MSI is known for its great gaming laptops, so when I was offered the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo for review, I was surprised. The 2-in-1 market is usually dominated by HP, Lenovo, and even Dell, so I wondered if the E14 Flip Evo could be good enough to compete.
After two weeks of using the 2-in-1, you might be surprised by what I’m about to say. This is, in fact, one of the best 2-in-1 Windows devices I’ve ever used. It’s also worthy of being one of the best MSI laptops, too. With a premium design, a spacious 16:10 aspect ratio display, the power of Intel’s P-series CPU, and one of the best keyboards I’ve used in a convertible, this is a Windows 2-in-1 that’s worth buying, even at its high $1,700 price. Only an annoying trackpad and a very strange MSI Pen hold it back from being the perfect device.
- The MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo is a great Windows 2-in-1 with a lot of power under the hood and a really great design.
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Navigate this review:
- MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo pricing and availability
- MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo specs
- Design: It is heavy, but built tough
- Display and pen: Bright and color accurate, but the pen is weird
- Keyboard: Comfy and spacious
- Performance: Intel’s P-series chips for the win
- Should you buy the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo
MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo: Pricing and availability
- There are many different configurations of the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo. You can find it at Newegg, and other third-party retailers starting at $1,400
- The model sent to me for review is fully upgraded and comes priced at $1,700
The MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo is available today at Newegg, Best Buy, Micro Center, Ant Online, and Amazon. You can choose from a variety of models, including ones with the 12th generation Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 CPU. Storage options range from 1TB to 512GB PCIe, and RAM ranges from 16GB to 32GB.
This 2-in-1 starts at $1,400 but, of course, as you upgrade RAM storage and the CPU, the price will also go up. My unit was fully upgraded to the Intel Core i7-1260P, with 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. It costs $1,700 on Newegg. Bumping to the Intel Core i7 CPU will automatically get you a bigger SSD, as well as more RAM.
MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo specs
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Design: It is heavy but built tough
- The MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo is heavier than other 14-inch 2-in-1s, but feels premium and isn’t as flashy
- There are a lot of ports to enjoy
- The device picks up a lot of fingerprints because it has a matte finish
These days, it seems like most companies want to make 2-in-1s thin and light. As soon as I took the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo out of the box, though, I realized MSI wasn’t going that route. I know many prefer computers to be on the thinner side, but I love computers that feel heavy. It’s what I associate with premium builds. This MSI device is heavy and made of materials that’ll make you proud that you own it.
For weight reference, this MSI weighs in at 3.61 pounds and measures 12.56 x 8.62 x 0.63 inches. A competing 2-in-1, the Lenovo Yoga 9i, is around the same size and weighs 3.09 pounds. Even the 15-inch Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 weighs less at just 3.11 pounds.
The first place you’ll notice that premium feel will be the chassis. When I pressed my hands on the metal alloy bottom cover there was no bending. The materials on the bottom really make it feel premium and even carry over to the keyboard deck, which is just as strong.
Other than that, I was happy to see that the base of the laptop lifts at an angle when you open the lid, which helps make typing comfortable. Then, the plastic-looking hinges that hold the screen down feel quite rigid when converting the 2-in-1 over into various tent, tablet, laptop, or stand modes. There are even ventilation grills that face the top of the screen to keep the palmrest and other critical parts of the device cool.
This definitely isn't as flashy as other 2-in-1s. It is plain, simple, and built tough.
The only downside to the design is that the lid and keyboard deck really collect fingerprints, especially when converted over to tablet mode, thanks in part to the matte black finish. Some might not also like the way the rear of the device is angled, but I think it’s a nice touch that adds some bling to an otherwise all-black, standard-looking 2-in-1. This isn’t as flashy as a Lenovo Yoga 7i or Lenovo Yoga 9i; it’s plain, simple, and built tough for professional users.
Most other, smaller 2-in-1s don’t come with a lot of ports, but MSI thought differently with this 14-inch model. There’s HDMI, Thunderbolt 4 USB-C, a microSD card slot, and a USB-A port — basically everything you need to avoid a dongle. There’s even a webcam kill switch on the side of the chassis for added privacy. That’s in addition to the Windows Hello webcam and fingerprint reader, which are great for professionals.
There’s also built-in Tile tracking, so if you lose this device, you can track it with your phone. You can even Ring the PC when it’s turned off. That builds on other intelligent features like Tobii Aware, which can help blur the screen when you step away or dim the screen when you look away to save battery.
Display and pen: Bright and vibrant, but the pen is weird
- The 14-inch display is tuned to the 16:10 aspect ratio, which is great for productivity
- The display is super glossy but gets very bright, and the color accuracy is only alright for a device of this class
- MSI included a pen with the device, but it feels awkward to use
- There’s a 1080p FHD webcam
The display on the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo reminds me of a product I tried last year, the Lenovo Yoga 7i Pro. The E14 Flip Evo has the same resolution but does seem a bit brighter and more color accurate. The display still is a standard IPS, though, and not OLED, so it isn’t as good for content-creating tasks as the new Lenovo Yoga 9i or Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 are. Again, though, this is a 2-in-1 for business professionals or the prosumer, so it’s unlikely that’ll matter.
Either way, I did enjoy the display on the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo. One day, my internet went out and I was forced to work at the library. I took the MSI with me on the go, and the 16:10 aspect ratio display meant I could stack two Microsoft Edge windows side by side and multitask. It’s so much taller and wider than what I’m used to with 16:9 screens and gives you a lot more room to work with.
It’s also great for watching videos. At one point, with my mom and dad next to me on the sofa, I propped up the MSI in tent mode and we watched a YouTube video showcasing the forests in my parent’s home country, Guyana. We watched on a rainy day, so the lights were on in our house. Still, I noticed the screen was bright, and my mom even mentioned that the parrots in one scene looked really colorful. I appreciate the high brightness, as this is a glossy display panel, but at low brightness, you can see your reflection.
The display is bright and colorful, and there's more room to work with thanks to the 16:10 aspect ratio.
The numbers I got on my colorimeter reflected what my mother hinted at when we watched YouTube videos. The display hit 88% AdobeRGB, 83% NTSC, 93% of P3, and 100% of the sRGB spectrums. With an IPS display like this one, we typically see anything above 80% in these categories as good, so the display exceeded my standards. My colorimeter also showed that the screen hit 489 nits of brightness, which is plenty bright. Even the contrast hit above our 1,000:1 standard for IPS panels, with my colorimeter showing a 1,320:1 ratio.
Using the MSI as a tablet, though, is a weird experience. When holding in tablet mode, the back of the screen extends a bit beyond the bottom base, giving you room to hold it between your fingers. I think that makes up for the loss of the thicker bottom bezel with the switch to a 16:10 aspect ratio. The display is taller, so it’ll extend out more when converted. The lack of a thicker bottom bezel also means there’s less room to grab it with your hands in tablet mode.
However, what’s most interesting is the pen MSI provided with the review unit. There are no removable batteries like on an older Surface Pen, so it has to recharge with USB-C via a slot on the side. I did find this odd as somebody who used the traditional Surface Pen. There’s also no place to house the pen on the chassis, so I awkwardly kept it in my pocket or on my draw when it wasn’t in use. Other than that, the pen feels way too light in my hands when drawing on the screen, and I felt it sliding between my fingers. I do like how the tip of the pen is closer to resembling the point of an actual pencil, but I would not suggest artists try this pen.
Oh, and there’s a 1080p webcam at the top of the display. It’s beyond the 720p that used to be standard on laptops and even includes active noise cancelation technology onboard. I think I looked very good on my weekly Google Meet calls, even on a cloudy day rainy day when there wasn’t a lot of light in my room.
Keyboard: Comfy and spacious
- The keyboard is really responsive
- However, the trackpad is terrible and annoying
I used the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo every day for work over the past two weeks, and there’s one big reason why – the keyboard. It’s set in the middle of the chassis, not edge-to-edge, and I think that was a good choice. The keycaps are very large and evenly spaced out, and I felt they were very soft and responsive. I excelled in Bing’s typing test as a result, hitting close to 85 words per minute. It’s one of the most accurate keyboards I’ve used on a laptop this year.
Unfortunately, the trackpad is downright annoying to use. The response is harsh and isn’t quite consistent. It also makes a loud clicking noise when you tap hard on it. To avoid this, I ended up tapping on the touch surface with my finger, instead of clicking down on the surface like I would on a mouse. At least the trackpad is evenly spaced, though. I had enough room to rest my palms on the side when typing.
Performance: Intel’s P-series chips for the win
- Intel’s P-series chips make this a really well-performing machine
- The battery life is also great
By now, you probably know a lot about Intel’s 12th-generation mobile CPU lineup, but I’ll repeat the basics for newcomers. Intel’s P-series chips that are on this unit sit between the high-power H-series on gaming laptops and the low-power U-series on much thinner and lighter devices. This chip runs at 28 watts and is popular in many competing 2-in-1s that I included in the chart below.
The specific chip in my review device is the Intel Core i7-1260P. It has 12 cores (4 efficiency, 8 performance), 16 threads, and a 4.70 GHz Turbo boost. It’s also paired with 32GB of RAM.
Generally speaking, I think this Intel CPU helps make the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo a really good-performing machine. I had no issues with it slowing down during my daily productivity tasks, which involved using Microsoft Edge with a daily mix of 10+ tabs while hooked up to a 4K display. I did see some lag in playing 4K videos, but it didn’t happen often. I even installed Windows Insider builds on the system through Oracle Virtualbox and had that running on top of Microsoft Edge on a 4K display, and it didn’t slow the system down.
This is a great performing everyday 2-in-1 thanks to Intel's P-series CPU.
Since it carries the MSI branding, I even played GTA V on this system. It played at 18.5 FPS on high settings and closer to 40 FPS on medium settings at 1080p. That’s not ideal, of course, but when you consider that there are fans on board, it’s not shocking to see that Intel’s Iris Xe graphics can play games when you tune down the settings to the right levels. I still think that this is more of a system for very light use with Photoshop and Lightroom than anything else. If you push it to the extremes, you’ll face performance issues.
Overall, this is a good everyday system, which you can see with the Crossmark and PC Mark 10 scores. Crossmark scores push the system close above the 1,500 scores I usually look for. Then, with PC Mark 10, which stresses the CPU and simulates everyday tasks, the score is almost even across competing 2-in-1 models. The multi-core score numbers on our other tests might scare you, as they’re well off what you’d get with a Lenovo or Samsung, but don’t let that fool you. This machine still performs really well for the form factor in my real-world tests.
| Test run | MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo (Intel Core i7-1260P) | Lenovo Yoga 9i (Intel Core i7-1260P) | Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 (Intel Core i7-1260P) | Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 (AMD Ryzen 7 5700U |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PC Mark 10 | 5,011 | 5,616 | 5,362 | 5,320 |
| 3D Mark: Time Spy | 1,658 | 1,8211 | 1,821 | 1,256 |
| Geekbench 5 (single/multi) | 1,680/7,296 | 1,696/9,177 | 1,696/9,177 | 1,151/6,099 |
| Cinebench R23 (single/multi) | 1,556/5,822 | 1,649/7,949 | 1,649/7,949 | 1,233/7,768 |
| CrossMark (overall/productivity/creativity/responsiveness) | 1,628/1,552/1,740/1,538 | DNR | DNR | DNR |
Regarding battery life, we consider 5-6 hours the standard for an Intel-based Windows laptop in 2022 that performs everyday tasks. With my web browsing, watching YouTube videos, and workflow in WordPress, the MSI got me through 6.5 hours of work on a single charge without being hooked up to a monitor. That is with the screen set at around 30% brightness and Windows set to best power efficiency. I briefly changed over to best performance for the second day of tests, and the difference wasn’t that extreme. Instead of 6 hours, I got closer to 4.5 or 5 hours. Hooked up to a 4K monitor on battery with best power efficiency, meanwhile, got me to just under 4 hours. Your results will vary, but I do think you’ll hit the 5-6 hour standard.
Should you buy the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo
You should buy the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo if:
- You’re a professional who wants a premium-feeling 2-in-1
- You want a laptop that can last through a workday
- You need a comfortable keyboard
You shouldn’t buy the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo if:
- You don’t like heavy laptops
- You need a device for creative work
- You want to play video games on it
During my time with the MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo, I found it difficult to put it down during work hours. It’s a neat system that packs a lot of power and has enough battery life to get you through a workday of basic tasks. The keyboard is also comfortable to use, although the trackpad sucks. Overall, it will be difficult to send it back after my 90-day loan period.
- The MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo is a great Windows 2-in-1 with a lot of power under the hood and a really great design. You just need to worry about the bad trackpad.
The post MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo review: A powerful 2-in-1 that challenges the best in class appeared first on XDA.
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