TAIPEI—How much thought have you ever given to the design of your laptop? Even those of us who live and breathe technology are likely guilty of not realizing what a huge undertaking such a relatively small device can be. Not only is every part of it important, inside (processor, graphics, storage, sound) and out (the finish or paint job, ports, and peripherals), but all the individual pieces also have to work together—and then they have to work for the user. Doing it, and doing it right, is a big job, as I learned from the folks at MSI when they recently let me visit their offices here while I was in town for Computex 2012.
Jeans Huang, senior vice president of MSI's Research and Development Division, and one of the five founders who launched the company back in 1986, and his colleagues impressed upon me that each element of a laptop is considered, in depth and at length, before it's included in a model. The reasons for doing so may not always be what you think. In fact, Huang said, MSI rarely strives to make the least expensive or the most popular, but instead endeavors to fill markets and reach users who other laptop vendors do not.
"We provide an end-to-end solution," he said, explaining how MSI is one of the very few manufacturers that has not just its own R&D department, but handles everything in house, from design to manufacturing (Huang said most companies outsource this part) to marketing to sales. Because the company even constructs its own components — MSI is also well regarded as a maker of motherboards and video cards—any given laptop can be almost entirely MSI from the inside out.
As a result, he said, MSI laptops typically ship in lower quantities and with higher prices than many competitors ("it is not easy to compete with the tier-one brands"), but this gives the company a rare direct connection to its customers and complete control over its products. Huang cited a few examples of the role this relationship has played in the product development process and how it's affected the MSI worldview ("We're making things that are really what users need and desire," Huang told me).
For the upcoming Slider S20, which PCMag previewed earlier this week, MSI knew more than a year ago it would need to use Windows 8, and set out thinking about what sort of machine would work best with the touch-centered operating system. So the company surveyed its customers and learned how important keyboards were to them, even if they were otherwise tablet or ultrabook fans; that's why the Slider has one.
Because gaming laptops are all about power and finesse, whether they're being used for the latest first-person shooter or more intensive professional tasks such as animation rendering, every model is tested extensively by an in-house team of gamers who push the always-overclocked hardware to its limits and, starting with the current generation, each one will also be equipped with heavy-duty SteelSeries keyboards. Their stronger feel, elaborate backlighting, and unusually high 10-key rollover make them far from the cheapest out there. The 10-inch MSI Wind netbook that was launched several years ago was created specifically for Western users who wanted bigger keyboards than are typical in Asian markets.
Huang pointed out that there are some key differences between the laptops you see in the United States and, say, China. Screen sizes aren't quite the same (14 inches is common in Asia, but 15-inch displays are standard in the U.S.). Also, in countries where people more frequently carry around their laptops on buses and in subways, weight is an issue; MSI worries about that less in America, where a higher percentage of individuals own their own cars. Operating systems even vary a bit; Android tablets are popular in Asia, but don't plan on seeing them in the U.S. anytime soon.
Certain key things are the same the world over, however. Graphics performance remains the same regardless of where a laptop is sold. As does the strength and behavior of a laptop's hinge, especially if the laptop using it also has a touch screen; too much prodding and swiping can increase wear and tear on the hinge. Of course, the same is also true of audio quality, which was part of the reason MSI partnered with renowned Danish company Dynaudio, which brings its own audio exactitude to laptop design. Change even one component and the acoustic qualities of a machine can become drastically different; this requires constant tweaking on the part of both companies.
I ended my visit by taking a tour of the research and development lab, where I was able to see a number of products in various stages of development, from initial sketches to production-ready prototypes. Moving all the way from the initial conception to a finished product can take as long as three years, so MSI's R&D team has to constantly be investigating and following trends and thinking ahead about what might be popular (or not) tomorrow. And, as is always the case with departments like these, not everything that's devised in there will see the light of day.
But regardless of whether any given idea ends up for sale at Newegg.com or consigned to the garbage can, the process is a strong reminder that no technology product ever happens by accident. Every laptop has someone in its history who fought for a certain kind of keyboard, obsessed over the exact nature and sound of the audio it produces, or even stuck it in a wind tunnel to assess its cooling capabilities. (Yes, MSI uses a wind tunnel for just this purpose.) Check out our slideshow above for an in-depth look into MSI's R&D lab—chances are, after you've seen the photos, you'll be even more sensitive to the painstaking work that goes into creating the devices you use every day.
For more from Computex, see the slideshow below.
