While looking for used 14 inch laptops, I found for the 2023 MSI Stealth 14 (RTX 4060/Intel I7 13620H) lying around in the used market of my country for only ~$1000:
For context, in my country its impossible to find even used copies of the 2023 Stealth’s contemporaries (ROG Zephyrus G14/Razer Blade 14/Lenovo Legion Slim 5) for $1000
And while the Stealth 14 was notoriously overpriced at $1699 when it launched, now that its price has collapsed, is it a good pickup now?
(personally, I’m still looking for a sub 2kg laptop with dedicated graphics for video editing, but I’ve had an emergency recently and my budget is now reduced to $1100 maximum)
the only new 2024 TUF A14 available left are the base models with 16GB soldered RAM, when I need 32GB RAM; and even those base model 2024 TUF A14s are hanging around the $1100-$1200 range (where I could find used 2023 Zephyrus G14s or even 2024 Omen Transcend 14 using RTX 4070; while the 2024 TUF A14 caps out at RTX 4060)
and here atm there’s just no one selling their used TUF A14s (probably because its actually a good laptop so they actually wanna use it themselves )
I think you will find things like the Stealths arrow key placement and other things extremley annoying. If you find your laptop uncomfortable to use, that will be worse than a little slow down here or there.
I also don’t know whether you truly need more than 16GB of memory. I’d prefer you get a better laptop with 16GB than a worse one with 32GB.
If you are looking for me to recommend you buy the Stealth. I can’t do that. I’m sorry. Its probably the worst 14-inch gaming laptop around. Have you tried the Predator Helios Neo 14S?
I absolutely need more than 16GB RAM, even just opening Firefox (to download reference pics & art assets), Photoshop (for art editing), and Figma (for vectors) is already 17GB of RAM; can you even imagine what the memory consumption is gonna be like with Davinci Resolve?
I wasn’t really looking for you to recommend the Stealth, I was just asking if the Stealth is any good or not for the price, since other reviewers like Jarrod seemed to be more positive on it
And in my country, the Helios Neo 14 is unfortunately in the same boat as the TUF A14; no one is selling their used copies and the only new copies left are the 16GB RAM version costing in the $1200 range.
Actually, could you post a couple of ones that are in your price range? Also would you be open to going 15inch? That may expand your options
I don’t really care about the size as long as the weight is under 2kg
but all of the dGPU laptops (with either 32GB on-board or expandable RAM, also with 8GB VRAM) that are in my $1099 absolute maximum budget limit are heavier than 2kg, even used:
used 2023 Lenovo Legion Slim 7i (Intel i7 13700H/RTX 4060) - 2.132 kg / 4.7 pounds
Asus TUF F15 (Intel i7 13620/RTX4060) - 2.2 kg / 4.85 pounds
2023 HP Omen 16 (Ryzen 7 7840 HS/RTX 4060) - 2.44 kg / 5.38 pounds
used 2024 Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (Intel i7 14700HX/RTX 4060) - 2.624 kg / 5.78 pounds
2023 HP Envy 16 (Intel i7 13700H/RTX 4060) - 2.67 kg / 5.89 pounds
And while the Acer Swift X 14 (Intel 155H/RTX 4060) is absolutely under 2kg, I’m extremely skeptical of that 14 inch laptop giving an RTX 4060 a single fan, esp with that laptop’s relative lack of reviews:
This is a true point: many laptops have small screens (such as this MSI, the TUF A14, all Legions and Omens) but then have a “step” at the back to accomodate better cooling and rear ports.
How do they compare size-wise to flush-shaped models with bigger screens?
Overally, you’ve done really good research here. I think the biggest issue seems to be the available laptops in your country. Can you get an older Yoga Pro 9i 16-inch? The older ones of those were pretty good. I know it isn’t 14 inch obviously. I’m trying to think of older laptops that were good for you. Also are there any IdeaPad Pro 5/5is? They are also good. Normally they are 4050 or 5050 though not 4060. But a 5050 would be great for you.
I agree on the Swift X. The cooling is very rough.
Task Manager is not a good way to check how much memory you need. Any memory that an application requested is reported there, regardless of whether it is actually actively being used. It significantly overstates memory useage. MacOS has a much better tool in Activity Monitor that tracks actualy Page Faults i.e. when you don’t have enough memory. ←- Note a certain number of page faults are normal. Windows really needs to improve here. There are situations where on our laptops it reports 40gb of memory usage, but when we render a video with only 16 GB its literally only a second or two slower than one with 32 GB. I plan to do a big video on this. None the less there is NO HARM getting 32GB . Its good you are looking for that
I don’t think Jarrod is that positive about it, I think we spoke about it off camera the other week. Are you able to return the MSI after you’ve tried it? If you don’t like it?
nope cant find a Yoga Pro 9 on my budget, even used ones are holding their value at ~$1500
I could only find the 2023 Yoga Pro 7 instead, but they’re all stuck at RTX 4050
and the Gen 10 version of the IdeaPad 5 Pro is oddly not released yet in my country, the previous gens are also stuck at 4050
(as you can see, the whole reason I’m avoiding the 4050 is bc it only got 6GB of vRAM; if even 8 GB vRAM is considered not enough for 2025 anymore then imagine 6 GB)
whoops, does anyone here know any good 3rd party alternatives that can accurately check memory usage?
nope, they dont seem to have a return policy listed.
Tho at least today I just found a definite dark horse pick…
the (used) Thinkpad P1 Gen 5.
I found the i7-12700H/RTX A2000 config lying around for $1000 right on my budget, and it even has the bonkers 4k screen.
IIRC used Thinkpads are famously more durable & repairable than consumer laptops, but I’m very skeptical of the RTX A2000, I never even heard of that GPU before today.
While I dont exactly require top tier performance, its benchmark scores are noticeably worse compared to even an RTX 4050….
)
. Its good you are looking for that