MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V: One-Minute Review

MSI has partnered with car company Mercedes AMG on a customized Stealth 16 Studio A13V laptop dubbed the Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V. This sleek 16-inch ultra-portable is technically pitched at creative professionals, with studio drivers and Windows 11 Pro, but it’s a blurry line at best since MSI is also happy to boast about it’s gaming prowess. 

There’s a 16-inch OLED screen with 4K resolution up front that will work equally well for professional video and color work, as it will for immersive single-player gaming. It is only 60Hz capable however, so it won’t suit every play style, but full DCI-P3 color and a bright display is perfectly suited to creative visual work. 

The device uses conservative thermal design power maximums to keep weight down to a total of 1.88kg. This also means you’ll get reasonable battery life lasting up to 7 hours and 8 minutes, but it also means that performance doesn't match the workstations that aren’t trying to maintain a slim and light form factor. 

You’ll get 100 frames-per-second averages running games at FullHD Ultra settings, but you’d definitely want to run titles in QHD or 4K in order to utilise the power on offer from the Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and a 105W Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. 

You can get slightly thicker gaming Ultrabooks with better performance for notably less, but you’ll generally take a solid hit in battery life. This is a premium device for those that want great performance and the best possible battery life in an extremely portable and professional-looking package. 

MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V review: Price and availability

• Retails for $2,899 / £2,399 / AU $5,499
• Available now in the US, UK and AU

The Stealth 16 Mercedes AMG Motorsport A13V is available now in one main configuration for the US, UK and Australian regions. The recommended retail price lands at $2,899 / £2,399 / AU $5,499 and comes with a bundle of exclusive merch' including a gaming mouse, mousepad, a dual USB, a pouch (for some important things), and a cable tie for either the power brick or your Lewis Hamilton-styled man bun. 

The price is more expensive than many competitor's, with Razer and Asus both offering similar configurations for less. The MSI  Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V does offer additional battery life over the competition, but you do have to pay extra for it. 

• Value score: 3.5 / 5

MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V: Specs

On the whole this is a well balanced spec sheet. The 4K display may have been an issue if this was a dedicated gaming laptop (since it’s only got a 60Hz refresh rate), but it’s perfectly suited to someone wanting to use it for creative work. 

The CPU is powerful, but only draws 45W (unlike some of the top higher core 13th gen i9 chips) and it pairs nicely with the 105W Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU to offer power without totally disregarding battery life. 

The 32GB RAM allocation will be adequate for many professional workflows and the 2TB SSD is fast and expansive enough for a modern creative pro.  

A more detailed specs list like this:

MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V review: Design

• 4K OLED screen
• Powerful components
• Good battery

The Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V is an ultra-portable 16-inch professional laptop with a discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card and a 13th generation Intel i9 processor. Usually having this much power leads to laptops that are bulkier and have limited battery life, but the A13V has a generous 99.9Wh battery and a 4.2lbs (1.88kg) total weight, so it’s designed to be easy to work with on the go. 

This portability focus extends through the exterior design, offering a premium feeling magnesium-aluminum chassis that keeps the device rigid at just 0.85 inches (2.2cm) and a power brick that isn’t as large as you might expect from a laptop this powerful. 

The Mercedes branding is muted enough to be palatable for those that are indifferent to the partnership, and there aren't any outlandish design tweaks since the most notable changes are cosmetic golf-ball-dimples added to the edges and rear vents, and a chequered flag effect on the space bar. 

The keyboard is a reasonable membrane-based setup with enough travel to be comfortable to type on and quiet enough to work in communal spaces. It does still include MSI’s coveted RGB per-key backlighting array so you can customize how you want your keyboard to look. 

MSI used Mercedes' audio component manufacturer Burmester to produce the speaker array for the laptop and the 6 speaker array sounds great for media playback. This is, of course, complimented by the 4K OLED display with Vesa DisplayHDR 600 color and brightness certification to make it an exceptionally appealing device to watch (and create) audio-visual content on. 

The device comes with a 1080p webcam that can manually be shuttered and an infra-red camera for quick Windows Hello sign-in. It’s also got the other standard business feature of a fingerprint reader and offers a wide range of ports and interface options for a modern laptop.   

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V review: Performance

• Balanced workstation performance
• Fast interface options

An Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and a 105W Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU is a pretty powerful system configuration that’s capable of impressive creative performance. The CPU isn’t the most powerful available on a laptop today, outpaced by Intel’s unlocked 13th gen i9 and i7 processors (which have more performance cores) and AMD’s Ryzen 9 7940HS, but it is still very competent and will be capable of handling demanding workloads. 

The same could be said about the 105W RTX 4070, which is outperformed by systems willing to divert additional power to the graphical capabilities, but which still offers respectable frame rates of around 100 fps on modern titles using 1080p settings. This level of GPU output offers close to 60% better performance than an Apple MacBook Pro 16 and the Stealth 16’s lower wattage GPU is able to keep up with a 140W RTX 4070 on a Razer Blade 14 for most synthetic benchmarks.

This performance will drop back with more consistent loads since higher powered 4070 GPUs offered 5% to 8% higher framerates across gaming benchmarks, but it’s not as big a difference as you might expect. 

The SSD manages read speeds of 6473MB/s and write speeds of 4707MB/s which isn't exactly breaking records, but it is the latest spec of PCIe internal drive, meaning transferring large files can happen surprisingly quickly. Combine that with Wi-Fi 6E or the direct Gigabit ethernet connection and you’ve got a setup that can move content as quick as anything. 

• Performance score: 4 / 5

MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V review: Battery life

• 7 hour 8 minute work lifespan 
• 6 hour 36 minute movie playback
• Sub 2 hour gaming lifespan

Battery life is one of the main drawcards of the Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V. Sure it’s not the almost 20 hours you’ll get on a MacBook Pro 16, but it’s a heap more than the 4-ish hours you’ll get from a standard gaming laptop.

We got a very reasonable score of 7 hours and 8 minutes of light work using PCMark 8 Home battery benchmark, which translates into 6 hours and 36 minutes for 1080p movie playback.

You should expect these lifespans to drop to under 2 hours when engaging the GPU, so if you need to do intense work we wouldn’t recommend leaving the charger behind. 

• Battery life score: 3.5 / 5

Should you buy the MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested the MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V

• I tested it using both benchmark tests and video game benchmarks
• I stress-tested the battery using the TechRadar movie test

I ran the MSI Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport A13V through our standard suite of benchmarks to get a feel for the laptop's peak performance and to see how it compares with the best on the market.

In addition to our standard suite of testing, I also tested the device using it for a day of work to see how it fares when typing, web browsing, working and for light photo and video editing tasks. 

The screen was analysed using TechRadar's standard movie test and was compared against other screens running standard web browsing and movie editing software. 

The battery life was benchmarked with two tests to simulate different battery life scenarios.

Read more about how we test laptops and desktops.

First reviewed September 2023

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Two Minute Review

Asus’ Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is a complicated range that isn't afraid to use the best components and play to their strengths, even if it makes messaging complicated for a consumer. 

The 2023 Vivobook Pro 16X OLED I’m covering here is a 16-inch creative workstation with a 13th gen Intel based processor that prioritises performance over battery life.

The 2022 version, however, which is still sold alongside the current update, uses an AMD processor and a slightly different 4K display that isn’t particularly powerful, but which will net you over 10 hours of battery during light work tasks.

What these devices have in common is that neither have much concern for conforming to an ultra-portable thin and light form factor. Admittedly, the Vivobook weighs a very manageable 1.9kg, but at 2.2cm thick it’s half a centimetre thicker than devices like the MacBook Pro 16 and this combines with the lightweight plastic keyboard surround to give it a decidedly gaming-laptop look. 

The powerful components on offer here may be more than capable of smoothly firing up your favourite games after work, but the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is designed for work – a fact highlighted by the bundled Windows 11 Pro OS and Studio Driver pre-installed on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. 

The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023) has an impressively powerful (and power hungry) 105W, 24 core Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU that can boost to 5.6GHz for results that will considerably outpace a top spec Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M2 Max) and often doubles the results of the 2022 AMD based Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2022). This is perfect for creatives that need their machines to do more, but it combines with the discrete graphics to draw a lot of power. This means battery life is only around 4.5 hours during light work tasks — A deal breaker for those that need to work on battery. 

Supporting these powerful components is an impressive 16-inch, 120Hz, OLED display that competes with the best OLED screens available on any laptop. This larger 3200 x 2000 pixel display also has a peak 600 nit brightness, Vesa DisplayHDR True Black 600, 100 percent DCI-P3 colour validated by Pantone and an ultra-fast 0.2ms response rate. 

The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023) is a different beast to the on-the-go work offering of the MacBook Pro 16, but when you get a more powerful laptop with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD slot for $1,800 /  £1,699.99 / AU$3,399, it’s a pretty compelling alternative. 

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Price and availability

• $2,000 / £1,700 / AU$3,399
• Available now
• Available in the US, UK and AU

The Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is available in the US, UK and Australia right now with a few different variations offered in different regions. 

The 2023 Vivobook Pro 16X OLED comes with a 3K 120Hz OLED panel and shouldn’t be confused with the 2022 Vivobook Pro 16X OLED devices that have Intel 12th gen or AMD 5000 series processors. All these devices are being sold in some markets side-by-side, but while they might be priced similarly enough they can be very different offerings. 

The Intel based Vivobook Pro 16X OLED tested here features a 13th Gen i9- i9-13980HX CPU, 32GB RAM and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU for $2,000 / £1,700 / AU$3,399. 

• Price score: 4.5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Specs

The Vivobook Pro I was sent to review is listed below. There are earlier generations still available to buy and some regions offer 6000 series AMD alternatives. Some regions will also offer a few different GPU configurations. 

• Specs score: 5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Design

• Pro OLED screen
• Powerful components
• Good port selection

The design of the Vivobook Pro 16X might seem a little counterintuitive at first. Its chassis is made largely out of plastic rather than the usual high-end unibody aluminium you might expect on a premium work device and the keyboard features a fluro-orange escape key and highlighted command keys that you’d usually only see on gaming laptops. 

If that wasn’t enough there’s also fluorescent rubber feet and a thicker-than-ultrabook 2.2cm profile with gaming styled air-vents, a sci-fi dog tag badge and and a hinge cutaway that mean this laptop looks more like a gaming laptop than many gaming laptops. 

Fortunately, it’s subtle enough that you could easily still pull it off in a work setting and the lightweight chassis and bolstered cooling mean you can easily push into demanding creative tasks without any issues. 

The screen is undoubtedly the standout attraction as far as the design goes, offering a 16-inch 3.2K OLED panel that is capable of a 600 peak brightness. This combination of OLED blacks and a brighter-than-usual screen make this display on offer one of the best we’ve ever seen on a laptop. 

The screen also offers Pantone Validated full DCI-P3 color and a Delta-E of less than 2 to make it the perfect laptop for video editing, using it as a photo editing laptop, or any other creative color work. It also comes with Dolby Vision HDR that’ll allow you to playback media in vivid HDR and the 120Hz refresh rate and low latency 0.2ms response rate means games and other moving media will appear smoother and more immediate.

Asus includes DialPad functionality on the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED’s trackpad, allowing you to quickly change a wide array of settings in creative applications. It’s also got a fingerprint sensor, number pad, physical webcam shield, and a wide array of interface options including; Ethernet, HDMI and an SD Card slot, to ensure you can conveniently work in a range of formats.  

The Harmon Kardon designed speakers are Dolby Atmos compatible and compliment the impressive screen, and Asus has harnessed the new AI capabilities of this 13th gen Intel chip to offer onboard AI background noise cancellation for web meeting audio, and can blur backgrounds and change focus settings for video.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Performance

• Excellent CPU performance
• Solid GPU performance

Performance is a standout feature of the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023). The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED has an impressive 105W, 24 core Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU that can boost to 5.6GHz and can push between 25 and 90 percent performance bumps over the M2 Max – A pretty serious performance achievement in a similarly sized laptop.

The 4060 on the model tested is also capable of graphical benchmark performance 28 percent more than a top-spec MacBook Pro 16 on Geekbench 5 OpenCL benchmark and can almost double the Apple unit’s Sid Meier's: Civilization VI frame rates.

This graphical performance is also roughly double what I had on file for the ASUS Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2022) with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti across a range of gaming and synthetic benchmarks. A performance jump that makes it a very different offering to its predecessor. 

The only disappointing element we found in the performance of the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023) was in SSD speed. At just 3,952 MB/s sequential read and 2,957 MB/s sequential write, it's close to half what you'll get from many competitors on the market. You're unlikely t notice it when transferring media since you're generally bound to whatever interface you plug in with (we could transfer from an external PCIe SSD over thunderbolt at a max speed of 1,600 MB/s), but it's an unfortunate omission for something that's supposed to be the pinnacle of power. 

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Battery life

• 4h35min work lifespan 
• 4h13min movie playback

This device's impressive performance is driven by a much bigger 245W peak power draw on the Vivobook compared to around 35W on the MacBook Pro. This means that while you’ll get around 4 hours and 35 minutes of battery using the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED for light work tasks, you won’t be able to really push the device with heavy workloads unless you’re close to a powerpoint. Running a game for example will net you only around an hour and a half of run-time on a full charge. 

The lifespan for 1080p movie playback lasting a total of 4 hours and 13 minutes. This is more than enough to get you through a film, but it's not ideal for those trying to use it for any reasonable length of time away from power. 

It's also disappointing against the 10-plus hours I've benchmarked on earlier AMD powered iterations of the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED for the same tests. It is low enough to make it an entirely different kind of offering to the 20-ish hours you might be able to stretch from a MacBook Pro 16, even if you're dabbling in graphical work. 

• Battery life score: 3.5 / 5

Should you buy the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023)?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Also consider

How I tested the Asus Vivobook 16X OLED (2023)

• I tested it using both benchmark tests and video game benchmarks
• I stress-tested the battery using the TechRadar movie test

I ran the Asus Vivobook 16X OLED through our standard suite of benchmarks to get a feel for the laptop's peak performance and to see how it compares with the best on the market.

In addition to our standard suite of testing, I also tested the device using it for a day of work to see how it fares when typing, web browsing, working and for light photo and video editing tasks. 

The screen was analysed using TechRadar's standard movie test and was compared against other screens running standard web browsing and movie editing software. 

The battery life was benchmarked with two tests to simulate different battery life scenarios.

Read more about how we test laptops and desktops.

First reviewed August 2023

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Two Minute Review

Asus’ Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is a complicated range that isn't afraid to use the best components and play to their strengths, even if it makes messaging complicated for a consumer. 

The 2023 Vivobook Pro 16X OLED I’m covering here is a 16-inch creative workstation with a 13th gen Intel based processor that prioritises performance over battery life.

The 2022 version, however, which is still sold alongside the current update, uses an AMD processor and a slightly different 4K display that isn’t particularly powerful, but which will net you over 10 hours of battery during light work tasks.

What these devices have in common is that neither have much concern for conforming to an ultra-portable thin and light form factor. Admittedly, the Vivobook weighs a very manageable 1.9kg, but at 2.2cm thick it’s half a centimetre thicker than devices like the MacBook Pro 16 and this combines with the lightweight plastic keyboard surround to give it a decidedly gaming-laptop look. 

The powerful components on offer here may be more than capable of smoothly firing up your favourite games after work, but the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is designed for work – a fact highlighted by the bundled Windows 11 Pro OS and Studio Driver pre-installed on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. 

The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023) has an impressively powerful (and power hungry) 105W, 24 core Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU that can boost to 5.6GHz for results that will considerably outpace a top spec Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M2 Max) and often doubles the results of the 2022 AMD based Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2022). This is perfect for creatives that need their machines to do more, but it combines with the discrete graphics to draw a lot of power. This means battery life is only around 4.5 hours during light work tasks — A deal breaker for those that need to work on battery. 

Supporting these powerful components is an impressive 16-inch, 120Hz, OLED display that competes with the best OLED screens available on any laptop. This larger 3200 x 2000 pixel display also has a peak 600 nit brightness, Vesa DisplayHDR True Black 600, 100 percent DCI-P3 colour validated by Pantone and an ultra-fast 0.2ms response rate. 

The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023) is a different beast to the on-the-go work offering of the MacBook Pro 16, but when you get a more powerful laptop with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD slot for $1,800 /  £1,699.99 / AU$3,399, it’s a pretty compelling alternative. 

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Price and availability

• $2,000 / £1,700 / AU$3,399
• Available now
• Available in the US, UK and AU

The Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED is available in the US, UK and Australia right now with a few different variations offered in different regions. 

The 2023 Vivobook Pro 16X OLED comes with a 3K 120Hz OLED panel and shouldn’t be confused with the 2022 Vivobook Pro 16X OLED devices that have Intel 12th gen or AMD 5000 series processors. All these devices are being sold in some markets side-by-side, but while they might be priced similarly enough they can be very different offerings. 

The Intel based Vivobook Pro 16X OLED tested here features a 13th Gen i9- i9-13980HX CPU, 32GB RAM and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU for $2,000 / £1,700 / AU$3,399. 

• Price score: 4.5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Specs

The Vivobook Pro I was sent to review is listed below. There are earlier generations still available to buy and some regions offer 6000 series AMD alternatives. Some regions will also offer a few different GPU configurations. 

• Specs score: 5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Design

• Pro OLED screen
• Powerful components
• Good port selection

The design of the Vivobook Pro 16X might seem a little counterintuitive at first. Its chassis is made largely out of plastic rather than the usual high-end unibody aluminium you might expect on a premium work device and the keyboard features a fluro-orange escape key and highlighted command keys that you’d usually only see on gaming laptops. 

If that wasn’t enough there’s also fluorescent rubber feet and a thicker-than-ultrabook 2.2cm profile with gaming styled air-vents, a sci-fi dog tag badge and and a hinge cutaway that mean this laptop looks more like a gaming laptop than many gaming laptops. 

Fortunately, it’s subtle enough that you could easily still pull it off in a work setting and the lightweight chassis and bolstered cooling mean you can easily push into demanding creative tasks without any issues. 

The screen is undoubtedly the standout attraction as far as the design goes, offering a 16-inch 3.2K OLED panel that is capable of a 600 peak brightness. This combination of OLED blacks and a brighter-than-usual screen make this display on offer one of the best we’ve ever seen on a laptop. 

The screen also offers Pantone Validated full DCI-P3 color and a Delta-E of less than 2 to make it the perfect laptop for video editing, using it as a photo editing laptop, or any other creative color work. It also comes with Dolby Vision HDR that’ll allow you to playback media in vivid HDR and the 120Hz refresh rate and low latency 0.2ms response rate means games and other moving media will appear smoother and more immediate.

Asus includes DialPad functionality on the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED’s trackpad, allowing you to quickly change a wide array of settings in creative applications. It’s also got a fingerprint sensor, number pad, physical webcam shield, and a wide array of interface options including; Ethernet, HDMI and an SD Card slot, to ensure you can conveniently work in a range of formats.  

The Harmon Kardon designed speakers are Dolby Atmos compatible and compliment the impressive screen, and Asus has harnessed the new AI capabilities of this 13th gen Intel chip to offer onboard AI background noise cancellation for web meeting audio, and can blur backgrounds and change focus settings for video.

• Design score: 4.5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Performance

• Excellent CPU performance
• Solid GPU performance

Performance is a standout feature of the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023). The Vivobook Pro 16X OLED has an impressive 105W, 24 core Intel Core i9-13980HX CPU that can boost to 5.6GHz and can push between 25 and 90 percent performance bumps over the M2 Max – A pretty serious performance achievement in a similarly sized laptop.

The 4060 on the model tested is also capable of graphical benchmark performance 28 percent more than a top-spec MacBook Pro 16 on Geekbench 5 OpenCL benchmark and can almost double the Apple unit’s Sid Meier's: Civilization VI frame rates.

This graphical performance is also roughly double what I had on file for the ASUS Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2022) with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti across a range of gaming and synthetic benchmarks. A performance jump that makes it a very different offering to its predecessor. 

The only disappointing element we found in the performance of the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023) was in SSD speed. At just 3,952 MB/s sequential read and 2,957 MB/s sequential write, it's close to half what you'll get from many competitors on the market. You're unlikely t notice it when transferring media since you're generally bound to whatever interface you plug in with (we could transfer from an external PCIe SSD over thunderbolt at a max speed of 1,600 MB/s), but it's an unfortunate omission for something that's supposed to be the pinnacle of power. 

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Battery life

• 4h35min work lifespan 
• 4h13min movie playback

This device's impressive performance is driven by a much bigger 245W peak power draw on the Vivobook compared to around 35W on the MacBook Pro. This means that while you’ll get around 4 hours and 35 minutes of battery using the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED for light work tasks, you won’t be able to really push the device with heavy workloads unless you’re close to a powerpoint. Running a game for example will net you only around an hour and a half of run-time on a full charge. 

The lifespan for 1080p movie playback lasting a total of 4 hours and 13 minutes. This is more than enough to get you through a film, but it's not ideal for those trying to use it for any reasonable length of time away from power. 

It's also disappointing against the 10-plus hours I've benchmarked on earlier AMD powered iterations of the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED for the same tests. It is low enough to make it an entirely different kind of offering to the 20-ish hours you might be able to stretch from a MacBook Pro 16, even if you're dabbling in graphical work. 

• Battery life score: 3.5 / 5

Should you buy the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023)?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (2023): Also consider

How I tested the Asus Vivobook 16X OLED (2023)

• I tested it using both benchmark tests and video game benchmarks
• I stress-tested the battery using the TechRadar movie test

I ran the Asus Vivobook 16X OLED through our standard suite of benchmarks to get a feel for the laptop's peak performance and to see how it compares with the best on the market.

In addition to our standard suite of testing, I also tested the device using it for a day of work to see how it fares when typing, web browsing, working and for light photo and video editing tasks. 

The screen was analysed using TechRadar's standard movie test and was compared against other screens running standard web browsing and movie editing software. 

The battery life was benchmarked with two tests to simulate different battery life scenarios.

Read more about how we test laptops and desktops.

First reviewed August 2023

Gigabyte Aerop 14: Two Minute Review

The Aero 14 has long been the most work-focused offering from Taiwanese PC component and gaming laptop manufacturer Gigabyte, but while this business Ultrabook is thin and light, it’s got plenty to offer under the hood. 

The 14-inch 3K OLED display is one of the brightest screens we’ve seen on a laptop, OLED or otherwise, so it’s no surprise that it’s capable of extreme vibrancy and contrast. Add to this a pro video color gamut with precise color accuracy and it’s more than capable of handling creative workloads. 

The 14-core Intel 13th generation CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU combine to provide more than enough grunt for more demanding creative workflows. If you need a lot of RAM you might need to look elsewhere since the 16GB of DDR5 is non-upgradable, but for most this should be enough and is balanced well with the rest of the machine’s capabilities. 

The physical design is great, with a lot of attention to detail in the CNC unibody chassis and port selection. I also liked Gigabyte’s Control Center software which offers the unique benefit of a driver update centre that helps you keep on top of software updates outside of Windows 11’s remit.

Unfortunately, the CPU is around 20 percent behind Apple’s M2 Pro or Max processors and the 90W maximum power draw drains the 63Wh battery in 4 to 5 hours depending on the task. This poor battery life makes it a harder sell as a portable creative device and so while it’s one of the thinnest and lightest creative workstations around, it’s really only suitable for those that have access to power where they work.

Gigabyte Aero 14: Price and availability

• $1599 / £2,384 / AU$2,999
• Available now
• Available in the US and AU, limited availability in the UK

While the US is clearly Gigabyte’s preferred market selling the Aero 14 OLED for just $1599, the UK and Australia get hit with a massive tax with the device going for £2,384 and AU$2,999, respectively. 

It’s pretty disappointing to see such wild differences in price across markets so keep in mind that the scores are reflected for the US market only, with about a half mark deduction required for Australia and a 'don’t bother' ticket for the one place I could see it available in the UK. 

• Price score: 3.5 / 5

Gigabyte Aero 14: Specs

There is only one version of the Gigabyte Aero 14 OLED (2023) available globally. It can be differentiated from its predecessor by the 13th generation Intel Core processor.

You can see the specs for the available model below. 

Gigabyte Aero 14: Design

• Amazing OLED screen
• Tough aluminum chassis
• Good port selection

It’s been a minute since we last covered an Aero from Gigabyte and it seems the range that was once defined by its pops of orange and green on the cover has matured into a sleek silver workhorse that won’t rock the boat in an office setting. 

Still, it’s nice to see that the company is forging its own path in laptop design with unique little details, including an HDMI port at the rear of the device that looks like the exhaust of a sports car and a fast-looking set of thermal vents.

The laptop is covered in a CNC milled aluminum chassis that offers a lot of strength for its thin and light design. We would’ve probably preferred a slightly more subdued silver coloring over the gaudy platinum on offer, but it’s still an elegant overall finish. 

The most striking design feature is undoubtedly the screen. The device has been fitted with an OLED panel that offers Vesa HDR 600 True Black certification, making it the brightest of its kind that I’ve seen. The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M1) offers 1000nit peak brightness and the new M2 powered Pros feature an impressive 1600nit peak brightness, but they are not OLED panels which makes it difficult to make a direct comparison.

Nevertheless, the smooth 90Hz display on the Aero 14 OLED offers a sharp 2880 by 1800 pixel resolution and a full DCI-P3 colour gamut commonly used in professional video production, which pushes this bright OLED into being an exceptionally vibrant screen that is perfectly suited to creative work. 

You'd be forgiven for thinking the Aero 14 only packs 'modern' ports, with its array of three Thunderbolt / USB-C ports, one microSD card reader and one headphone jack on the sides, but it also sneaks in a legacy USB-A port on the back next to the HDMI, which is bound to come in handy. 

Gigabyte Aero 14: Performance

• Decent CPU performance
• Solid GPU performance

There’s a few different ways to look at performance of the Gigabyte Aero 14 OLED device, but the most straightforward is that it's got a powerful CPU and GPU that combine to mean you'll breeze through demanding creative workloads. 

When you look at it against the competition, it’s hard not to compare it to the MacBook Pro 14, especially in Australia where they’re priced very similarly. The Intel Core i7-3700H is about 20 percent behind the Apple M2 Pro or Max processors in comparable CPU tasks. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 is however capable of keeping up with graphical performance from the top MacBook Pro processor. 

Anyone hoping to play games after their creative work can expect 60 frames-per-second and above on modern titles at 1080p Ultra settings. You can even utilise the slightly higher 90Hz refresh rate for smoother visuals on less demanding titles. 

Gigabyte Aero 14: Battery life

• 3h38min work lifespan 
• 4h45min movie playback

Even if Gigabyte went with a processor like the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, it wouldn’t have been able to achieve battery life like what you get on the Apple MacBook Pro devices without sacrificing performance further, so it can only take so much responsibility for the disappointing battery life. That said, it could have easily added another half a pound (200g) to the battery to take the edge off the 3 hours and 38 minutes it’ll last during standard work benchmarking. 

This equates to just 4 hours and 45 minutes in movie playback, which is more than enough to watch a movie and is even ok for a gaming laptop, but it’s around half to a third of what you’ll get from Apple silicon. 

Should you buy the Gigabyte Aero 14 OLED?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Gigabyte Aero 14: Also consider

How I tested the Gigabyte Aero 14

• I tested it using both benchmark tests and video game benchmarks
• I stress-tested the battery using the TechRadar movie test

I ran the Gigabyte Aero 14 through our standard suite of benchmarks to get a feel for the laptop's peak performance and to see how it compares with the best on the market.

In addition to our standard suite of testing, I also tested the device using it for a day of work to see how it fares when typing, web browsing, working and for light photo and video editing tasks. 

The screen was analysed using TechRadar's standard movie test and was compared against other screens running standard web browsing and movie editing software. 

The battery life was benchmarked with two tests to simulate different battery life scenarios.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed August 2023

Cyrusher ranger: Two-minute review

The Cyrusher Ranger is a full-package, premium electric bike that’s shares genes with a mountain bike about as much as it does with a dual-purpose motorcycle. It’s not a cheap e-bike, but it’s making sure you get a lot for your money.

Many of the best electric bikes simply embed a little bit of motor power in an otherwise standard bicycle, like the Ribble Hyrbid AL e or Marin Sausalito E1. Some take a different tack. With front and rear suspension and fat tires, the Cyrusher ranger provides a supremely smooth ride, which is great given the 28mph top speed you can find yourself cruising along at with ease using the 750W motor. Even when you’re flying, the bike offers plenty of range from its 52V20Ah battery. With a half-twist throttle that can pull the bike along at 20mph, it really is much like a motorcycle.

The Cyrusher Ranger might be a bit over-the-top for some. If you live somewhere that doesn’t allow Class 2 or Class 3 ebikes, you’d be spending a lot for tech you can’t tap into. If you just want a casual commuter and are largely riding on smooth pavement, the Ranger suspension and big tires will be less useful while playing a large part in the pricing. 

But, if you want an e-bike that’s happy to zoom down city streets, hop up and down curbs, and then hit trails all while enjoying plenty of motor assistance and range, the Cyrusher Ranger makes a competent option that’s not a bad value. 

Cyrusher Ranger: Specifications

Cyrusher Ranger: Price and availability

• $2,799 in US
• £2,799 in UK
• Unavailable in AU

The Cyrusher Ranger is available now directly from Cyrusher for $2,799 in the continental United States or Alaska and Hawaii with extra shipping charges. It is also available in the UK for £2,799. Discounts are often available on the site, and it’s as-yet-unavailable in Australia. 

Cyrusher Ranger: Design

• Big, bulky and robust
• Heavy-duty off-roading wheels
• Removable battery

Electric bikes come in all shapes and sizes, but the Cyrusher Ranger’s shape and size are both decidedly big. From its monstrous wheels and motorcycle-esque dual-crown fork to its giant battery compartment and expanded bottom bracket, everything goes big on this bike. That goes especially for the weight. While Cyrusher rates the bike as weighing 66 pounds before jumping to 74 pounds with its battery installed, we weighed our test unit at 78.2 pounds before finally hitting a total of 90.4 pounds with the battery installed and all included accessories accounted for — a confusing discrepancy.

The Cyrusher Ranger makes sense of all that size with the gear it’s packing on. It squeezes in supple, grippy 26” x 4” offroading wheels, which are held on with a curious axle that connects with a bolt threaded onto each side — not your typical thru-axle or skewer. It has a deep Cyrusher-branded spring suspension fork in front (we’re told it’s a YISHUO Kunshan Yishuo Strong-DH/P171-26 suspension fork, but can find no details on this model online) with preload and compression adjustment dials, and a comfy soft tail with air suspension in the back that can also lock out. 

The rear suspension is also Cyrusher branded but we’re told shares much in common with this DNM shock system. The bike uses Logan dual-caliper hydraulic disc brakes and includes motor cut-off circuitry with the brake levers. It’s even tacked on a 9-speed Shimano Altus drivetrain It fits a large LCD display with a USB port for charging extra gadgets onto the handlebars, though sadly most of the screen is taken up by a large green and gray arc that doesn’t actually indicate anything. 

Even the controls are stacked. There’s a two-button controller for the headlight-horn combo unit, which has a decent headlight but seriously lackluster beeping noise that’s neither loud nor attention-getting. Next to that is the control unit for the bike’s assist modes and power. Meanwhile, the right handle has a half-twist throttle. This does result in quite a bit of cable mess at the front end of the bike, but it’s well-grouped with cable ties.

The beefy downtube is housing the bike’s 52V 20Ah battery, which is about as large as you’ll find on standard e-bikes before breaking into the sort that is really not even pretending they're not motorcycles anymore. The battery has a latch to keep it from falling out and has a keyed locking pin. 

Unfortunately, the battery comes out the bottom of the frame, which can see make it tricky to remove around the front tire, and it doesn’t provide any easy spots to get a grip and pull it out. Still, it’s good the battery is removable because the bike is incredibly unwieldy to carry as large as it is and at XX pounds, so anyone who can’t plug it in to charge in a garage will desperately want to just take the battery alone in for charging.

The Ranger comes in a few different colors, all of which use a different color for the rear triangle. Cyrusher goes a little overboard with accents on the bike, giving a bit of a gaudy appearance to a bike that already has a loud presence due to its size.

Despite all that the bike has going on, it’s fairly easy to put together. The handlebar needs attaching, and the front wheel needs to be seated in the fork (a job best for two people), the pedals need attaching, and then a few accessories need to be connected. But it’s a quick job and Cyrusher includes the necessary tools.

One problem with the bike’s size that we don’t want to overlook is how hard this can make it to safely lock up. A U-lock can really only effectively go around the top tube, and it will take a long tether to get around both wheels. Locking through the fork is possible, but less secure. You’ll likely want a long, robust chain lock for this bike, which is going to add considerably to the amount of weight you’re already dealing with.

• Design score: 4/5

Cyrusher Ranger: Performance

• Frame and seat awkwardly sized
• Powerful motor and throttle
• Holds charge well

As a bike that’s tuned for offroad riding, the Cyrusher Ranger is supremely comfortable on pavement. There’s a major confluence of comfort from the bikes various components. The front and rear air suspension combine to soak up substantial amounts of shock. That’s on top of the exceptional absorption offered by the bike’s enormous tires. 

In comparison, the saddle and handlebars feel like weak links. Part of this comes from the available riding positions. The Ranger comes with an exceedingly short seatpost, so even though the bike is advertised as fitting riders up to 6’6”, taller riders will be stuck with a very low seated position that puts more weight into the saddle and will have to stand to pedal comfortably. The handlebars have basic, cylindrical grips that feel surprisingly comfortable, but that may simply be because we don’t get to put a lot of weight into our hands given the riding position.

For those who want a more natural riding experience, a new seatpost is an inexpensive upgrade. Though Ranger is styled like a mountain bike, it’s more of an urban all-terrain vehicle, so the out-of-saddle riding that’s common for mountain biking doesn’t seem all that appropriate for the Ranger. No less because the Ranger’s hub motor doesn’t have the same smooth response of a mid-drive, which would be preferable for trail riding where a jerky motor could be hazardous.

That’s not to discount the motor on the Cyrusher Ranger. The 750W Bafang hub drive is a blast. On throttle alone, it takes little time to cruise up to the bike’s 20mph cap. Even at that speed, the motor hums along quietly while the large wheels are responsible for the bulk of the noise coming from the bike. Even more speed is available by pedaling. The bike will zoom up to 28mph with ease. The system uses a torque sensor, responding to the force we put into the pedals to ramp up the motor. 

The result is far more natural than a cadence sensor, which just measures how fast the pedals are spinning. The sensor may be a little oversensitive, though, as we often find it kicking in when we’re making small maneuvers at stoplights.  That can be a concern since there’s a lot of motor power to wrangle after it unexpectedly kicks on. 

Thankfully, the bike has motor cut-offs built into the brake levers. The 180mm hydraulic disc brakes are also predictably effective. Our ability to come to a quick stop has never been a concern even with a payload of around 330 pounds between our weight and the bike’s.

Between its speed and super-smooth ride, the Cyrusher Ranger has more appeal as a low-cost motorcycle alternative. While the Super73-R Brooklyn was more overt in its attempt to make a “bike” that was as close to a motorcycle as possible, the Cyrusher Ranger stays closer to a true pedal bicycle while still being able to bleed over into that motorcycle-like category. Part of that comes from the 9-speed gearing, which makes it possible to easily find a gear where pedaling is actually useful, unlike the aforementioned single-speed Super73.

For those looking to tool around on a motorcycle, the roughly 1kWh battery provides plenty of juice for doing just that. Cruising around on the Ranger largely using the throttle and set to its highest assist level, we’re able to go over 33 miles before the battery is on its last legs and giving too little support to continue providing an enjoyable, electrified ride. As fun as e-bikes are to ride while they’re powered, they’re nearly equally un-fun to ride when that power runs out because of all their added weight.

Gearing on the Ranger makes it fairly easy to continue riding at low speeds, getting up to 12mph casually even when the battery gives up. It’s worth noting that we tested the Cyrusher Ranger in winter conditions, including some freezing days, which negatively impacts the battery performance. The 33.8-mile range we got is all the more impressive as it's effectively a worst-case range. Lighter riders, better weather conditions, and less stop-go city traffic should all make for an even longer range.

• Performance score: 4/5

Cyrusher Ranger: Buy it if...

Cyrusher Ranger: Don't buy it if...

Also consider

First reviewed: March 2023