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09 Sep

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MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo Review: A Nice 2-in-1, At a Price

September 9, 2021
Posted by Samson

MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo sits on the tabletop.

MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo

RRP $ 1,900.00

"The MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo does almost everything right – except for the price."

advantages

Modern and attractive aesthetics
Thin and light
Excellent keyboard and touchpad
Great battery life
Solid productivity performance

disadvantage

Lid is a bit flexible
Display is badly calibrated
Too expensive

When looking for a convertible 2-in-1 laptop, MSI might not be the first brand that comes to mind. It's best known for its gaming laptops, but the company makes several other lines of laptops aimed at general consumers and business users. For the latter, MSI offers the Summit line, including the new Summit E13 Flip Evo 2-in-1, which offers a 16:10 display and an extremely attractive design.

I tested the high-end configuration, which costs $ 1,900 and includes an 11th generation Intel Core i7-1185G7 and a 13.4-inch IPS display in a productivity-friendly 16:10 aspect ratio. It immediately convinced me with its aesthetics and left a clear impression of quality. At a higher total price and without cheap basic equipment, however, the attractiveness remains limited.

draft

My first impression of the Summit E13 Flip Evo was that it bears a clear resemblance to the HP Specter x360 14. At least that's the case with my Ink Black version; the impression is not as pronounced with the Pure White color scheme.

I say this because the Summit E13 Flip Evo has case and display corners that are cut off at angles similar to the Specter x360 14, and the various edges of the laptop (including around the touchpad) are a familiar rose gold color. It's easy to tell the difference between the laptops, but it seems that MSI has adopted some aesthetic concepts from HP.

This does not apply to functionality – unlike the HP, the MSI does not have a USB-C port, which is conveniently placed in a corner. Regardless of its inspiration, the Summit E13 Flip Evo is a beautiful laptop with modern lines and attractive colors that add up to an overall elegant design. MSI makes a lot of the golden ratio (1,618) used to proportion the laptop, and I can't fault its math.

What I can criticize, however, are the large display bezels, which detract from the otherwise modern look. They're bigger at the top and bottom than they could be, and that makes the 13.4-inch laptop with its 16:10 display a little deeper than necessary. It's only a fraction of an inch away from the Specter x360 14 with its larger and taller 13.5-inch 3: 2 display, though it's a bit thinner at 0.59 inches compared to the HP's 0.67 inches.

The MSI is only slightly heavier at 2.98 pounds than the HP at 2.95 pounds. It's larger in width and depth than the Dell XPS 13, which also uses a 13.4-inch 16:10 display, and the Dell is slightly thinner at 0.58-inches and lighter at 2.64-inches. Part of the added depth of the Summit E13 Flip Evo is due to the convertible 2-in-1 hinge, but even so, MSI could have made this laptop a smaller laptop with a little more attention to the bezels.

The construction of the Summit E13 Flip Evo is certainly top notch as it uses CNC machined aluminum to carve the lid and chassis from individual blocks of metal. The lid bends only slightly when you press it lightly and the LCD becomes distorted in the process. However, the bottom chassis and keyboard deck are solid and give the laptop a solid feel overall. Thanks to the lid, it's not as stiff as the HP Specter x360 14 or Dell XPS 13, but it is close. The hinge allows the lid to be opened with one hand, but it also makes it a little wobbly when you move the laptop.

At that price point, the Summit E13 Flip Evo is expensive in its $ 1,900 configuration. It's worth the premium given the high-end design of the laptop, but most users will likely be put off by the high-end price. The $ 1,600 configuration with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD is cheaper and on par with the competition. The Specter x360 14, for example, currently costs $ 1,460 for the same configuration as the $ 1,600 Summit E13 Flip Evo, but with a Core i7-1165G7 versus the MSI Core i7-1185G7. So it's $ 140 cheaper, but it also has a smaller processor.

With an identical configuration, the Dell XPS 13 costs almost exactly the same price at $ 1,620. MSI is asking too much to upgrade to 32GB of RAM, which most users in this class won't need.

Connectivity is good for a very thin and light laptop, with a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port and two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports with Thunderbolt 4 on the left and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port ( no Thunderbolt 4) with a 3.5mm audio jack and a hidden microSD card reader on the right. Wi-Fi 6E – the Summit E13 Flip Evo is the first laptop with the latest Wi-Fi 6E standard that supports an exclusive 6 GHz band – and Bluetooth 5.2 ensures wireless connectivity.

power

MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo easel, foldable, sitting on the tabletop. Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

In the Summit E13 Flip Evo, MSI activates the full 28 watts of the 11th generation Intel Core i7-1185G7 and theoretically promises the best possible performance of the chip. However, according to our benchmarks, the 2-in-1 does not necessarily jump to the top among similarly configured laptops.

In Geekbench 5, the Summit E13 Flip Evo was in the midfield. MSI includes a utility to tune performance versus fan noise, and it made a modest difference in some tests. For example, the Geekbench score jumped to 1,519 single-core and 5,310 in performance mode. The utility also improved the laptop's Handbrake Score, which measures the time it takes to encode a 420MB video as H.265, from 207 to 178 seconds. Both values are more competitive. The utility made less of a difference in Cinebench R23 and PCMark 10. In the last-mentioned benchmark, the notebook was in the midfield across all included tests, including Essentials (web browsing etc.), productivity (Office apps etc.), and Creation (video coding and more).

Overall, the Summit E13 Flip Evo was a fast laptop for its configuration, which included 32GB of RAM and a fast 1TB SSD, but it wasn't dominant among the Intel machines. As mentioned above, the $ 1,600 base configuration comes with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB solid-state drive. A model with 8 GB of RAM and less storage is not offered, which puts it behind its competitors.

In any case, the MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo will be fast enough to keep up with demanding productivity workflows, but it won't please creative types who crave a laptop that can handle CPU-intensive tasks. For this you need an AMD Ryzen 5000 series chip, an M1 MacBook or a larger 45 watt Intel laptop.

	Geekbench (single / multiple)	Handbrake (Seconds)	Cinebench R23 (single / multiple)	PCMark 10	3DMark time spy
MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo (Core i7-1185G7)	1352/4891	207	1360/4392	4872	1751
Dell XPS 13 (Core i7-1185G7)	1549/5431	204	1399/4585	n / A	1380
HP Specter x360 14 (Core i7-1165G7)	1214/4117	236	1389/3941	4728	1457
Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 (Core i7-1185G7)	1532/5415	207	1435/4409	4800	1648
Asus ZenBook 13 OLED (Ryzen7 5800U)	1423/6758	124	1171/7824	6034	1342
MacBook Pro 13 (M1)	1707/7337	n / A	1487/7547	n / A	n / A

Like all laptops with Intel's built-in Iris Xe graphics (and AMD machines with Radeon graphics), the Summit E13 Flip Evo doesn't pretend to be a gaming laptop.

Its 3DMark Time Spy Score is inconspicuous and it only managed 26 frames per second (fps) at 1080p high settings in Fortnite. With the Epic graphics switched on, this dropped to 19 fps.

Close up on the MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo laptop screen. Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

I love seeing so many new devices with larger displays, especially in different sizes and form factors. The Summit E13 Flip Evo is such a laptop with a 13.4-inch 16:10 display in Full HD + resolution (1,920 x 1,200). That's the only choice that's unfortunate – I'd love to see a higher resolution display option.

Subjectively, the display seemed to me well suited for productivity tasks, as it was very bright and with good contrast, so that black text popped out of the white background (as an author, this is one of my most important display attributes). The colors seemed fine when looking at the display alone, though I did notice that things were a little out of place in color compared to some of the other laptops I had lying around.

This is where my colorimeter came in. So the display has some good and some not so good features. As I said, the panel appeared to be bright, at 471 nits (well above our 300 nit threshold), and the contrast ratio was 950: 1 – just below our preferred ratio of 1,000: 1. The colors matched at 73% AdobeRGB and 97% sRGB the average of the premium laptop (not creative). All of this is good enough for a machine in the Summit E13 Flip Evo's class.

The color accuracy was not so great with a disappointing DeltaE of 3.94. That explains my subjective impression. Gamma (how light or dark an image or video is displayed compared to the original) was also extremely poor at 1.4. I usually don't mention gamma as most laptop displays measure the 2.2 standard. However, the MSI's display is way too bright, which I noticed again when using the laptop.

Close up on close up of the screen and bezels of the MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo. Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

It is possible that my device was poorly calibrated and could be repaired by anyone with the right tools – not many people have access to a colorimeter to do their own calibration. But it detracts from the experience of using the laptop including watching videos where the poor gamma has an impact. Creators will also find it too imprecise for their needs.

The sound was fine, with enough volume from the two down-facing speakers to enjoy a YouTube video without distortion when it was all the way up. The mids and highs were clear, but there was no bass. You will need a pair of headphones to enjoy Netflix and listen to music, but otherwise the sound quality is average for the class.

Keyboard and touchpad

Close-up of the trackpad and keyboard on the MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo. Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

The keyboard of the Summit E13 Flip Evo is characterized by excellent spacing and large keycaps with legible lettering and three useful levels of constant backlighting. The layout is standard for the most part and I was up to speed in no time. I enjoyed the 1.5mm of travel, especially considering the light switches that didn't cause fatigue. Floor motion was a bit soft, and I prefer the crisper HP Specter range of keyboards, but overall I found MSI's keyboard comfortable for longer tips sessions (like writing this review).

The touchpad was large and medium in size, but there is more room on the keyboard deck for a larger touchpad. It supports Microsoft's Precision touchpad drivers and responded well to Windows 10's multitouch gestures. The buttons were clicky and quiet, which is a nice combination. Apart from the fact that it would be a bit bigger, I have no complaints.

The active MSI pen is included in the scope of delivery and is attached magnetically to the lid or housing of the laptop. It supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt and is conveniently charged via USB-C. I found it to be as good a Windows Ink experience as any other modern 2-in-1 device I've used. The touch display also responded. An infrared camera and face recognition as well as a fingerprint reader on the palm rest offer Windows 10 Hello passwordless support. Both were quick and reliable.

Close up of the trackpad, keyboard, and fingerprint scanner on the MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo. Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

Interestingly, MSI has built a switch on the side of the laptop to electronically turn off the webcam. This is the same mechanism that HP used in some older Specter 2-in-1s, such as the Specter x360 13 and Specter x360 15. HP has since moved on to placing a key on the keyboard that closes a physical shutter over the webcam , but it's interesting that this is something else that MSI apparently borrowed.

I prefer the electronic version because it turns off the webcam completely and doesn't let hackers take advantage of it. The keyboard also has a button to turn off the microphone, another welcome privacy feature.

Battery life

MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo sits on the tabletop. Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

MSI packed 70 watt hours of battery into the Summit E13 Flip Evo, which is a lot for a 13-inch laptop. In combination with the Full HD + display, I expected a good battery life.

That's exactly what I saw, starting with our web browsing test, where the 2-in-1 lasted about 11 hours. This is a strong score that surpassed the seven hours of the HP Specter x360 14 (an OLED display was used in our test device, so that's not a really fair test) and the Dell XPS 13 Full HD + with around 8.5 hours. In our video looping test using a local Full HD Avengers trailer, the MSI achieved 16 hours, which is also a good value. The XPS 13 only lasted 12 hours, the Specter x360 14 was well behind with 10 hours.

I also ran the PCMark 10 Applications battery test which got the Summit E13 Flip Evo to reach 13.5 hours. The Specter x360 14 ran for nine hours and the XPS 13 for 10.75 hours in this test, which makes the MSI's score impressive. In the PCMark 10 gaming battery test, which stresses the CPU and GPU, the Summit E13 Flip Evo scores 2.5 hours better than many laptops – although this test seems to demonstrate how hard a laptop runs on battery power instead of directly testing battery life .

Ultimately, battery life is a strength of the Summit E13 Flip Evo. It runs all day, leaving some time for evening work or Netflix bingeing. You don't have to worry about taking your PSU with you unless you really put a load on the processors.

Our opinion

The MSI Summit E13 Flip Evo is a useful addition to the stable 13-inch convertible 2-in-1. It's fast, has a long battery life, and looks great. The lid is a bit flexible and a bit expensive in its high-end configuration, but I found it to be a comfortable laptop for real world use.

The problem is that there are a lot of competitors. The MSI is as good as most of them, just make sure you choose the right configuration to avoid spending too much.

Any alternatives?

The HP Specter x360 14 is a great alternative. It's not that fast (at least without activating the performance mode), but it has a spectacular 13.5-inch OLED display with a 3: 2 aspect ratio. It's almost as expensive as the MSI when configured with the OLED display, but it only comes with a maximum of 16GB of RAM compared to the Summit E13 Flip Evo's 32GB.

The Dell XPS 13 is another great option if you don't need a 2-in-1. It's just as fast, has good battery life, and is better built – there's a reason it tops several best-of lists.

How long it will take?

The Summit E13 Flip Evo is so well built that you don't have to worry about its longevity. In addition, it is future-proof equipped with modern components such as the fast Wi-Fi 6E. The one year warranty will always be disappointing.

Should you buy it?

Yes sir. You will love using the Summit E13 Flip Evo; Just be prepared to pay a few extra dollars if you go for the high-end version.

Editor's recommendations

04 Jan

Blog

MSI Prestige 14 Evo Review: Tiger Lake Stretches Its Legs

January 4, 2021
Posted by Samson

msi prestige 14 evo review 01

"The MSI Prestige 14 Evo is a thin and light ultrabook with impressive performance."

Impressive performance
Solid build quality
Good battery life
Attractive design

The keyboard and touchpad are not precise enough
Dim the display

MSI is best known for its gaming equipment, but the company has repeatedly tried to go beyond its specialty. Like brands like Razer, MSI wants to use its gaming reputation to expand to more mainstream laptops.

The Prestige 14 Evo is the latest – and perhaps most ambitious – attempt at doing this. MSI worked closely with Intel on the 11th generation of Tiger Lake processors and the new Evo certification (hence the name).

My test device has an 11th generation Intel Core i7-1185G7, the fastest Tiger Lake CPU, as well as 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB solid-state drive (SSD). The 14-inch laptop is priced at $ 1,199, a low price for such a high-end configuration. Some retailers even sell it for just $ 950. But is it enough to convince myself that MSI has a future beyond gaming?

design

Let's get "cheap" questions out of the way. The Prestige 14 Evo is made of aluminum and feels solid all around. That is, with the exception of the display, which has a certain flex when pressure is applied. Both the keyboard deck and the bottom of the case feel robust and leave an overall impression of solid workmanship. It's still half a step behind Lenovo and Asus in the 14-inch class and Dell and HP if you're looking for 13-inch alternatives. The Prestige 14 Evo doesn't feel "cheap", but it could certainly benefit from a firmer lid.

It's also an attractive device with three color options: Carbon Gray, Rose Pink, and Pure White. I received the Carbon Gray version which has a darker silhouette. Despite the beveled edges, it is a conservatively designed laptop without any gloss. Even the MSI logo is a dark shade on the lid and it's easy to miss if you're not looking at exactly the right angle. The lines are clean and elegant, with a sharp taper on the bottom from back to front.

There is no bling at all.

I will notice that the Carbon Gray surface is a fingerprint magnet and it's not that easy to remove stains.

The display hinge lifts the back of the case off the desk nicely and offers plenty of space underneath to allow air to move and noises to come out of the two-floor speakers. The Asus ZenBook UX425EA is similar, although Asus adds some flair with concentric rings engraved in the lid.

The Prestige 14 Evo is thin and light for a 14-inch, 0.63-inch, 2.85-pound laptop, though it's neither the thinnest nor the lightest you can get in this class of machine. The ZenBook 14 is 0.54 inches and weighs 2.58 pounds, while the Acer Swift 5 is another 14-inch notebook from Tiger Lake that is even lighter at 2.31 pounds. The thickness of 0.59 inches is between the MSI and the Asus.

Each of these machines has small bezels with a screen-to-body ratio of around 90% and therefore has a modern appearance when the lid is open. Speaking of the lid, the Prestige 14 Evo's hinge is well constructed and only needs one hand to open while it resists the wobbling.

Connectivity is a bit of light for the class. There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left and a single USB-A 2.0 port (oddly enough) for a microSD card reader and a 3.5mm audio jack on the right.

As with the Acer Swift 5, you often get an HDMI 2.0 port, which is missing here. However, the wireless connectivity is cutting edge with both Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.

performance

The MSI Prestige 14 Evo is one of the fastest laptops in its class that I have tested. That sounds impressive on the surface, but it's also the first laptop I've tested with the Core i7-1185G7. I'm still learning what to expect from the latest generation of processors from Intel, but one thing is certain: the MSI Prestige 14 Evo impressed me.

The first test I ran was PCMark 10, which I ran on a handful of newer laptops with Intel 10th and 11th generation CPUs. The Prestige 14 Evo achieved the second highest value in this group with 4866 and only lost to the Lenovo Yoga 9i with the 45 watt Core i7-10750H CPU with six cores and 5173.

The MSI Prestige 14 Evo is one of the fastest laptops in its class.

The Prestige 14 Evo was faster than any other Tiger Lake notebook we tested by a good margin. Interestingly, the Porsche Design Acer Book RS with its surprisingly fast Core i5-1135G7 was Tiger Lake's closest competitor. Looking at each element of the PCMark 10 Complete test, the Prestige 14 Evo was particularly productive (spreadsheet and word processing) and creation (photo editing, video playback and playback, and video editing), while lagging behind some other laptops in the Only category Essentials (starting the app, video conferencing, surfing the Internet).

These results make the MSI a relatively faster laptop for more demanding tasks than basic computing. So if your main focus is to browse the web and spend time zooming, you don't need the power of the MSI.

In our handbrake test, which encodes a 420 MB video at H.265, the Prestige 14 Evo took just under two and 45 minutes, a fast score that surpasses any other U-series CPU. You need to look at laptops like the Lenovo Yoga 9i for faster results on Intel laptops (AMD Ryzen 4000 series laptops are a bit faster too). However, if you're looking for a laptop with a Tiger Lake CPU, the Prestige 14 Evo is the fastest you can find right now.

The same was true for Cinebench R23, where the Prestige 14 Evo achieved a strong 1,513 points in the single core score (after the Apple Mac Mini with the new Apple M1 chipset) and 5,789 points in the multi-core test. I'll repeat myself here: the Prestige 14 Evo is the fastest U-series CPU we've tested, and it's not really close. MSI did an excellent job of setting the CPU and managing the thermals so that the Prestige 14 Evo is the best example of Tiger Lake's potential.

Given the Intel Iris Xe graphics provided by the Tiger Lake platform, we should also briefly touch on gaming. These integrated graphics have so far offered an almost discrete low-end graphics performance and are well above the previous integrated graphics from Intel.

The Prestige 14 Evo even masters Fortnite surprisingly well. (/

Given MSI's experience with gaming laptops, the Prestige 14 Evo didn't seem as strong in graphics performance as its processor at first glance. In the synthetic 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, it achieved a rather low value of 1,465 behind the Porsche Design Acer Book RS with 1,504 and the Acer Swift 5 with 1,686. It managed to beat the anemic value of the Asus ZenBook 14 UX425EA of 1,281.

However, I also ran Fortnite to test a real world game that would fit in with the capabilities of the Intel Iris Xe graphics performance. It handles it surprisingly well. The Prestige 14 Evo managed 42 frames per second (fps) at 1080p and high graphics, which in turn outperforms any other Tiger Lake laptop. The fastest so far, the Intel reference laptop, ran at 34 fps. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 with an Nvidia GeForce MX350 achieved 37 fps. At Epic Graphics, the Prestige 14 Evo was 28 fps, the reference laptop 29 fps and the Lenovo 24 fps.

At least in a game like Fortnite, the MSI doesn't do justice to its low 3DMark score. And a game like Fortnite is definitely on the verge of what you'd want to play on a Tiger Lake laptop.

display

MSI was smart enough to equip the Prestige 14 Evo with a 1 watt IPS display with low power consumption and 1080p. This selection should help balance the fast CPU in terms of battery life, as we'll discuss later in the review.

It comes in a 16: 9 aspect ratio, which feels a bit dated at this point. Dell, HP, and Lenovo have started turning to higher displays in their premium laptops that offer either 16:10 or 3: 2. In comparison, 16: 9 feels stocky, especially with the large lower bezel.

According to my colorimeter, this is an average display for a premium laptop with only one obvious weakness. In fact, "glare" is the wrong word because while the display does well on other metrics, its brightness is only 228 nits. This is well below the 300-nit threshold we love to see on premium displays, and it may be too dark for many brightly-lit offices.

The color range of the display is 97% of sRGB and 73% of AdobeRGB. Most other premium laptops can be found here. Some brands like Dell and Lenovo offer 4K displays with much larger gamuts (up to 100% of sRGB and AdobeRGB). Creative users who need lots of color will want to check out these brands.

The display of the Prestige 14 Evo scored quite well in terms of color accuracy with 1.3, whereby 1.0 and less are indistinguishable to the human eye and are the standard for excellent displays. Finally, the contrast ratio was 940: 1, just below the 1000: 1 we like to see on premium laptops.

Compare this display to the very good ones on the Acer Swift 5 and Asus ZenBook 14 UX425EA and you will find that brightness is the only differentiator – albeit an important one. Note that the Lenovo Yoga 7i, in contrast, was an outlier, only scoring 690: 1 and making for a muted panel.

Overall, if you're not in an overly bright environment, you'll love this display for productivity work and Netflix. However, if you turn up the ambient lighting, you will be disappointed. If you work in bright environments, the MSI can be a problem for you.

Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard of the Prestige 14 Evo is in the typical island style with spacious key caps, comfortable key spacing and a lot of spring travel. My only complaint is that the switches were a little soft which made them feel light but without a precise floor effect. This reduced my accuracy and speed as I wasn't quite so sure that I had registered the correct keystroke.

I found the keyboard just one step behind my favorites, the HP Specter line of keyboards, Dell's latest XPS 13, and the best of them, Apple's Magic Keyboard on the latest MacBooks. But it's not so blatant that the average person would disapprove of the typing experience.

The problems with the touchpad are a bit more noticeable. It's pretty wide, although not as big as I'd like it to be. I also found it too deep in terms of key movement. You really need to learn to register a click. While that click is one of the quieter ones you'll experience, the touchpad could be streamlined for me.

However, the touchpad is a Microsoft Precision version, which means that it responds well to Windows 10's multi-touch gestures. My device was not equipped with a touch display and a touch version is not offered. I regularly use Touch for scrolling long web pages and the like, and I missed it here.

MSI chose to place the fingerprint reader, which supports passwordless Windows 10 Hello login, in the upper left corner of the touchpad. This is my least favorite place for a fingerprint reader and worse than placing it directly on the power button (like on the Dell XPS 13) or at least a separate area on the keyboard deck. Still, it worked well and signed me up quickly and without a lot of fuss.

Battery life

MSI equipped the Prestige 14 Evo with just 52 watt hours of battery life, which is a bit sparse for a 14-inch laptop with such a powerful CPU. Part of Intel's Evo certification is the ability to achieve nine or more hours of battery life for typical tasks. From my testing, the Prestige 14 Evo will likely do this – hardly.

First, I ran our web browsing test, which iterated over a number of popular websites. It gives a fair estimate of light productivity consumption, and the Prestige 14 Evo lasted about 7.25 hours. This is a below average duration for the class. The ZenBook 14 UX425EA lasts 10 hours and the Acer Swift 5 a less impressive eight hours.

Switch to the PCMark 10 Applications score, which provides a more direct comparison with productivity longevity, and the Prestige 14 Eve did a significantly better job at almost 10.5 hours. This is a new test for us so we don't have that many computers to compare it to. However, this value is only 22 minutes behind the Dell XPS 13 9310, the longest-lasting we tested and the laptop outperforms the older XPS 13 7390 with a 10th generation Core i7. Combine these two and the MSI can take the nine hours required for Evo certification.

I also ran the PCMark 10 gaming battery test which put a strain on the CPU and GPU. It replaces the Basemark web benchmark test that we ran in the past and that cannot be completed on Tiger Lake laptops. The Prestige 14 Evo took a little over 1.5 hours on the lower end of our limited database. The Acer Swift 5 lasted just under two hours, while the XPS 13 9310 was strong with almost four hours in this test.

Finally, I used our video test grinding a Full HD Avengers trailer and the Prestige 14 Evo took a little over 16 hours to complete. This is a strong score that surpasses the XPS 13 9310, Acer Swift 5, and ZenBook 14 UX425EA – largely thanks to the low-power display that MSI selected for the machine.

Ultimately, the Prestige 14 Evo gives you a full day of work unless you hit the CPU and GPU. And it will likely meet the Evo certification requirements of nine hours of typical use.

Our opinion

The MSI Prestige 14 Evo is the fastest Intel U-Series notebook we tested and outperforms any other example by a lot. It competes more strongly with the latest offerings from AMD than the rest of the class while offering decent battery life.

You won't indulge the build quality of the Prestige 14 Evo either, because for $ 1,199 you get a very well configured laptop with just one slightly flexible display that you can complain about. The laptop's biggest weakness is its display brightness, but it's a competitor everywhere else.

Are there alternatives?

The Asus ZenBook 14 UX425EA is a viable alternative to the MSI. Keep it in Performance mode and it'll stay in close proximity to the much faster Prestige 14 Eve, but you have to deal with louder fans. It's a bit more solid than the MSI, with an HDMI port and a better display. You spend about $ 100 more on the Asus and get the slightly slower Core i7-1165G7.

The Acer Swift 5 is another solid alternative to the Prestige 14 Evo. It's the next fastest Tiger Lake laptop, and it's about $ 100 more expensive too, while also sporting the slower Core i7. The Swift 5 is also lighter than the MSI and the display is brighter.

If you like the idea of a 2-in-1 then the HP Specter x360 13 is a great choice. It can also be outfitted with Tiger Lake, although we haven't had a chance to test the latest version yet, and features a stunning OLED display that will blow the Prestige 14 Evo's display away. You'll spend a little more on the same configuration, but you'll get a wonder that's a little smaller than the MSI.

Finally, the Dell XPS 13 remains one of the best laptops out there and should always be considered. The Tiger Lake update shows what may already be the perfect laptop. As you spend more on the XPS 13 and give up some of the MSI's performance, you get a great design to go with it.