MSI Stealth 18 HX or Razer Blade 18: Thinner and lighter isn't always better

It's not easy beating Razer in the thin and light department, but MSI managed to do just that with its latest Stealth 18 HX laptop. The system is 200 g lighter (3.0 kg vs. 3.2 kg) and 4 mm thinner (23.9 mm vs. 27.9 mm) than the Blade 18 to be one of the thinnest in its category. Frequent travelers who value portability as much as the spacious 18-inch screen size can appreciate the savings in weight and volume. Look deeper into their performance differences, however, and the caveats begin to show.

While the Stealth 18 and Blade 18 can be configured with similar processors, the Stealth 18 comes up a bit short almost consistently. Our graphs below compare the two systems each equipped with the Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and GeForce RTX 5090 GPU and the Blade 18 would come out ahead by a few percentage points the vast majority of the time. The differences aren't particularly major, but enthusiasts or performance hunters may nevertheless find the Razer system to be the more desirable option.

On the other hand, users who don't mind losing a bit of performance for a thinner and lighter design may find the MSI model to be the better option instead. The Stealth 18 even ships with a smaller 280 W AC adapter versus the 330 W adapter for the Razer to improve portability and reduce power consumption even further. Users can check out our full review on the Stealth 18 HX to learn more about the differences between it and the Razer system.