MSI Modern AM271P 11M all in one computer review

Trade in MSI All in One

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

There was a time many moons ago when almost all personal computers were all-in-one designs. This configuration resulted from there being few common standards for connecting displays or even agreed on connectors.

When those standards evolved, computers became more flexible regarding monitors, though some designs, like the Apple iMac, embraced this single package concept afresh.

The MSI Modern AM271P 11M is the latest incarnation of the all-in-one model that has the advantage that the owner needs only to plug the power, a mouse and keyboard, to be almost ready to work.

Historically, many of these form factors has come with some significant limitations. What has MSI done to the Modern AM271P 11M to mitigate these issues, and does it make a good alternative to a standard laptop or desktop solutions?

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Price and availability

In Europe, the AM271P comes in two colours, black and white. Our review model was the 11M-023EU SKU, priced at £1,149 inclusive of VAT.

They also offer the AM241P 11M-001EU with less memory, 8GB not 16Gb, for £1,049 and Windows 10 Home installed, not Windows 10 Pro.

For those that like the concept but want even cheaper options, MSI has a 34-inch display AM241P variant with various CPU, memory and storage choices.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Design

Without closer inspection, it would be easy to assume that the MSI Modern AM271P 11M is a monitor.

Out of the box, the system comes with the support foot detached, and this needs to be screwed to the main chassis to be useable. The attachment uses VESA 75 standard holes, so you could put it on an expensive support arm, as there is no functionality in the foot that is necessary to run the system.

To keep the structure lightweight, a 120W external power pack is used, and in the retail version there is also a mouse, keyboard and webcam. These peripherals weren’t in our review box, so we can’t say if these items are any good or not.

Most of the ports are where you’d expect to find them on a monitor, in the centre, but there is also a large number on the bottom left edge, where they also put the power button.

The numerous ports available include USB in Type A and Type C, HDMI in and out, a Mic-in/Headphone-out combo and an Ethernet LAN port.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

The inclusion of HDMI in and out are interesting choices since they circumvent one of the classic all-in-one problems. These form factors are fine until one or another of the screen/computer combination no longer works, at which point you either have a monitor you can’t use with another computer or a computer you can’t see the output from.

With these HDMI ports, those problems are largely resolved, although to get it fixed, you will need to send the computer away, even if it is just a monitor issue.

This also provides a means to use a second display alongside the AM271P or to see the output from another system (or games console) on the screen.

For those curious about these things, the HDMI in port has electronics that makes it aware if another system is plugged in, and the screen will become powered even if the computer part of this combo isn’t running.

MSI kept the small joystick, called the 5-way Navigator here, to access an OSD menu to enable the selection of the inputs manually. Clearly, some thought went into how the screen and system would work to give the greatest flexibility.

Hardware

For those unfamiliar with the Intel i7-1165G7, this chip is a current Tiger Lake mobile CPU evolved from an overhaul of the uninspiring Ice Lake series that appeared in 2018.

The chip is designed to counter the encroachment by AMD with their Ryzen 4000 series mobile CPUs intended for use in high-end ultraportables.

Fabricated on a new 10nm SuperFin process, the Intel i7-1165G7 delivers significantly higher clock speeds and performance enhancements over its Intel i7-1065G7 predecessor, and it is swift at single-core processing.

It also has an enhanced GPU using the Intel Iris Xe architecture with many more execution units than the typical Intel UHD Graphics party.

The accompanying chipset supports up to 64GB of RAM, has Gen 4 PCIe on the Microprocessor side of the bus and has the capability to support Thunderbolt 4.

However, the Thunderbolt option wasn’t taken up by MSI in this design, unfortunately.

The hardware in the MSI Modern AM271P 11M demonstrates that mobile platforms are getting much closer to desktop performance, and most users will be completely unaware that under the skin, that’s what this system is.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

In use

There are so many wonderful things about this system, but balancing those are a few we wish were different. Let’s start with the best parts.

While it wouldn’t beat a desktop 11th Gen Core-i7 processor, the Intel i7-1165G7 is a powerful mobile chip, and with four cores and eight-thread processing, it can crunch some numbers very effectively.

And, with the screen only being 1080p resolution, the Iris Xe GPU looks less like the usual Intel slideshow and more like something that could be useful to those who occasionally do 2D or even 3D design work. It’s not discrete GPU good, but it’s certainly a notch up from the horrendous UHD specification GPUs that Intel has belligerently churned out for years.

When the CPU and GPU combine with pre-installed Windows 10 Pro, the user experience is generally a good one. The system is very responsive, and the NVMe storage delivers applications to the desktop reasonably smartly.

The IPS screen isn’t exceptionally bright or amazingly colour accurate, but it’s more than adequate for office tasks and large enough to be readable from a comfortable distance.

We’d of preferred that Thunderbolt had been used for the USB-C connections giving the flexibility for even more extra displays and even faster external drives, but at this price point, we can rationalise why it wasn’t included.

Where the AM271P is let down to a degree is in the Windows installation, with two choices that we didn’t like at all.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

The first is that the review system came with a 500GB NVMe that had been partitioned into two 250GB logical drives, with the OS on C drive, and the D drive labelled as ‘data’.

While this is exactly how we’d configure a Linux machine, but Windows has never fully embraced the notion of keeping applications and data separate, making this a mistake.

When the user realises that they have no space left on C drive, but plenty on drive D, they’ll start down a weary road of reorganisation with a live system already burdened with data.

That’s not user friendly, and neither is the amount of bloatware that MSI burdened this machine with.

Within ten seconds of powering up a machine Norton leaps onto the screen with its Chicken Little impersonation telling the user that the sky is falling, but they can hold it up for the cost of a yearly subscription.

And Norton isn’t the only uninvited software guest. MSI put many applications on this system few users will genuinely be happy to see them.

These included Skype, Spotify, MS Office Web Editions, multiple Xbox apps, Music Maker Jam, LinkedIn, Mix reality Portal and five multimedia apps from MSI. Out of these, the only ones that justify being here are the MSI created apps, in our opinion.

That system makers do this makes little or no sense. Because business systems are invariably rebuilt before deployment, removing all traces of this bloatware and home users will make it a priority to remove them at the very first opportunity.

And, one final complaint. When the system is being worked hard during a simulation, game or benchmark, the fan noise doesn’t take long to become noticeable and is louder than we’d expected. For those using office applications or surfing, they’ll probably not experience it, but for those with more demanding tasks, it might soon become annoying.

Performance

Many laptops that used 10th Generation Intel processors had mediocre performance, but thankfully the 11th Gen hardware in this system offers significant improvements.

Comparing this machine to prior Intel mobile machines we’ve covered, the difference in power between this machine and one using the 10th Gen i7-1065G7 processor is significant.

Using the HP Spectre x360 (2020) as a classic example of that platform, the GeekBench 5 single-core score has improved from 1,259 to 1,529 and on multi-core from 4,442 to a whopping 5,293. That’s roughly a  20 percentage points increase on both those scores.

Overall, this is a much better platform and the Iris graphics a marked improvement over the UHD Graphics that most Intel CPUs are saddled.

If there is a weakness here, the component budget didn’t have enough in it to include a better NVMe drive. The one used is a Western Digital PC SN530 NVMe SSD, a device designed to provide power efficiency on laptops, but that’s not a priority here.

In testing, the SN530 only managed 2,485MB/s reads and 1810MB/s sequential writes, making it one of the slower NVMe available. It’s still quick in comparison to a SATA SSD but hardly a standard-bearer for this storage technology.

(Image credit: Micro-Star INT’L CO., LTD)

Upgrades

It’s best to think of this system as a static laptop than a desktop regarding upgrades, as it has no accessible PCIe slots for video cards and the like.

And, upgrading the RAM or NVMe drive likely involves dismantling the entire system as it has no access panels to reveal these locations.

That’s a bit disappointing for those that might want to enhance their systems. However, you do get an access panel to a 2.5-inch SATA drive tray to add additional storage via either HDD or SSD of that form factor.

Therefore, upgradability isn’t a strong point of this design.

(Image credit: Micro-Star INT’L CO., LTD)

Final verdict

Leaving aside the way Windows 10 was made even less palatable than it already is on this system, the MSI Modern AM271P 11M is fundamentally a decent solution that is more platform than most people need to work from home.

For many users, the Core i7 processor has plenty of power. MSI makes cheaper 24-inch models, some with Core i5 class processors, for those who only need lower-intensity tasks. There is some easy method to add extra storage, but those wanting 1TB of NVMe probably need to specify the installation of that device at the point of purchase.

Considering how expensive some of the laptops are that use the Intel i7-1165G7 processor, the price is very competitive. And a bargain, when comparing it to a 27-inch Apple iMac with the same memory and storage.

The AM271P might not have a 5K display like the iMac, but it’s almost half the price.

We can see this design doing well with those businesses that are employing home-based staff and want to send out a single box that contains a complete system ready to use.

Once the IT staff have built a work-specific drive image with all the junk removed and business applications pre-installed and applied to this hardware, it shouldn’t take long for users to get a newly delivered system operational.

And, unless they need workstation levels of performance, this platform should more than cover their requirements.

Source: Techradar