MSI PS63 Modern: hands-on review

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This is a hands-on review of the MSI PS63 Modern to give you the chance to see what the new notebook is all about as soon as possible. We'll be expanding and upgrading this review shortly with more information and a score.

The MSI PS63 Modern is the latest high-end laptop aimed at pro creatives from celebrated Taiwanese gaming company MSI. Part of the company’s Prestige series, the 15.6-inch notebook has been built with designers and content creators in mind, and promises to pack a serious performance punch. 

Headline features include Intel's latest Whiskey Lake processor and GTX 1050 Max-Q graphics card, 32GB RAM and dual SSDs. Meanwhile, near-perfect sRGB colour reproduction and a super-svelte 1.65kg weight place the new MSI PS63 Modern firmly in line with leading ultrabooks like the MacBook Pro and Dell XPS 15.

So will the new MSI PS63 Modern be a MacBook Pro killer? We were able to have a very brief look at the MSI PS63 Modern at CES 2019: we’ll be publishing a full review of the laptop very shortly, but here are our first impressions. 

MSI PS63 Modern: price and availability 

Pricing and availability for the MSI PS63 Modern haven’t been announced yet, but the company says the laptop will ship sometime this year.

MSI PS63 Modern: Design and display

The PS63 Modern is an attractive laptop, with a slick carbon grey chassis and diamond-cut edges. Designed with portability in mind – it’s 16mm thick and weighs 1.6kg – we liked how lightweight the machine felt in our hands.

The 15.6-inch 1080p IPS display has thin 5.6mm bezels and a drop-down hinge design for more screen real estate. MSI says that it produces near perfect sRGB colour reproduction (99.6%), which we’ll test in our full review. Certainly images appeared vibrant, vivid and sharp in the short time we had with the MSI PS63 Modern.

MSI PS63 Modern: Performance

It’s tough to meaningfully discuss the performance of a laptop in a hands-on review, but the hardware options certainly look promising. 

Boasting up to the latest eight-generation Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM and the potential for dual SSDs – plus optional discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q graphics with 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM – the MSI PS63 Modern should be able to make light work of demanding video-editing and graphic design tasks. 

MSI's Creator Center software aims to further optimise performance by adapting to whichever program you're using. If you’re editing images in Photoshop, for instance, it’ll ramp up CPU usage; if you’re gaming it’ll increase GPU output.

Another headline feature is MSI’s impressive “all-day” 16-hour battery life claim. If it’s true, this would make the PS63 Modern a tempting choice for creatives who need to work on the go. We’ll be testing how long the laptop can last with one charge in our full review. 

The MSI PS63 Modern has a backlit keyboard and feels snappy under your fingers

There’s also a larger trackpad with integrated fingerprint reader and multi-finger gesture support, making navigation easier and reducing the need for a mouse on the go. We really liked the silky smooth glass texture, and found it to be responsive and accurate in our brief time with the MSI PS63 Modern. We also liked the backlit keyboard, which felt snappy under our fingers. 

As you’d expect, the MSI PS63 Modern comes with a slew of ports, including a Type-C USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, two Type-A USB 3.1 ports, an HDMI, microSD card reader and a headphone/mic combo jack. 

The MSI PS63 Modern laptop has a good selection of ports

It comes with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology too, so you can charge your camera phone faster when you’re out and about. And the MSI PS63 Modern is Quiet Mark certified, too, so it shouldn’t distract you when you’re working. 

The final standout feature worth mentioning is the compact power adaptor. MSI has worked hard to significantly reduce its size. The company says its almost 40 per cent smaller than regular power bricks, making it easier to carry around the world. 

Early verdict

Is the MSI PS63 Modern a MacBook Pro killer? We'll let you know in our full review

The MSI PS63 Modern looks and feels like a premium laptop. It’s sleek, lightweight and promises to pack a real punch in the performance stakes. 

The 16:9 screen is also fantastic: colour and detail looked stunning in the CES 2019 showroom. We do wish it was 4K, but unless you’re a video editor or photographer who works with 4K content, 4K on a 15-inch display isn't that useful. (You can hook it up to a 4K monitor, anyway, if you need to.) For many creatives, a great 1080p laptop will more than suffice at this size – and should save you cash too. 

All-in-all, the MSI PS63 Modern looked impressive at CES. If you’re a designer or content-creator looking for an Apple laptop-alternative, we think it'll be a strong contender this year. A full MSI PS63 Modern review will be coming very shortly. 

• Also read: Dell XPS 13 (2019) review 

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