MSI is best known for its PC-gaming hardware, but it’s now expanding into a new market—business-class laptops—with a “Business and Productivity” product line that will target enterprises and working professionals.
The expansion will take MSI’s existing Modern and Prestige productivity-focused laptops and group them with a newly announced Summit series, to tackle the business PC market. Each product will also come tagged with MSI’s new business logo.
(Credit: MSI)
To offer premium performance, the laptops will be built with Intel’s recently announced 11th Generation “Tiger Lake” Core processors. They’ll also come with PCI Express 4.0 SSDs, Thunderbolt 4 ports, and technology to remove background noise from the microphone and speakers when initiating video calls.
In total, the company introduced 10 new laptops to fill out the portfolio. Expect them to start arriving in October, which will put MSI in closer competition with Dell, HP, and Lenovo, the heavyweights in the business-PC market.
The Summit Series
(Credit: MSI)
To appeal to enterprise customers, MSI is bringing corporate security features to these Summit business laptops, including fingerprint readers and facial-recognition logins via Windows Hello on select models. The machines can also password-protect access to their BIOS and SSD storage, in addition to USB and SD card slots.
Summit laptops can be configured with Intel’s vPro platform, enabling enterprises to remotely manage the machines over the internet. The laptops themselves also look pretty sleek; MSI built the machines inside a thin, but solid, aluminum casing tested for military-grade durability.
(Credit: MSI)
The Summit series starts with the B14 and B15 models, which will be available with Intel’s 11th Generation Core i7 U processors. However, the specs are pretty basic; you’re getting a 1080p screen, a 720p web camera, and the integrated graphics from Intel’s Tiger Lake CPUs. Expect the laptops to last up to 10 hours on a single charge.
The E14 on the left, the E15 on the right (Credit: MSI)
Enterprise buyers can also upgrade to the E15 and E14 models, which come with touch screens, an infrared web camera for facial recognition, and support for a discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics card. There’s also the option for a 4K screen upgrade. The E15 model should last up to 16 hours on a single charge, MSI says.
The E13 model (Credit: MSI)
For buyers looking for a laptop convertible, MSI says it’s also working on the E13, which can flip into a tablet, thanks to its 360-degree hinge. There’s no word yet on pricing for any of the products.
More Tiger Lake Models: Prestige and Modern
The company is also refreshing its existing 14-inch and 15-inch laptops in the MSI Prestige and Modern product series with Intel’s Tiger Lake silicon.
Earlier this year, we reviewed the 10th-gen-based Prestige models and we were pretty impressed. Buyers will soon be able get them with even more processing power, thanks to the 11th Generation Tiger Lake chips, which Intel claims will offer a generational leap in capabilities.
The Prestige 14 on the left, the Prestige 15 on the right. (Credit: MSI)
MSI decided to use the silicon for a special laptop called the Prestige 14 Evo. The product has been certified under Intel’s new Evo program, which challenges PC makers to create premium laptops that perform well, not just in the lab, but in the real world.
The Prestige 14 Evo hits the requirements by using a low-power, 1-watt 1080p display. As a result, the laptop can offer more than 12 hours of battery life on a single charge. A quick-charging function can also replenish 1.5 hours of battery life when plugged into an electrical outlet for only 15 minutes.
The 2.8-pound laptop will be available with Intel’s Core i5 and Core i7 processors. It’ll also arrive with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, and a microSD card reader.
