MSI Summit B15 Review: Medium Business

This year, several companies known primarily for gaming laptops are branching out into the portable business and productivity sector. It is already a crowded field, but Razer made noise with its excellent Razer Book 13, which has an elegant chassis, a 16:10 screen and just a touch of the company’s RGB lighting.

In this review, I’m looking at the Summit Series, which is MSI’s attempt to enter the same space. The series includes the Summit E line – which includes discrete GPU options and is priced to compete with the best like Dell’s XPS 15 – and the Summit B line, which starts at $ 999 and fits perfectly into the mid-market postage.

I’m discussing Summit B15 here – I looked at Summit E15 last fall. The basic B15 includes a Core i5-1135G7, 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. I tested the most expensive configuration, which costs US $ 1,249 and has a Core i7-1165G7 (one of Intel’s main 11th generation processors), 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. The system places solid specifications on a good chassis, but there are some flaws that make it a little expensive for what it offers.

The most attractive facets of Summit series laptops are their appearance and construction. They have a smooth black finish, an aluminum construction, an elegant backlit keyboard and a shiny new MSI logo on the cover and bottom panel (no dragon was found, an innovation at MSI). MSI claims that the B15 has “military-grade durability” and, although it is a difficult statement to test, there is very little flexibility on the B15’s cover and keyboard. And at 3.53 pounds and 0.67 inches thick, it is lightweight for its size.

Overall, however, the B15 has a slightly utilitarian appearance, especially compared to the E15. The latter has some small flourishes that add a more classy vibe – there are golden details around the touchpad and hinge edges, for example, where the B15 is completely black. Another thing about the B15’s chassis – it’s one of the worst fingerprint magnets I’ve ever seen. Touch the lid once and a visible stain will remain. I used the sides of my wrists to reposition the laptop while taking pictures and still had to clean it between pictures.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice and nice chassis. But there’s nothing exciting about it, and you’re going to clean it up a lot if you want to keep it looking clean.

The selection of useful door is a highlight, given the thin chassis. Includes a USB-C (compatible with Thunderbolt 4, power delivery, DP 1.4a and USB 4.0), two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, one USB 3.2 Gen 1, a combo audio connector, a microSD reader and an HDMI connector , in addition to the cylindrical plug power port. You also get an RJ45 Ethernet dongle in the box, which is practical. I also like having USB-A ports on both sides.

I also like the keyboard backlight, which looks quite elegant and would not be out of place in an office environment. The keys have a pleasant texture and 1.5 mm of travel. Three points to note: first, the Fn key is half the size and I found it difficult to get it right. Second, there was occasionally some internal noise inside the deck, which was annoying. Third, the keys are softer than clickable and slightly shallower than the best keys on the keyboard. Subjectively, I made more mistakes on this keyboard than usual.

The screen, likewise, is functional with reservations. It covers 98% of the sRGB range and 76% of AdobeRGB, and reaches a maximum of 258 nits. This is an acceptable range of color coverage and is functional enough for office use, but it is too dark to use easily in bright environments. I would expect more than a $ 1,249 laptop. In addition, it uses a 16: 9 aspect ratio, which is going out of style among premium business laptops for a reason – it is limited for multitasking purposes.

The only component I don’t really like is the touchpad. It’s a little small for a 15-inch laptop, and sometimes I hit the fingerprint sensor (built into the upper left corner) and the top plastic as it rolled. It is also not the smoothest I have ever used, and my fingers would slide over it quite a bit. Both the material and the click look a little bit plastic compared to what you can find in a nicer model.

Summit’s performance is good. I found no problem when running it in my normal office work. The integrated graphics Iris Xe are not suitable for serious games, but can run lighter if you prefer. I could occasionally feel the system working under the keyboard while performing more intense tasks, but it never got too high or too hot. You can switch to the “Silent” cooling profile on the MSI control panel if the fan noise is disturbing.

With that said, two disappointments emerged from my testing period. First, the audio from the B15’s two speakers is not terrible and works well for video calls, but it does offer tiny percussion and virtually no bass. I also heard occasional distortions at maximum volume, although I could eliminate them by lowering the sound a little. My test unit’s microphone also did not work on Zoom calls, although it did work in other applications – I asked MSI about it and will update this article if they find out.

Second disappointment: battery life. Running the B15 as my daily driver with 200 nits of brightness, I averaged just five hours and 13 minutes. This is not entirely unexpected, as it only has a 52Wh three-cell battery – similar to what some 13-inch laptops come with at this point. On this 15-inch laptop, it’s not enough to power you for a whole day if your workload is similar to mine (about a dozen Chrome tabs, Slack, the occasional so-called Zoom, that sort of thing). One thing to note is that the B15 comes loaded with Norton, which I’ve seen used up a lot of battery in the past. I ran a battery test before uninstalling the software and only had four and a half hours. After I detonated the bloatware, the B15 came close to six.

In short, the Summit Series is an excellent first step for MSI. In a market where business laptops typically cost several thousand dollars, there is absolutely an audience for something like the B15, which is light, attractive and functional for just over $ 1,000. It looks like a laptop you would take to a business meeting and has a state-of-the-art Intel cooled processor that can handle it. Limited budget professionals could certainly do worse.

But given the normal audio, battery life and other areas of the chassis, I still think people who are willing to spend a little more will benefit from this, especially people who can live with less RAM and storage. A better screen, better speakers and longer battery life can make a big difference to the daily experience, and while the B15’s good chassis, abundant storage and specific business features are worth it for some people, they won’t be of much use. all high priority.

Monica Chin / The Verge photo