MSI’s Summit series are slim business laptops for remote workers

MSI is best known for its gaming laptops, but today, it’s announcing a new business line for remote professionals. The line includes the Summit E series and the Summit B series, each with 14- and 15-inch models, along with the 13-inch convertible E13 Flip.

There’s no word on pricing or availability for the Summit line yet, but they certainly look like high-end models. The chassis are aluminum, with thin bezels and what MSI calls “military-grade durability.”

Image: MSI

Both series have some other nice features as well. The big news is that they’re powered by Intel’s new 11th Gen “Tiger Lake” processors and support the company’s new Thunderbolt 4 standard as well.

The E series looks to be geared more toward creative work. Its models include discrete graphics up to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650Ti graphics card with Max-Q design. MSI says they also feature “AI noise cancellation” to drown out background sound during video calls. In addition to the non-touch 1080p display, the E series can come with two touch options: one that covers 72 percent of the NTSC space and one that hits 100 percent of the Adobe RGB gamut.

Both models have two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a microSD card reader, and a headphone jack. The E15 has two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports and an HDMI, while the E14 only has one USB-A 2.0. They’ll support facial recognition and fingerprint reader authentication as well as TPM 2.0 security chips.

The B series provides over 10 hours of battery life, MSI claims. You can choose between a 1080p display that covers “close to 100 percent” of the sRGB gamut or a lower-end one that supports 45 percent of the NTSC color space. Both models have one Thunderbolt 4 port, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, an HDMI port, a microSD card reader, and a headphone jack.

The Summit series also includes the E13 Flip, a convertible laptop with a 360-degree hinge. That will be available by the end of 2020, according to MSI. (Details on that one are thin.)

Image: MSI

Elsewhere, MSI has added new “chic, contemporary colors” to its Prestige and Modern lines for content creators. (Those models are also getting 11th Gen chips.) It also announced the Prestige 14 Evo, which is one of the first batches of laptops to be certified through Intel’s new Evo program. The Evo brand is supposed to verify that machines have quick wake times and all-day battery life, among other requirements.

The company hasn’t forgotten its gaming roots. It also unveiled the new Stealth 15M, which MSI says is “the world’s thinnest 15-inch gaming laptop in its class.” You’ll be able to buy that in October starting at $1,549. It also comes with Tiger Lake chips, discrete graphics up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q, a 144Hz 1080p screen, and an RGB keyboard.