MSI Titan Not for the faint of heart, it never was. This is an 18-inch behemoth suitable for a gaming laptop in the “desktop replacement” category. This is especially for PC gamers who want not only the best performance, but also some flash.
You will have a hard time finding a gaming laptop with many high-end features. With a mini-leading display, mechanical keyboard and invisible tactile touchpad, there are no other 18-inch gaming laptops, which also means a gorgeous price.
Big and beautiful
The MSI Titan is big. Its maximum point is 1.26 inches thick and weighs nearly eight pounds. You read the correct one. Eight pounds. Gaming laptops aren’t particularly portable, especially those with 18-inch screens, but the MSI Titan HX is almost heavier than the Razer Blade 18.
However, it’s huge and well-crafted, as you’d like to hope in a laptop north of $5,000. It’s not a piece of processed aluminum like the Razer Blade 18, but the magnesium-aluminum chassis feels solid. The MSI Titan HX uses a thermal rack on the back, making the laptop bigger, but provides a standout for extra ventilation and ports. The MSI remains fairly minimalist in all-black and silver interiors, especially compared to older versions of this laptop. The invisible touchpad makes this feel more modern. However, in my book, the Razer Blade 18 and the Alienware 18 Area-51 are both smarter designs.
Photo: Luke Larsen
Photo: Luke Larsen
Photo: Luke Larsen
At the rear you will find a power jack, HDMI 2.1 port and Ethernet. Near some large vents you will find three USB-A 3.2. Gen2 ports are also available as well as two Thunderbolt 5 ports, an SD card slot and a headphone jack. That’s almost every port you can imagine, but the Thunderbolt 5 port is the fun part.
Intel sent me a few Thunderbolt 5 accessories to demonstrate how much bandwidth the new spec offers. I set up two 32-inch 4K 240 Hz OLED gaming monitors, all games are powered through a single USB-C cable. It’s magic to see these two high-rate rate monitors being daisy-chained, despite their refresh rate of 240 Hz. In the past, Thunderbolt 4 ports were limited to two 4K monitors at 60 Hz.
Even if you don’t have two expensive gaming monitors to connect to, the MSI Titan 18 HX has a very stable mini-dominated display on board. It can hit 414 brightnesses in SDR and doubles in HDR. This isn’t as good as OLED gaming surveillance there, but it’s certainly bright enough to notice the difference in HDR. The color saturation is also great.
You want when it’s distributed on an 18-inch screen, even if you may not always want to play games at that local resolution, even if it’s distributed on an 18-inch screen. It’s very sharp. This is indeed the best screen you can get on an 18-inch laptop right now, as OLEDs aren’t common in this larger screen size. MSI also offers an IPS version of this panel, as well as the low resolution 2560 x 1600 240 Hz IPS option.
Unfortunately, speakers and webcams are not advanced. The 1080p camera is very noisy, and the six-speaker audio system is mediocre. Given how loud the fan noise is, the speakers are almost irrelevant, at least when it comes to gaming.
Deceive its sleeves
Photo: Luke Larsen
The keyboard is unique, and typing and gaming is definitely a pleasure. This is a Cherry MX low-key mechanical keyboard that feels short and tactile. This is different from any laptop I typed in this sense, capturing the feeling of a mechanical keyboard on the laptop. My only complaint is that many of the keys are not mechanical, such as arrow keys, digital boards and feature rows. Once you notice it’s a little shocking.
