CES 2019: MSI PS63 Modern Notebook, a 15.6-inch with 16 Hours Battery Life
by Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on January 15, 2019 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- MSI
- Trade Shows
- GTX 1050 Ti
- Whiskey Lake
- CES 2019
- PS63 Modern
Designed with content creators and designers in mind, the new 15.6" MSI PS63 Modern looks to make a bold statement. The key feature for this new notebook is the specifications: under the hood we get Intel's latest Whiskey Lake processor, combined with a GTX 1050 Max-Q graphics card, a 15.6-inch 1080p display, and yet MSI claims that this system will hit 16 hours of battery life. That's one hell of a combination.
Also included is Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0 for quicker mobile device charging on supported devices. This is so with its '16 hour battery life', a user could be on the system for 12 hours and get a full charge of a smartphone in a day.
With a similar specification and feature set as the new Dell XPS 15, MSI's model looks to be undoubtedly cheaper if their usual pricing model applies and could certainly turn a few heads with its touted 16-hour battery life and MSI True Color technology designed to produce close to near perfect sRGB (99.6%) color reproduction.
Some of the specifications of the MSI PS63 Modern include a 15.6" 1080p IPS panel which is powered by an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 or GTX 1050 Ti with Max-Q Design and 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. Memory support is limited to DDR4-2400, but up to a maximum of 32 GB can be installed, if not provided as standard. Aimed more at professionals, there is no flashy RGB keyboards, but MSI does include one of its smooth glass touchpads and has room for up to two M.2 NVMe capable SSDs. There's also a fingerprint reader too.
MSI's Creator Center software is included which made its first appearance in the MSI P65 Creator model last year. The Creator Center looks to optimize and include adjustable system modes for creative applications including MAGIX Photostory, Adobe's suite and even the Sony VEGAS Pro video editing software.
There are no details on the launch pricing or retail availability of the MSI PS63 Modern at present. The whole unit is built on a '16 16 16' principle: 16 hours battery life, 1.6 kg weight, and 16mm thick. This unit was easily one of the most impressive we saw at CES this year.
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darobin - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Why should anyone purchase a new laptop at this point with Intel's Ice Lake on the map for the next year? It's ridiculous to assume that any of these machines get what the manufacturers are claiming for them. BTW -- if a Lenovo Extreme has 80 watt hours, what could the MSI have? Certainly not 80.DanNeely - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
The spec page is up, it has 82Wh.https://www.msi.com/Laptop/PS63-MODERN-8RX/Specifi...
jeremyshaw - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Why "not 80?" The X1E is larger than the XPS 15, and the XPS15 has a 97Whr battery. Lenovo chose to implement a second M.2 at the cost of 17Whr of battery (~20% less than Dell XPS15).MSI will probably top out around 80Whr, given this is very similar to the ASUS Zenbook Pro 14 in specs.
HStewart - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
This depends on which configuration you get with XPS 15 - lowest end version use 55w battery and my XPS 15 2in1 4k screen has 75w - I get half of battery life but I have 4k screen and AMD discrete GPU on it - without the GPU my power requirements drop in half - it does mot matter too much to me - because I primary used it connect to 38 in Ultra wide.DanNeely - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
I'm probably a year or two from replacing my laptop; but this is very close to what I want for my next system.1) Thin enough and with an understated appearance that lets it pass without comment.
2) 15" slim bezels (so no bigger than the 14" laptops I carried for years at my last job).
3) A GPU that's fast enough that I can game while away from home without being so large and power hungry to defeat the goal of 1) as long as I turn down the settings and resolution.
4) All day non-gaming battery life.
5) High DPI display. I know I won't be able to game at native resolution and will cost me a few hours of battery life tax; but I'm willing to pay because it makes the 95% of time i use it for non-gaming purposes look so much better.
6) Not a Dell. (My XP13 is on it's 3rd battery in as many years because they keep bulging; all good will is gone).
This scores 5 out of 6, and being intended as a professional model there's a decent chance next years will offer a screen upgrade.
HStewart - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
You must have bad luck with batteries - I have one year old XPS 15 2in1 and two year XPS 13 2in1 and even a 20 YEAR OLD Dell Imspirion 7000 (300 mhs Pentium II ) which at time was the fastest notebook you could buy. I did have a HP notebook that is a brick - place usb drive into it and screen never come on. HP has serious lost quality since days of HP67 and HP41 CalculatorsDanNeely - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
When talked about on Arstechnica there were a lot of other people with early generation slim bezel XPS13 (not sure if also 15) who reported similar problems. Having 2 fail might be particularly bad luck (#3 is only a few months old, so I'm watching closely but not expecting signs of failure this early); but Dell apparently had something go wrong with the design.GreenReaper - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
Suggest you add hardware AV1 decode support in the graphics subsystem to that. It'll probably be the standard (at least on YouTube) for a while, and help keep it cool and quiet while playing video.Nexing - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
No Thunderbolt? No joy here.Actually at 2019, I am eyeing 2 x TB3 on the potential replacements to my trustworthy Sandy bridge laptop (where Expresscard and eSata, have been taking care of all my legacy connected devices; like those needing Firewire and also decent speeds with external SSDs.
HStewart - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
Even though I yet done it, Thunderbolt - give option for desktop graphics card - in my earlier days that would be a requirement but now things have change. I love having option for 2md TB3 on my XPS 15 2in1 but I only really use one of them - hook up to my dock.