 2026 winner, by the way – with just some very subtle linework on the back of the display to make it stand out a little when the light hits it right.
Underneath MSI's laptop there's a whole heap of ventilation in the form of bored-out holes, and there's no thermal shelf (AKA rear-end) behind the display, so it's nice and compact for a 16-inch laptop.
That said, there's no point pretending that this is the thinnest laptop on the market, even in the gaming world. It's 16.65mm at its thinnest point, which is still hugely impressive but not the smallest out there, and 1.99kg – so it's not like you'll forget about it in a backpack.
The design is rounded out by plenty of IO action. On the right edge of the laptop, you'll find an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a USB-A port and a 3.5mm audio jack. The other side houses two Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports, another USB-A port, the main power delivery port, and a slot for a Kensington lock.
Opening the laptop up, you get a tenkeyless keyboard with quite widely-spaced keys, complete with colour-shifting backlighting that you can control. The trackpad, meanwhile, is huge (and mechanical) – not that you'll use it for gaming unless you're crazy. Usefully, the power key in that keyboard doubles as a fingerprint scanner.
The keyboard is flanked by stereo speakers under grilles, and above that is the display – and while I'll get to how it performs in a bit, the specs tell a lot of the story.
It's a 16-inch OLED panel, at 2500x1600 resolution with a refresh rate of 240Hz, and has a glossy finish. It actually underlines how nice and compact the design of the laptop is overall, since it looks massive in the frame that it's set into. Above the display is a 1080p (at 30fps) webcam with a mechanical privacy shutter.
What you get under the hood in that relatively slim body is superb, though. The version I tested packed in an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, with 32GB of RAM to keep things snappy. 1TB of SSD space is no longer the insurance it used to be, but it's still enough for plenty of games.
Those specs are a mixture of largely top-end options, though, and you can start out with 16GB of RAM and a standard 5070 to keep your costs lower (if you can find the configuration in stock, that is).
That mixture of what's inside the 2026 Stealth 16 AI+ and its all-new looks on the outside is really potent. While I can't quite say it reaches the level of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 from a design standpoint, it's really close, and that makes it MSI's best-looking gaming laptop ever.
Performance
As always with a gaming laptop, a nice design gets you pretty far, but if it meant terrible thermals and throttled performance, it would be no good to anyone. MSI has clearly taken care to avoid that with the Stealth 16's newest version, and I've been hugely enjoying the raw performance it offers up in this top-end configuration.
Benchmarks aren't always the be-all-and-end-all, but it's never a bad thing to compare performance in the likes of Cyberpunk 2077, and the Stealth 16 AI+ (2026) treats one of the most graphically-intensive games ever made like a chew toy.
No matter what configuration you go for, you'll be able to find a super smooth and playable framerate in Cyberpunk. I started by checking out the default configuration, on the "Ray-tracing Low" preset at native resolution (2560x1600), and clocked a lovely 94.89fps average with no frame generation.
Swapping over to the Ultra preset with no ray-tracing, I got 87.43fps on average (also at native resolution), but frame generation unlocks wild potential if you're happy to use it. This is the main advantage of Nvidia's newest generation of cards, after all, and with just the lowest 2X setting, I was able to play the game on its maxed-out "Ray-tracing Overdrive" preset with an average of 77.78fps.
That's frankly remarkable in any portable machine, and underlines just how high the performance ceiling is becoming on laptops now – and I'm a huge fan of how open to tinkering this all leaves you for gaming. It also means that other modern releases will be no problem at all, and it's important to stress that dropping down to a still-nice-and-sharp 1080p will free up way more headroom for you again – that native resolution is arguably sharper than you need.
I say "arguably" because the OLED display here is so lovely that you might just want to max out your settings at all times to make the most of it. OLED is always great in my experience, but this one does stand out as one of the best laptop screens I've ever seen. It's expansive, has real depth of colour and blacks, and that glossy screen coating makes it just look beautiful (albeit while restricting its usefulness in brighter lighting).
It should come as no surprise that when gaming with power connected, on that discrete Nvidia GPU, the fan noise is pretty massive, though. This is something that few gaming laptops can eliminate, and it does mean that you'll want one of the best gaming headsets to go with it for better immersion.
If you opt for some mobile gaming without that power supply plugged in, you'll step down enormously in performance. Since it has that GPU for plugged-in play, MSI hasn't included an Intel chip with the all-important B390 GPU, so the nonetheless excellent Core Ultra 9 386H is way more mediocre when using its built-in Intel Graphics.
Away from gaming, though, I found performance to be really admirable. Light work tasks were no problem at all, and battery life when not gaming wasn't too unreasonable. Of course, it's important to underline that for those who haven't already used one of the best gaming laptops out there, they're really not aimed at unplugged play sessions.
Verdict
I had a feeling that MSI had done sterling work on the Stealth 16 AI+'s 2026 revision, but getting my hands on it has confirmed that in all the most important ways.
This is a superb gaming laptop – one that packs in some brilliant power, but also has a design that's mature and delightfully simple.
It's got a price tag that can't exactly be ignored, of course, and you'll struggle to find the more affordable variants in stock right now, such is the demand.
So if you want a great-looking gaming machine with a stunning display that doesn't have to jump through too many hoops to stay cool, MSI's 2026 is a masterful option.
Also Consider
Razer's Blade 16 is the obvious competition here, and I've mentioned it a few times in this review as a result. Razer's still ahead in terms of design, thanks to the incredible slimness of the Blade, but there's an advantage to be had from MSI – it's more affordable for the same spec, which is a huge deal.
That said, if you want a smaller and even stealthier laptop, I remain in love with the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, although I haven't yet tested a newer version than the 2025 model. It's a beautiful little laptop that runs games flawlessly, but it's got an older processor and a smaller display.
