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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bubblyboo - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
16 hour battery? Sure with brightness all the way down, dGPU not in use, etc.Manch - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Or instead of assuming, wait for the review and see.Dizoja86 - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
There's no need for assuming. The size of the battery needed to power a 1050 max-q (even without considering the power draw of other components) for 16 hours would be larger than this entire laptop.bubblyboo - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Am I assuming, or are you assuming this laptop has a 150Wh+ battery?DanNeely - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
The battery will be <100Wh. Anything larger and it's not legal to fly on a commercial aircraft.Manch - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 - link
LOL, I assumed nothing. I literally said "wait for the review and see"There is a lot of new tech meant to significantly reduce power draw. Batt life has improved steadily in laptops and other mobile devices. Sometimes they get it, sometimes, not. Don't know if any of it is in this laptop but, when reviews do come out, we will see if they can back up those claims or if it will be with a Barry Bonds ***.
namechamps - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link
One can make an educated guess. You can't get blood from a stone. At load a mobile GTX 1050 is going to pull at least 40W. The CPU another 30. Lets be generous and say the balance of the system is only 20W. Laptop batteries are limited to 100Wh to be airline compliant. So at best you are looking at an hour of runtime.Mantriur - Wednesday, March 20, 2019 - link
On Linux with a bunch of tweaks and the 1050 in low power profile, I got the idle consumption down to 10 watts. (Couldn't get the Intel GPU to work.) Under full load you're looking at 40 watts upward, around 15-20 watts with Thunderbird, Telegram, and Opera loading a page in power saving mode. Battery has 72 Wh. I get 5-7 hours real world use out of it.It packs a lot of punch into an in-flight power capable machine and the battery is huge considering the thing's size. It's a smart package and gets bonus points for near-full Linux support. (Installation needs a bit of hacking.) I really like it. But 16 hours are a pipe dream, even with the Intel GPU and Winblows.
DanNeely - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Yup, just like every other run time number.Sticking with 1080p60 also helps. Once you've optimized the power draw of everything else, the 4k screen power tax will cost a few hours of run time.
Flunk - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
I bet.