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expired Posted by fuddus99 • Dec 16, 2024
expired Posted by fuddus99 • Dec 16, 2024

MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1VHG-027US UHD 120hz RTX 4080 Gaming Laptop $1599.99 at Adorama

$1,600

$3,299

51% off
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Stumbled on this deal this morning after looking for RTX4080 laptops. Seems like solid specs for the money.

Intel Core Ultra 9-185H
16" 16:10 4K Mini-LED 120Hz HDR 100% DCI-P3 Screen
NVIDIA RTX 4080 12GB GPU
64GB DDR5 5600MHz RAM
1TB NVMe SSD Gen4
Killer Wi-Fi 7 BE1750
Windows 11 Pro

https://www.adorama.com/msis16a1027.html > slight delay, still available to order

Price Dropped to $1,599 as of 1/16
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Stumbled on this deal this morning after looking for RTX4080 laptops. Seems like solid specs for the money.

Intel Core Ultra 9-185H
16" 16:10 4K Mini-LED 120Hz HDR 100% DCI-P3 Screen
NVIDIA RTX 4080 12GB GPU
64GB DDR5 5600MHz RAM
1TB NVMe SSD Gen4
Killer Wi-Fi 7 BE1750
Windows 11 Pro

https://www.adorama.com/msis16a1027.html > slight delay, still available to order

Price Dropped to $1,599 as of 1/16

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+6
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Visit Adorama

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Model: MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio 16” 120Hz UHD+ Mini LED Gaming Laptop: Intel Core Ultra 9-185H, NVIDIA Geforce RTX 4080, 64GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, Thunderbolt 4, Win 11 Pro: Star Blue A1VHG-027US

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Original Poster
Dec 16, 2024
28 Posts
Joined Nov 2008
Dec 16, 2024
fuddus99
Original Poster
Dec 16, 2024
28 Posts
Adorama is now showing a Backorder with expected availability of 02/2025 🫤
Dec 19, 2024
266 Posts
Joined Mar 2011
Dec 19, 2024
RealDealMonkey
Dec 19, 2024
266 Posts
Looking at reviews, the big upside to this laptop are:

- the screen
- excellent battery life (for a gaming laptop)
- runs relatively quiet versus other gaming laptops, but still loud as they all are
- port selection with full-size hdmi, usb-c or Thunderbolt on both sides, sd card reader, 3.2 usb-a
- overall specs

Negatives:
CPU performance is well below what you'd expect coming in slower than even lower-tiered alternatives. It appears that to get that battery life and somewhat quieter performance, all while in a thin chassis, MSI gimped the cpu from sustaining max clocks and just overall thermal limits. Probably a great machine if you want a slim office machine that can still offer good gaming when at home, but expect those 1% low fps numbers etc to struggle versus the thicker or more gaming oriented competition.
Dec 26, 2024
2,292 Posts
Joined Nov 2009
Dec 26, 2024
boball
Dec 26, 2024
2,292 Posts
Quote from RealDealMonkey :
Looking at reviews, the big upside to this laptop are:

- the screen
- excellent battery life (for a gaming laptop)
- runs relatively quiet versus other gaming laptops, but still loud as they all are
- port selection with full-size hdmi, usb-c or Thunderbolt on both sides, sd card reader, 3.2 usb-a
- overall specs

Negatives:
CPU performance is well below what you'd expect coming in slower than even lower-tiered alternatives. It appears that to get that battery life and somewhat quieter performance, all while in a thin chassis, MSI gimped the cpu from sustaining max clocks and just overall thermal limits. Probably a great machine if you want a slim office machine that can still offer good gaming when at home, but expect those 1% low fps numbers etc to struggle versus the thicker or more gaming oriented competition.
So can we (as users) manually undo the cpu gimping that MSI apparently did? I mean like overclocking and $hit?
Original Poster
Jan 2, 2025
28 Posts
Joined Nov 2008
Jan 2, 2025
fuddus99
Original Poster
Jan 2, 2025
28 Posts
Quote from RealDealMonkey :
Looking at reviews, the big upside to this laptop are:- the screen- excellent battery life (for a gaming laptop)- runs relatively quiet versus other gaming laptops, but still loud as they all are- port selection with full-size hdmi, usb-c or Thunderbolt on both sides, sd card reader, 3.2 usb-a- overall specs Negatives:CPU performance is well below what you'd expect coming in slower than even lower-tiered alternatives. It appears that to get that battery life and somewhat quieter performance, all while in a thin chassis, MSI gimped the cpu from sustaining max clocks and just overall thermal limits. Probably a great machine if you want a slim office machine that can still offer good gaming when at home, but expect those 1% low fps numbers etc to struggle versus the thicker or more gaming oriented competition.
I've owned this specific laptop for about a month now and agree with those points and I'd say this price is about on point for what you get. Here's a little more color from my perspective.

Pros:
- The 16:10 4K Mini-LED screen is beautiful, bright, and it seems to scale well to 1600p - haven't noticed the difference between the lower resolution and the 4K. 120hz is nice and most games can actually reach that in fps. Mini-LED is nice to not have to worry about burn-in or other issues related to longevity.
- The battery life is solid as long as you leave it in hybrid mode
- The ports are nice, especially having an ethernet port to hardwire in. The locations of the ports are a little stupid, especially the charger and the 1 USB-A being on the right, about halfway toward the front of the laptop because there are cooling fins at the rear. They sort of get in the way of a mouse if desk space is limited
- The fans are quiet most of the time - even during games. It stays much quieter on an elevated cooling pad.
- RAM, 2 SSD slots, and WiFi card are accessible and user swappable, it was easy to install a 2nd SSD
- RTX 4080 performs well enough to keep up with screen refresh rate, logged 132fps with Ultra settings and Balanced DLSS at 1600p in Forza Horizon 5's benchmark.
- MSI and Steelcase software is stable and consistent, though there were some odd issues initially where settings in the MSI app kept overwriting settings over in the NVIDIA app (like WhisperMode)
- Blue color of the Mg-Al body is unique and is fairly fingerprint resistant. Other than the dragon logo on the lid (which can be easily covered with a sticker) the design is understated and can blend in anywhere without screaming "GAMER"
- Comes with 2 chargers

Cons:
- This machine gets toasty, CPU & GPU typically bounce around 75C and 65C respectively during long gaming sessions. Fans will ramp up pretty high for brief moments.
- RTX 4080 does not keep up with other 4080 laptops with higher TGP, this one is capped at 105W, but does still have 12GB of VRAM.
- As mentioned above, some of the ports are in dumb places.
- Magnesium-Aluminum feels a little cheap/plasticky
- The biggest disappointment has been the built-in speakers. MSI really hypes up the Dynaudio speakers & subwoofers with Nahimic but they have rubbish bass and sound kind of hollow/tinny, even though they do get loud. Compared to the 2024 ASUS G14 or G16 those laptops sound significantly better. I've left it plugged into some Creative Pebble speakers for the last couple of weeks.

It's not perfect by any means and the MSRP of $3299 is insane - but all in all, considering the whole package I haven't been able to find a better system for less than $2k quite like this. If anyone has questions about this laptop, let me know, happy to help!
Jan 15, 2025
31 Posts
Joined Aug 2020
Jan 15, 2025
ThriftyDirt456
Jan 15, 2025
31 Posts
Quote from fuddus99 :
I've owned this specific laptop for about a month now and agree with those points and I'd say this price is about on point for what you get. Here's a little more color from my perspective.Pros:- The 16:10 4K Mini-LED screen is beautiful, bright, and it seems to scale well to 1600p - haven't noticed the difference between the lower resolution and the 4K. 120hz is nice and most games can actually reach that in fps. Mini-LED is nice to not have to worry about burn-in or other issues related to longevity.- The battery life is solid as long as you leave it in hybrid mode- The ports are nice, especially having an ethernet port to hardwire in. The locations of the ports are a little stupid, especially the charger and the 1 USB-A being on the right, about halfway toward the front of the laptop because there are cooling fins at the rear. They sort of get in the way of a mouse if desk space is limited- The fans are quiet most of the time - even during games. It stays much quieter on an elevated cooling pad.- RAM, 2 SSD slots, and WiFi card are accessible and user swappable, it was easy to install a 2nd SSD- RTX 4080 performs well enough to keep up with screen refresh rate, logged 132fps with Ultra settings and Balanced DLSS at 1600p in Forza Horizon 5's benchmark.- MSI and Steelcase software is stable and consistent, though there were some odd issues initially where settings in the MSI app kept overwriting settings over in the NVIDIA app (like WhisperMode) - Blue color of the Mg-Al body is unique and is fairly fingerprint resistant. Other than the dragon logo on the lid (which can be easily covered with a sticker) the design is understated and can blend in anywhere without screaming "GAMER" - Comes with 2 chargersCons:- This machine gets toasty, CPU & GPU typically bounce around 75C and 65C respectively during long gaming sessions. Fans will ramp up pretty high for brief moments. - RTX 4080 does not keep up with other 4080 laptops with higher TGP, this one is capped at 105W, but does still have 12GB of VRAM. - As mentioned above, some of the ports are in dumb places.- Magnesium-Aluminum feels a little cheap/plasticky- The biggest disappointment has been the built-in speakers. MSI really hypes up the Dynaudio speakers & subwoofers with Nahimic but they have rubbish bass and sound kind of hollow/tinny, even though they do get loud. Compared to the 2024 ASUS G14 or G16 those laptops sound significantly better. I've left it plugged into some Creative Pebble speakers for the last couple of weeks. It's not perfect by any means and the MSRP of $3299 is insane - but all in all, considering the whole package I haven't been able to find a better system for less than $2k quite like this. If anyone has questions about this laptop, let me know, happy to help!
Very good to know! Also what do you mean by two chargers? Does it come with a typical bulky charger, together with a lighter-ish usb-c charger? That said, how's its performance when plugged with USB-C charger?
Original Poster
Jan 16, 2025
28 Posts
Joined Nov 2008
Jan 16, 2025
fuddus99
Original Poster
Jan 16, 2025
28 Posts
Quote from ThriftyDirt456 :
Very good to know! Also what do you mean by two chargers? Does it come with a typical bulky charger, together with a lighter-ish usb-c charger? That said, how's its performance when plugged with USB-C charger?
No it's two of the same quasi-bulky charger... so you can leave one on the desk and take the other with you. I haven't tried it plugged in with a USBc charger, but I imagine gaming would be a no-go.
Original Poster
Jan 16, 2025
28 Posts
Joined Nov 2008
Jan 16, 2025
fuddus99
Original Poster
Jan 16, 2025
28 Posts
Price just dropped to $1,599.99. Solid deal as I imagine re-sellers are wanting to clear inventory before 50 series laptops hit the shelves.

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Jan 16, 2025
31 Posts
Joined Aug 2020
Jan 16, 2025
ThriftyDirt456
Jan 16, 2025
31 Posts
Quote from fuddus99 :
No it's two of the same quasi-bulky charger... so you can leave one on the desk and take the other with you. I haven't tried it plugged in with a USBc charger, but I imagine gaming would be a no-go.
Aww... In one hand, I really want this especially after its price getting cut to $1600... This really is a solid deal... On the other hand, I kind of want to wait for asus g16, another lighter-weight laptop, to get a similar-ish price cut... I don't care that it cannot perform as much as other bulky 4080 laptops as even with 105w, 4080 can perform 25% more than full-powered 4070 laptops, and can perform as much as 4070 laptops with lower heats, which I think is a huge upside. I'm relatively uncertain with 185h processor, which I consider slightly weaker and warmer than 8945HS, but with this price, I kind of want to bite the bullet as well...

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