MSI Summit E15 - A challenger for the Dell XPS 15 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme

With the Summit E15, MSI offers a 15.6-inch laptop for the business segment that is supposed to steal customers from the established manufacturers in the business area. Visually, the device makes a good impression. The hardware of the laptop is housed in a slim, black metal case with a few copper-colored accent elements. However, the case lacks some stability, and the lid and particularly the base unit can be warped significantly.

The test unit provided to us is run by a Core i7-1185G7 processor and a GeForce GTX 1650 Ti-Max-Q graphics core. They are accompanied by 16 GB of working memory (dual-channel mode; max. 64 GB) and a 1-TB NVMe SSD. Thanks to being connected via PCI Express 4, the SSD delivers excellent transfer rates. You could also add a second NVMe SSD (M.2-2280) into the laptop, but the second M.2 slot supports "only" PCI Express 3.

The built-in 80-Wh battery ensures a battery life of 9 to 10 hours in practice. The laptop is charged via a USB Type-C charger that can be connected to either of the two USB-C ports (USB 4/Thunderbolt 4). This means that you can also connect accessories such as a docking station or external GPU to the second USB-C port while the charger is connected. In addition to power delivery, the USB-C ports also support DisplayPort via USB-C. The 15.6-inch laptop offers a total of three video ports (2x DP, 1x HDMI).

While the touchscreen display (FHD, IPS) offers stable viewing angles, a decent color reproduction, good contrast, and decent color space coverage, the maximum brightness turns out too low. Overall, the display of a 2000-Euro laptop (~$2427) should offer more.

You can find additional information and many benchmark results in our MSI Summit E15 review.