Some background: I'm a HUGE HDR fanboy fanboy for gaming, I have my desktop hooked into an OLED S95B TV and a MiniLED Asus PG32UQX monitor. I find that HDR really heightens the visuals in a game, it is a much bigger upgrade than 4k IMO. So I've wanted it for my mobile gaming as well. I like my laptop well enough but in addition to just being interested in new better hardware, the prospect of HDR gaming on the go is very appealing to me.
Enter the MSI Stealth 16. It's a thinner and lower power gaming laptop, much like I have now, and available with several screens. Of interest to me was the 3840x2400 Mini-LED screen from AUO. In a lot of ways, it sounds similar to the PG32UQX: Brightness over 1000nits, over 1000 dimming zones, 4k 120Hz. I'm very interested. This sounds like it could be just what I'm looking for. Can't find any locally so I pulled the trigger and tried it... and the results are mixed.
Starting with the good, the display is as promised a real bright display capable of HDR. Watching some of the HDR demo videos on it are very nice and impressive. You don't see much blooming in part because the zones are quite small compared to the PG32UQX (since it is a 16" panel instead of 32") and also because it is tuned more towards minimizing blooming, rather than maximizing brightness as the Asus is. The panel is also fluid at 120Hz, with less motion blur than the ASUS so that's nice. The resolution is overkill for a laptop, but fun, individual pixels really are imperceptible at normal distances. There's a tiny bit of dirty screen effect (the Asus has none I can see) but it is pretty minimal. Overall a pretty nice panel. The laptop itself is well built, nice metallic case, very light, even lighter than my X15, and not all gamer-y looking, very sleek. Also it, as promised, shipped with two PSUs which is really nice so you can have one on the go and one at home without spending extra. I was slightly concerned it might need both for full power but it is a 240w unit as stated and works with just one, the other is extra.
Now the mediocre: The display has no way to disable local dimming in SDR. This isn't a dealbreaker, and many people would leave it on most or all of the time, but it does mean some stuff gets overly dark because of its bias towards limiting blooming. The keyboard is also pretty "meh". It's not a bad keyboard (though not mechanical) but it is very wide and has a tiny 10-key on it. It makes typing less ergonomic than the centered Dell keyboards with no 10-key. The control software for it is also pretty "meh". Now to be fair so is the Alienware software, and really any gamer software I've seen, but worth noting. The cooling is also not bad but not wonderful. It gets toasty when spun up, of course, all gaming laptops do, but the issue is idle. The X15 is nice and cool when you are just using the desktop, you can have it on your legs no problem. The Stealth gets quite warm even just idling on the desktop. It isn't like "you are going to get burned" hot, but it is the warmest idler I've ever had.
Finally the bad: While the laptop HAS HDR... it is a PITA to use. A number of games I've tried with it simply do not work in HDR. Examples include No Man's Sky and Hitman 3. The problem is that even when HDR is on, something about the Intel GPU isn't reporting it as available correctly so they don't offer the option. Other games like Baldur's Gate 3 do work with HDR, but it is not consistent. Ok, no problem, disable the Intel GPU right? It allows you to switch to discrete only graphics... which does fix the HDR problem, but VRR goes away. For whatever reason VRR only with the Intel GPU, not the nVidia GPU. On my X15 it works with both (and you can switch without rebooting) but not on the Stealth. So this means you either have to not have HDR in a number of games, or give up VRR, which is fairly important for laptop gaming since holding a locked 120fps is just not going to happen in most cases, even with DLSS Performance mode.
Things get worse for HDR as well when it comes to actually using the mode and switching back and forth. Ideally, the display should look identical in Windows and SDR programs in either mode. When I switch my PG32UQX over to HDR mode the colors of the icons stay the same, the brightness stays the same (because I have it set the same in both modes) all that happens is the MiniLED local dimming kicks in and I can now display HDR content if I want. On the Stealth, no such luck. If you leave their "Truecolor" app installed it seems to always push the screen to max brightness when you switch to HDR mode. That is fixed removing that app, but with or without it, there is no color management in HDR mode, despite the fact that Windows is supposed to do that automatically in HDR. So everything on the desktop and in web browsers gets really over saturated and looks wrong. Actual HDR content is fine(ish) but everything else is off. Also the color calibration is HDR mode isn't great.
Switching back to SDR sadly does not fix the problem. For whatever reason it won't reenable your SDR color management properly so again, everything is oversaturated. You have to reboot to get it to take again. This might be a Windows bug but it wouldn't be a problem if they just color managed properly in HDR (the issue seems to be that they don't have a proper monitor driver for it to get information from) as you could just leave it in HDR mode most or even all of the time, but that doesn't work. Speaking of SDR color management their "Truecolor" app is pretty garbage and the touted factory calibration is not good. The panel has a reeeealy cold white with a greenish tinge in "sRGB" mode by default. I messed with it but ended up just getting rid of it and doing my own calibration with a Calibrate puck which did a much better job.
So... ultimately I'm sending mine back. It isn't a BAD product, but it really just doesn't have a good HDR experience which is what I had hoped to get. Like if all you want to do is watch HDR Youtube videos and you don't mind or even enjoy oversaturated colors, go for it. But if you want good HDR content and to be able to play HDR games, it just isn't suitable for that use, sadly.
Enter the MSI Stealth 16. It's a thinner and lower power gaming laptop, much like I have now, and available with several screens. Of interest to me was the 3840x2400 Mini-LED screen from AUO. In a lot of ways, it sounds similar to the PG32UQX: Brightness over 1000nits, over 1000 dimming zones, 4k 120Hz. I'm very interested. This sounds like it could be just what I'm looking for. Can't find any locally so I pulled the trigger and tried it... and the results are mixed.
Starting with the good, the display is as promised a real bright display capable of HDR. Watching some of the HDR demo videos on it are very nice and impressive. You don't see much blooming in part because the zones are quite small compared to the PG32UQX (since it is a 16" panel instead of 32") and also because it is tuned more towards minimizing blooming, rather than maximizing brightness as the Asus is. The panel is also fluid at 120Hz, with less motion blur than the ASUS so that's nice. The resolution is overkill for a laptop, but fun, individual pixels really are imperceptible at normal distances. There's a tiny bit of dirty screen effect (the Asus has none I can see) but it is pretty minimal. Overall a pretty nice panel. The laptop itself is well built, nice metallic case, very light, even lighter than my X15, and not all gamer-y looking, very sleek. Also it, as promised, shipped with two PSUs which is really nice so you can have one on the go and one at home without spending extra. I was slightly concerned it might need both for full power but it is a 240w unit as stated and works with just one, the other is extra.
Now the mediocre: The display has no way to disable local dimming in SDR. This isn't a dealbreaker, and many people would leave it on most or all of the time, but it does mean some stuff gets overly dark because of its bias towards limiting blooming. The keyboard is also pretty "meh". It's not a bad keyboard (though not mechanical) but it is very wide and has a tiny 10-key on it. It makes typing less ergonomic than the centered Dell keyboards with no 10-key. The control software for it is also pretty "meh". Now to be fair so is the Alienware software, and really any gamer software I've seen, but worth noting. The cooling is also not bad but not wonderful. It gets toasty when spun up, of course, all gaming laptops do, but the issue is idle. The X15 is nice and cool when you are just using the desktop, you can have it on your legs no problem. The Stealth gets quite warm even just idling on the desktop. It isn't like "you are going to get burned" hot, but it is the warmest idler I've ever had.
Finally the bad: While the laptop HAS HDR... it is a PITA to use. A number of games I've tried with it simply do not work in HDR. Examples include No Man's Sky and Hitman 3. The problem is that even when HDR is on, something about the Intel GPU isn't reporting it as available correctly so they don't offer the option. Other games like Baldur's Gate 3 do work with HDR, but it is not consistent. Ok, no problem, disable the Intel GPU right? It allows you to switch to discrete only graphics... which does fix the HDR problem, but VRR goes away. For whatever reason VRR only with the Intel GPU, not the nVidia GPU. On my X15 it works with both (and you can switch without rebooting) but not on the Stealth. So this means you either have to not have HDR in a number of games, or give up VRR, which is fairly important for laptop gaming since holding a locked 120fps is just not going to happen in most cases, even with DLSS Performance mode.
Things get worse for HDR as well when it comes to actually using the mode and switching back and forth. Ideally, the display should look identical in Windows and SDR programs in either mode. When I switch my PG32UQX over to HDR mode the colors of the icons stay the same, the brightness stays the same (because I have it set the same in both modes) all that happens is the MiniLED local dimming kicks in and I can now display HDR content if I want. On the Stealth, no such luck. If you leave their "Truecolor" app installed it seems to always push the screen to max brightness when you switch to HDR mode. That is fixed removing that app, but with or without it, there is no color management in HDR mode, despite the fact that Windows is supposed to do that automatically in HDR. So everything on the desktop and in web browsers gets really over saturated and looks wrong. Actual HDR content is fine(ish) but everything else is off. Also the color calibration is HDR mode isn't great.
Switching back to SDR sadly does not fix the problem. For whatever reason it won't reenable your SDR color management properly so again, everything is oversaturated. You have to reboot to get it to take again. This might be a Windows bug but it wouldn't be a problem if they just color managed properly in HDR (the issue seems to be that they don't have a proper monitor driver for it to get information from) as you could just leave it in HDR mode most or even all of the time, but that doesn't work. Speaking of SDR color management their "Truecolor" app is pretty garbage and the touted factory calibration is not good. The panel has a reeeealy cold white with a greenish tinge in "sRGB" mode by default. I messed with it but ended up just getting rid of it and doing my own calibration with a Calibrate puck which did a much better job.
So... ultimately I'm sending mine back. It isn't a BAD product, but it really just doesn't have a good HDR experience which is what I had hoped to get. Like if all you want to do is watch HDR Youtube videos and you don't mind or even enjoy oversaturated colors, go for it. But if you want good HDR content and to be able to play HDR games, it just isn't suitable for that use, sadly.