Tech
MSI Summit E16 Flip review: A solid laptop for content creators
At a glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Large screen in compact chassis
- Strong application and multimedia performance
- 1080p IR webcam
Cons
- Too big and heavy for general tablet use
- Competing models feature OLED displays
- Get noisy under heavy loads
Our Verdict
The MSI Summit E16 Flip is a roomy 16-inch 2-in-1 geared toward content creators with the latest Intel silicon and RTX graphics.
Price When Reviewed
$1,999
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MSI made its name with gaming laptops and desktops but has expanded to where it now offers a variety of business laptops. The Summit series sits at the top of its three business laptop lines and offers high-end features not available on the Prestige and Modern models. The Summit E16 Flip is the latest addition to the Summit series. It’s a 2-in-1 convertible laptop with a roomy 16-inch display powered by a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics.
As a laptop, the large, high-resolution display gives content creators room to work and its 165Hz refresh rate lets you dabble in some gaming after hours. As a tablet, the Summit E16 provides a huge canvas on which digital artists can jot, draw, and sketch with the included active pen. It’s less of a fit as a general-use tablet, however, because it’s a bit too big and heavy to hold one-handed. With its high-end hardware, huge display, and high price, the E16 Flip is a specialized 2-in-1 for creative professionals rather than business executives looking for a versatile system that can be used equally as a laptop and tablet.
MSI Summit E16 Flip specifications and features
Our MSI Summit E16 Flip (model A12UDT-006) is selling for $1,999 at Amazon and Newegg and features the following specs:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-1260P
- Memory: 32GB
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti @ 40 Watt TGP
- Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
- Display: 16.0 inch,16:10, 2560 x 1600 resolution with 165Hz refresh rate
- Webcam: 1080p with kill switch
- Connectivity: Left side: 2 x USB-C (with Thunderbolt 4), HDMI 2.1. Right side: 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, microSD card reader, combo audio jack.
- Networking: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
- Biometrics: IR facial recognition, fingerprint reader
- Battery capacity: 82 Watt-hours
- Dimensions: 14.12 x 10.15 x 0.70 inches
- Measured weight: 4.35 pounds (laptop), 0.79 pounds (AC adapter)
- Price: $1,999
The baseline MSI Summit E16 Flip model is currently selling for $1,699 and features the same Core i7 CPU as our test system, but drops you down to 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and RTX 3050 graphics. The middle configuration costs $1,899 for the Core i7 part, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and RTX 3050 Ti graphics. All three models are based on the 16-inch, 2560×1600 touch display and come with Windows 11 Pro.
Better laptop than tablet
A 16-inch 16:10 display is a popular pick among laptops geared toward content creation and for good reason: it provides ample screen real estate without getting too unwieldy. It’s easier to carry on your commute or down to your local coffee shop than a burdensome 17.3-inch 16:9 laptop. A 16-inch 16:10 laptop can be more compact and lighter, in fact, than a 15.6-inch 16:9 laptop. The Summit E16 Flip is one of a number of recent examples of a 16-inch content creation laptop with a squarer 16:10 aspect ratio. It follows the Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED and the HP Spectre x360 16, and the Dell XPS 17 can be included in this group but is an inch larger with a 17-inch 16:10 display.
The Flip’s display is not only big, but it’s also bright. It’s rated for 500 nits of brightness, and we measured it to be slightly brighter than that. Its 2560 x 1600 resolution creates a crisp image and one that we found produced accurate colors. It covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED and the HP Spectre x360 16 each feature a 4K display, but the 2560 x 1600 resolution provides ample pixel density on a 16-inch display that we aren’t yearning for a higher resolution on the Flip.
What we are left wanting is an OLED panel that both the Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED and the HP Spectre x360 16 have. An OLED panel boasts unparalleled contrast with true black. The Flip’s contrast ratio is decent, but it can’t match that of an OLED display.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
MSI includes an active pen with the Summit E16 Flip but offers no place on the system where you can stow it. The pen affixes magnetically to the left side of the laptop, which helps keep things organized on your desk but is less useful than a garaged pen would be during transit. The large display makes the system awkward to handle in tablet mode; the system is too big and heavy to handle one-handed. Digital artists, however, will appreciate the large canvas. While it’s too big for simple note-taking, it’s a great fit for content creation.
The Flip may not be the best fit for all tablet-related endeavors, but it will serve you well as a laptop. The roomy display gives you the needed space for multitasking and juggling multiple windows, and the laptop remains impressively thin and fairly light. It’s only 0.7 inches thick and weighs a reasonable 4.35 pounds. That’s light enough to take on a daily commute and on par with other 16-inch 16:10 laptops we’ve reviewed recently. By comparison the Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED weighs 4.30 pounds, and the HP Spectre x360 16 weighs 4.45 pounds.
While it’s not as bulky as a gaming laptop, it can certainly sound like one when its cooling fans rev up. During general Windows use, the Flip operates in near silence, but it can get quite loud when its fans are spinning at maximum speed during intensive graphics tasks.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
The Summit E16 Flip is light enough to take to the office each day and also looks the part. The laptop features an all-metal, corporate-black chassis with minimal adornment. There is an MSI logo on the lid and another on the bottom bezel below the display, but both are black and blend in with the rest of the monochrome look. The keyboard and touchpad are both black, and the only bit of chrome to be found is the narrow border framing the touchpad.
Webcam goes to 1080p
A 16-inch 16:10 laptop is a tweener in terms of including a numpad; some models like the Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED include it and others like the HP Spectre x360 16 do not. The Flip fits in a numpad and does so without putting the squeeze on the keyboard itself. The keyboard feels comfortable with the right Ctrl, Fn and Shift keys the only keys shortened as a result of the inclusion of the numpad. You do get four, full-sized arrow keys, which often get the half-height treatment with the presence of a numpad.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
The keys themselves feel soft with shallow travel. I would have preferred a snappier response when typing but enjoyed the firm keyboard deck that had no hint of flex. I also liked the three-level keyboard backlighting; it let me keep the lighting at the right level in a variety of darkened environments.
The touchpad is spacious and responsive. It accurately recorded my swipes and mousing gestures, and its click response is neither too mushy nor too firm.
Secure logins are important for any laptop and particularly so on a business machine, and the Summit E16 Flip doesn’t disappoint by providing an IR webcam and a fingerprint reader. The IR cam lets you use your face to log in via Windows Hello. And the webcam boasts a 1080p resolution that will make you look clearer on video calls than a 720p cam. There’s no physical shutter for the webcam, but there is a switch on the system’s left edge that kills the power to the camera to protect your privacy.
The laptop’s speakers are underwhelming. They don’t get very loud and sound tinny with nothing in the way of bass response. They’ll suffice for video calls and YouTube, but you’ll want headphones for music playback.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
IDG / Matthew Elliott
A pair of USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support highlight the Summit E16 Flip’s connectivity. It also features two USB Type A ports on the right side for connecting a mouse and older USB devices without needing a dongle. The inclusion of a microSD card slot is also an appreciated inclusion.
MSI Summit E16 Flip performance
Our MSI Summit E16 Flip features an Intel Core i7-1260P processor, 32GB of RAM, RTX 3050 Ti graphics, and a 1TB SSD. The Core i7-1260P is a member of Intel’s Alder Lake-P series that is the chipmaker’s new mainstream offering that provides performance while still allowing thin-and-light designs. These are 28-watt chips with Intel’s new hybrid architecture with performance and efficiency cores. The Core i7-1260P has four performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and a total of 16 processing threads.
Because we review more gaming laptops than content-creation laptops, we have pulled in some gaming systems to use as comparisons for the Flip. All feature lower-end GeForce RTX graphics, either a RTX 3050, 3050 Ti or 3060 GPU. You’ll see a mix of 11th- and 12th-gen Intel chips along with two AMD-based systems. The MSI Katana GF66 and Katana GF76 are the other two laptops with 12th-gen Alder Lake chips with the Flip.
Our first benchmark is PCMark 10, which measures performance on everyday computing work including office productivity tasks, web browsing, and video chats. The two MSI Katana laptops led the pack, and the Dell XPS 17 snuck in ahead of the Summit E16 Flip even though it uses a previous-generation CPU. Still, a score above 6,000 is excellent and proves the Flip is overqualified as a productivity machine.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
Our HandBrake benchmark tests how a laptop is able to handle crushing CPU loads over a lengthy period—in this case, transcoding a 30GB MKV file to a format suitable for Android tablets using HandBrake, the free video encoding utility. The Flip crushed the competition on HandBrake and even edged the pair of MSI Kanata laptops that feature a higher-powered, less efficient 12th-gen Core i7 chip.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
Next up is Cinebench, another CPU-intensive test but one that renders a complex 2D scene over a short period of time. The Flip did well, but the two MSI Katanas were able to overtake it on the multi-threaded test.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
IDG / Matthew Elliott
Even though it’s geared more toward content creation and media editing than 3D gaming, the Flip did well on 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark. It took third place behind the RTX 3060-based Dell XPS 17 and the higher-end of the two MSI Katana laptops.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
Although it’s not a gaming laptop, we wanted to see how the Flip might do as an after-hours gaming machine and ran two of our 3D gaming benchmarks, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Metro Exodus. It turned in a playable 64 fps when running the older Rise of the Tomb Raider game at 1080p on Very High presets. On the more demanding Metro Exodus, it managed only 21 fps, but the RTX 3060-based Dell XPS 17 didn’t fare much better.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
IDG / Matthew Elliott
To test the battery life, we loop a 4K video using Windows 11’s Movies & TV app, with the laptop set to Airplane mode and earbuds plugged in. We set the screen brightness at a relatively bright 250 nits to 260 nits, which is a good brightness for watching a movie in an office with the lights on. With its large, high-resolution display, the Flip lasted just over nine hours, which might get you through a workday on a single charge but not by enough that you could leave the charger at home.
IDG / Matthew Elliott
Alas, it’s OLED-less
As much as we love the expansive 16-inch 16:10 display in laptop mode, we caution you from lumping the MSI Summit E16 Flip in with the rest of the 2-in-1 business convertible crowd. We’ve seen smaller convertibles like the Lenovo Yoga 9i and the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio that provide less screen real estate but greater versatility because they feel more natural in tablet mode. The Summit E16 Flip, in contrast, is a convertible that converts between a luxuriously large laptop and content-creation tablet for drawing or sketching or otherwise using a specific graphics program. You will not want to navigate Windows or browse the Web in tablet mode on the Flip with any great frequency.
As a laptop, the Flip is impressively thin and fairly portable, given the size of its display. The display is big and bright with a high resolution, but the HP Spectre x360 16 convertible and the Asus VivoBook Pro 16X laptop are similar 16-inch 16:10 models around the same price that serve up an OLED display, which is a feature we’d imagine is higher on any creative pro’s wish list for their next laptop. We hope MSI delivers OLED goodness with the next update to the Flip.
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Tech
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 vs. AMD Radeon 6950 XT: Which GPU should you buy?
The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT has been an interesting GPU this generation. It’s both cheaper than the competing Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090—and sometimes faster, too. It’s now been refreshed with the RX 6950 XT, a late entrant into the tumultuous GPU market. Nvidia has also done its part with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, which brings impressive performance, albeit with a high cost and power draw at 450W TDP.
With the original RTX 3090 price recently decreasing slightly, it makes for an interesting comparison against the newer AMD RX 6950 XT. The RTX 3090 Ti offers more performance, but is significantly outside of the price bracket of the RX 6950 XT. Is this AMD refresh enough to push performance for AMD ahead of Nvidia, even in the murky waters of ray tracing? More importantly, does it move the needle for high-end gamers enough for them to switch their allegiance from Nvidia to AMD? Let’s find out!
Sapphire RX 6950XT
Brad Chacos
Nvidia RTX 3090 vs. AMD 6950XT: Price
Relax. You can easily find both GPUs in stock now at most retailers, and generally at close to MSRP. The GPU market has experienced a significant downturn during the last several months, with prices quickly dropping from their stratospheric levels.
The AMD RX 6950XT comes in at a $1,099 MSRP for the reference model, and some third-party models range from $1,199 to $1,299. A modest bump from the $999 6900XT pricing—but it does not mean they’re a great deal. With the declining GPU market and murmurs of the next-generation GPUs coming out this year, it has significantly dampened demand and enthusiasm for this level of GPU.
The Nvidia RTX 3090 has also experienced much lower demand, resulting in quickly falling pricing. While you’re still unlikely to find a $1,499 Founders Edition at MSRP, most models such as those from the EVGA RTX 3090 lineup have experienced a significant price drop, coming in as low as $1,609 for the Black series. (The 3090 Ti debuted at $1,999, a big increase over the RTX 3090—and it’s already being discounted at many retailers, too)
The pricing on the used market is even lower, however, with RTX 3090s dipping close to the $1,200 mark in many cases.
Neither model is a great price-to-performance choice this late into the release cycle, however. Most high-end gamers who don’t have a top-tier GPU will likely be best served by waiting for the next generation this year.
The AMD RX 6950 XT is the latest to test its mettle against Nvidia.
Thiago Trevisan
Nvidia RTX 3090 vs. AMD 6950XT: Performance
AMD certainly threw in a surprising performance with the original 6900 XT—it was able to match or beat the RTX 3090 in certain games and scenarios. Has the RX 6950 XT finally crossed the Rubicon in all performance areas? Not quite. When it comes to ray tracing performance, the RTX 3090 is still out ahead. (Check out Brad Chacos’ review for a deeper dive on the new AMD refreshes.)
Thiago Trevisan
In games such as Watch Dogs Legion with traditional rasterization, we can see the AMD RX 6950 XT performing as well or better than the RTX 3090 (especially at lower resolutions). This trend continues in other games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, where it’s able to keep up with the RTX 3090. Game after game, both GPUs trade blows and are highly competitive with each other.
Both GPUs have party tricks up their sleeves for performance, too. AMD has Smart Access Memory that can boost performance when coupled with a Ryzen CPU, along with Radeon Super Resolution. This will give it significant boosts in many games, besting the RTX 3090 in some cases, as shown below in Horizon Zero Dawn. Nvidia also has DLSS technology that does wonders for keeping graphical fidelity and high frames simultaneously—which is a gamer changer when paired with ray tracing.
Thiago Trevisan
What happens when we introduce ray tracing? That’s where Nvidia’s RTX 3090 still holds an advantage over AMD. The 6950 XT does not have upgraded ray tracing hardware when compared to the 6900 XT, keeping it behind the Nvidia RTX GPUs in this case.
It can be argued that there are diminishing returns for ray tracing visuals and performance, with varying results. The technology puts insane strain on performance, lowering frame rates significantly until you claw some back with the help of an upscaling technology like DLSS or AMD’s FSR. The visual impact doesn’t always make losing that performance worthwhile, either. But when it comes to the “halo” GPUs like these, ray tracing can be part of the reason you get a high-end GPU in the first place; you want to turn all the eye candy up to Ultra, including ray tracing. Paired with Nvidia’s DLSS, the performance penalty can be mitigated, and the visuals enjoyed fully.
This is one big advantage of the RTX 3090 versus the newer 6950 XT—maximum performance and visuals matter when you’re spending way over $1,000 for a GPU. AMD’s ray tracing hardware is a generation behind Nvidia’s implementation, while its DLSS rival, FSR 2.0, is great but still in its infancy, with only a handful of games supporting the fledgling technology at this point. That means ray tracing is best experienced at 1440p resolution on the 6950 XT, while you can usually crank ray traced games even at 4K on the 3090. If you’re not interested in ray tracing however, the 6950 XT is a mighty fine choice for significantly less cost.
Let’s not forget that the RTX 3090 is certainly better geared towards content creation and other workstation use cases, as well. With a whopping 24GB of GDDR6x VRAM, it will handily beat the 16GB RX 6950 XT in most content creation tasks. The 3080 Ti would be a more reasonable competitor to the 6950 XT in this case as a pure gaming solution.
Nvidia RTX 3090 vs. AMD 6950 XT: Power and other things to know
The RTX 3090 packs a TDP of 350W, with many third-party models eclipsing 400W. The RX 6950 XT comes in a 335W TDP, which is reasonable for the performance that it puts out. Remember, the 3090 Ti is already up to 450W TDP—so next-generation offerings will likely go up significantly in requirements.
You’ll want a minimum of a 750W power supply for both, but we’d recommend you up that even higher for future proofing—as high-quality power supplies tend to last a long time.
You’ll need a case with good airflow for both these options, and better clearance than lesser GPUs require. (They’re often wrapped in a nice, thick, beefy air coolers to keep their temperatures in check.)
Which is the better option for water cooling? We’d argue that the RTX 3090 is, since it likely will have a wider range of water blocks available on the market. Plus, with its steaming-hot VRAM, it often benefits more from taking a deep swim versus the typically cooler RX 6950 XT.
So, is the 6950 XT enough to best the RTX 3090?
The 6950 XT is a slightly more powerful addition to the high-end AMD lineup, putting up an impressive performance versus the RTX 3090. It’s simple: If you’re playing at higher resolutions and want to use ray tracing, Nvidia still holds an advantage here. DLSS and the Nvidia encoders are also great technologies that serve people well.
If you’re after pure frame rate goodness—without as much ray tracing, the 6950 XT can be often a much better choice than the RTX 3090, especially in sub-4K resolutions. AMD offers great technologies such as FSR, Smart Access Memory to really up the performance too.
So, who wins? Unfortunately, the 6950 XT comes in too late in the release cycle to be relevant in the rapidly declining GPU market, making it an expensive option. The aging RTX 3090 is a similar story. Its high price was never a very good option for purely gaming—making better use for hybrid content creators/gamers instead. The RTX 3090 Ti is an even worse value proposition this late into the story, making it only relevant for a few high-end enthusiasts who don’t mind the price tag.
3090 Ti: The symbol for diminishing returns in an ever changing market. Beautiful, but flawed!
IDG
The verdict: This is a good ole’ fashioned standstill. We’d wait out the market a few months as both will experience even steeper declines in price with the introduction of the next generation. Otherwise, if you really must have one now, the decision will come down to ray tracing preference and resolution you’re playing at. Both GPUs will give you good, all-around performance for years to come—but neither are a great choice right now as the GPU market is rapidly changing this year.
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Tech
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Tech
Confessions of an in-house creative strategist on feeling unfulfilled, difficulty in returning to agencies as the ‘pay is less’
The war for talent between agencies and brands’ in-house agencies has cooled. Even so, for adland talent who’ve made the move in-house, some say they are looking to go back to agencies after feeling creatively stifled. It’s not the easiest strategy to execute.
In the latest edition of our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for candor, we hear from an in-house creative strategist about their experience, why they want to go agency-side now and how pay is keeping them from doing so.
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
What’s the in-house experience like?
I’ve been in-house for about a year. It’s very one-sided. The difference between agency and in-house is that with agencies, there [are] a lot of opinions and ideas [outside of the brand message] that go into creative. With in-house, you have the brand’s message and all creative is reflective of the brand’s message. With in-house, regardless of trends in the market, it’s a lot of ‘we’re going to stick to this one way of doing things’ mentality. It’s a lot of opinions about what the creative should be based on what it has been before. It makes it hard to introduce something fresh. It makes it hard to hire or be a new hire. If you’re not actually going to adhere to advice from new hires, what’s the point in getting new people? Are you just bringing people on board for a second opinion? That’s what it feels like.
Sounds like you don’t have the creative control you desire.
It feels like more of a second opinion role than to get something to manage or control. [Where I am now] it feels like we’re leaning more into what [our strategy] used to be than thinking about what we could be. That’s a big issue with in-house. With agencies, like I said, there’s a lot more trial and error. With in-house, a lot more of this is what we’re doing, these are the funds we have and this is what has worked in the past. In reality, a lot of what worked in the past, when you put it back into the market, it’s not going to work anymore.
Why do you think it’s more challenging to get to a new creative strategy in-house?
With agencies, you have multiple perspectives. You’re working on multiple brands. You can see something working for another brand and talk to your client about it. You can pivot. You have the background and perspective to [pitch that pivot]. When you’re in-house, you only have the knowledge of your brand and what’s working for you.
Are you looking to go back to agencies?
Personally, I am looking to go from in-house to agency but I get paid a lot more being in-house than what I’ve been offered at agencies. I’ve been in interviews with agencies where they’re telling me that I’ll be learning [programs I already know how to use] so that’s why the pay is less than what it should be. There are agencies I’ve interviewed with who ask me to move to New York for less than what I make now and make that work. [With inflation,] there’s no reason why salaries aren’t also increasing.
So you’d like to make the jump creatively but it’s hard when the compensation isn’t up to what in-house offers?
It’s hard. I’ve been lowballed, too. They’ll post a salary for a position, go through the interviews and then offer less than what’s listed on the salary description. What was the point of putting the salary range there? I feel like people are putting salary ranges on job descriptions just to attract people with the experience that they are looking for but by the time they make the offer, it’s not what they said it would be. It’s offensive.
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