MSI gets into the business laptop biz

Known mostly for gaming systems, MSI is making a move to the enterprise.

MSI is set to release a “Business and Productivity” product line that will target enterprises and working professionals.

This 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 sporting a new MSI business logo.

Users will love that 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.

There will be 10 new laptops in the line. 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.

Summit Series

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.

These new 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.

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.

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.

MSI is also working on the E13, which can flip into a tablet, thanks to its 360-degree hinge. Pricing still to be determined. I loved MSI for its powerful "gamers" I'm sure they will do just as well for those enterprise users.