MSI Summit E16 Flip | Review

MSI is primarily known for gaming laptops and desktops, but actually it also has a great line-up of laptops designed for business. Among these is the Summit series, which offers top-of-the-range products with decidedly remarkable features; The latest addition, which we will talk about in this review, is the Summit E16 Flip, a 2-in-1 convertible with a spacious 16-inch display, powered by an Intel Core i7 processor and a GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card.

Design and technical features

The Summit E16 Flip has a black body with an elegant and minimal look, also favored by the rounded edges. With a total weight of 1.9kg, it is comfortable to carry on the shoulder inside a backpack all day, and being only 1.67cm thick when closed, it is one of the thinnest 2-in-1 convertibles on the market. One of the most intriguing aspects of the laptop is that MSI has decided to design it inspired by the Golden Section, which you can find not only in the default background, but also in the positioning of the logo and keyboard and, above all, in the 16:10 ratio of the display. .




On board the notebook we find an Intel Core i7-1280P processor, 32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD , RTX 3050 with 4GB of GDDR6 memory, Intel Killer AX1675i network card with Wi-Fi6E support, 82Whr battery, and 165Hz Quad HD screen, with 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 range and capable of faithfully reproducing the colors.




Being a 2-in-1 convertible you can obviously move the hinge as you please; this operation in the MSI laptop is incredibly practical to perform even with one hand - which is not obvious for such products.

Display

The screen is one of the strengths of the Summit E16 Flip: With a size of 16 inches and an aspect ratio of 16:10, the display is of a resolution of 2560 × 1600 pixels and excels most of the other laptops in the market. Thanks to the optimal brightness and a color range that covers 90% of the Adobe RGB space, it is a great product if you are looking for a convertible with which to unleash your creativity with programs such as Illustrator, Photoshop or Blender. Obviously, even just watching movies and TV series in streaming will be particularly enjoyable, as well as playing games (which is possible, albeit within limits, thanks to the Intel Core i7 processor and the GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card).

Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard of the Summit E16 Flip which, as we have mentioned, is inspired by the Golden Section, is spacious and comfortable to use, thanks also to the numeric keypad positioned on the right and the four full-sized arrows . The keys offer excellent feedback and allow a comfortable typing experience, thanks also to the customizable backlight (you can choose between three different intensities, in order to adapt the light according to the environment in which we are).



The touchpad is also comfortable and fluid, although not particularly sensitive: although no touches are lost, sometimes a little more pressure is needed to be recognized. Nothing that spoils the experience of use, which is still agile and pleasant.

Pen

The 2-in-1 convertible from MSI also includes a pen in the box, thanks to which you will be able use the Summit E16 even more comfortably in tablet mode. Although there is no dedicated space in which to insert it, the pen magnetically attaches itself to the edges of the device (therefore useful if you are resting on a flat surface, less so to carry it around with you) and can be recharged with through a USB-C cable . We tested it with Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint and found it highly responsive, with virtually no input lag.





The pen features two buttons on the base, plus a Bluetooth button that can also be used as a remote control during presentations. Although you can use it with your laptop to write and draw on the screen without having to pair it, doing so will allow you to customize the functionality of the top button and use it, precisely, while projecting a PowerPoint or similar.

Webcam and audio

If you are planning to buy the Summit E16 Flip mainly for work, you will be happy to know that the webcam does not feature the usual 720p resolution, but rather manages to record in 1080p, allowing you to make video calls with a excellent image quality.

If the webcam and the display of the MSI laptop are excellent, the audio sector is less so: the speakers, even at maximum volume, are not particularly loud. You will be able to easily watch YouTube videos or movies in a quiet environment, but with background noise (like a washing machine in a room not too far away) you will have trouble intercepting words. In case you want to listen to music it is therefore better to connect an external speaker to the laptop, or some headphones.

Autonomy

The autonomy of this MSI Summit E16 Flip is not exceptional, but not even evil: the high resolution display and the discrete graphics sector consume a lot, resulting in an average duration of up to 8 hours. The value is not "low" in an absolute sense and is on average for this category of products, moreover you may be able to use it for the whole day of work without having to load it: obviously everything will depend on the programs you use.

The “empirical” value we measured was confirmed by the two benchmarks PCMark 10 Modern Office and Video, which recorded an autonomy of 7 hours and 40 minutes and 9 hours and 15 minutes respectively. If you think that 8 hours of use is a problem for your working day, keep in mind that the fast charging guaranteed by the power supply will allow you additional hours of use in a few minutes, so even for long journeys you will not have problems.

Conclusions

MSI Summit E16 Flip is a convertible with good performance, which can be used in many areas thanks to its versatility, touch screen and the presence of the pen. If you are looking for a large screen where you can write by hand, perhaps to draw or take notes without using the classic paper, surely the MSI laptop could be for you. And if you like to create digital content, the RTX 3050 on board will give that extra boost to be able to work well in this field as well and will allow you to save a lot (at the time of writing MSI Summit E16 Flip is available for 1899 Euro), keeping account of the price of the solutions with more powerful dedicated graphics, aimed at those who make content creation their job and not just a hobby.



If you need a real workstation, you should aim for something more powerful, especially in terms of graphics card: if it is true, as we have said, that the RTX 3050 helps a lot in programs like Lightroom, Photoshop and the like, it is also true that it is far from the power that solutions can offer higher-end, like an RTX 3080 or RTX 3080 Ti, not to mention pro-specific GPUs like an RTX A5000.

In conclusion, this MSI Summit E16 Flip is a real all-rounder, capable of giving satisfaction factions in many areas: if you are looking for such a product, you must certainly take it into consideration. Provided, however, that fingerprints do not bother you: as we have mentioned, the body holds them very easily, so you will have to accept the fact that the notebook will never be completely clean.