PowerPro P 15:3 (MSI MS-1651) Review

by Kevin O'Brien

The PowerPro P 15:3 (MSI MS-1651) is a compact gaming notebook that packs a big punch with a slim 15.4" form factor. This notebook offers an NVIDA 9600M GT graphics card, optional Blu-ray drive, HDMI out, and all the other bells and whistles that you would want from a multimedia powerhouse. With a sleek and stylish brushed aluminum finish and a starting configuration price of $1,299, should this notebook be on your list of computers to check out? Read this review and find out.

Our MSI MS-1651 configuration:

• Intel Core2 Duo Processor P9500 (2.53GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 6MB L2 cache)
• NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT with 512MB of GDDR3 discrete video memory
• 15.4" WSXGA Matte Display (1680 x 1050 max. resolution)
• Genuine Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) SP1
• 4GB (4096MB) DDR2 800MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 x 2048MB modules)
• 250GB 7200rpm Serial ATA hard drive
• 8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVDRW
• Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Web Cam
• 6-cell 10.8v 4800mAh battery, 90w power supply
• 3-Year Warranty with Next Business Day shipping paid both ways when purchased as the Power Pro P 15:3 via PowerNotebooks website

Build and Design

The design of this notebook is very nice, with a cool looking silver on black appearance. The screen lid and keyboard palmrest is made up of brushed aluminum, which even includes the touchpad buttons. The media buttons are flush mounted on a matte plastic panel that is entirely touch sensitive except for the main power button. The overall look is very stylish for a gaming notebook, and has nothing too out of the ordinary compared to the lengths some manufacturers go with exotic colors and LEDs.

Build quality is above average with excellent fit and finish. The palmrest is very rigid, helped in part by the top layer of brushed aluminum no doubt. The same rigid surface is also found on the screen lid which feels very solid and gives a great deal of protection to the LCD under it. While I normally don't enjoy all latchless notebooks because of how weak the tension to keep the notebook closed is, MSI incorporates strong magnets to assist with locking the lid down. You really need to wedge your finger between the lid and palmrest to open it up easily.

One of my more OCD concerns with notebooks is fingerprints and smudges and my first thought was this notebook should hold up pretty well since it doesn't have a glossy surface. It turns out that the brushed aluminum finish is a magnet for smudges, as all of the little grooves easily pickup the oils on your finger and make the surface appear darker than the surrounding bits. Some of these spots end up being more difficult to wipe off than those found on glossy notebooks. If you are the type who likes to keep a notebook really clean, it would be keen to have a small bottle of cleaner and a wipe stored in your laptop case... well that or wear gloves.

Display

The MSI MS-1651 has a WSXGA+ matte display which is very pleasing on the eyes, but not the brightest screen we have come across. The matte finish is very smooth which doesn't cause much sparkle on solid colors displays on the screen, such as a white background while surfing the web. Viewing angles are better than average, with a broad sweet spot vertically before colors start to invert. Horizontal viewing angles stay true even while moving to steep angles looking in from the edge of the panel. The overall brightness of the panel is less than other gaming notebooks we have reviewed, leaving a bit to be desired in a bright office setting. Colors appear are clear and vibrant, but not as oversaturated as what you might find on a notebook that has a glossy panel.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard has a fullsize layout, which isn't always found on a 15.4" notebook. While the addition of the number pad is nice, the primary section of the keyboard ends up feeling cramped. The standard direction pad is slimmed down, the rightside shift key is the size of a normal letter, and the symbols such as "." And "/" are abnormally small. The typing surface feels solid when you press firmly on the keyboard, but it has a 1-2mm gap between the keyboard and underlying structure that makes the thing bounce when typed on. The individual key action is smooth with quiet feedback.

The touchpad is pretty large coming in at roughly 3" wide and 2" tall. Sensitivity is great at default settings, and the Synaptics settings give you a wide range of adjustment if you want a heavier or lighter touch. The touchpad buttons felt awkward to use, needing more pressure than most touchpad buttons to click. The design is such that the buttons are made up from the same surface as the palmrest, with a cutout to shape the button and let it move independent of the surrounding surface. You end up needing more weight behind your click, and the click itself is hard with shallow feedback.

Performance

System performance with the Intel P9500 Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA 9600M GT graphics card was great for handling the latest games with tweaked video settings. Portal easily pushed 90-130FPS at the full 1680x1050 native resolution of the display. Crysis while being a much higher tasking games topped out at 29FPS on medium settings at 1280x800 resolution. Synthetic benchmark scores backed up our real life findings, also producing very good scores. The 7200.3 Seagate hard drive helped out quite a bit for fast boot and shutdown times, as well as reduced waiting times for new map loads while gaming.

wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, this processor benchmark program is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, it measures the amount of time to run a set amount of calculations.

wPrime comparison results (lower scores means better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
MSI MS-1651 (Core 2 Duo P9500 @ 2.53GHz)	30.185s
Gateway P-7811 FX (Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz)	33.366s
HP Pavilion HDX18 (Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	27.416s
Acer Aspire 6920 (Core 2 Duo T5750 @ 2.0GHz)	44.457s
HP Pavilion HDX (2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9500, Windows Vista 64)	28.978s
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz)	34.628s
HP Pavilion dv5z (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 @ 2.1GHz)	39.745s
Dell Inspiron 1525 (Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 2.0GHz)	43.569s
Dell XPS M1530 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.485s
HP Pavilion dv6500z (Turion 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	40.759s
Sony VAIO NR (Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz)	58.233s
Toshiba Tecra A9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	38.343s
Toshiba Tecra M9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.299s
HP Compaq 6910p (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz)	40.965s
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240s
Lenovo T61 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz)	37.705s
HP Pavilion dv6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz)	38.720s

PCMark05 measures overall notebook performance (higher scores are better):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
MSI MS-1651 (2.53GHz Intel P9500, NVIDIA 9600M GT 512MB)	6,688 PCMarks
Gateway P-7811 FX (2.26GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9800M GTS 512MB)	6,815 PCMarks
HP Pavilion HDX18 (2.8GHz Intel T9600, Nvidia 9600M GT 512MB)	6,587 PCMarks
Acer Aspire 6920 (2.0GHz Intel T5750, Intel X3100)	4,179 PCMarks
HP Pavilion HDX (2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9500, Nvidia Go 8800M GTS 512MB)	6,921 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (2.26GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9300M GS 256MB)	5,173 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv5z (2.1GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80, ATI Radeon HD 3200)	3,994 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 1525 (2.0GHz Intel T7250, Intel X3100)	4,149 PCMarks
Dell XPS M1530 (2.20GHz Intel T7500, Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB)	5,412 PCMarks
Dell Inspiron 1520 (2.0GHz Intel T7300, NVIDIA 8600M GT)	4,616 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	4,153 PCMarks
Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB)	4,189 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results:

3DMark06 represents the overall graphics performance of a notebook. (Higher numbers indicate better performance.)

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
MSI MS-1651 (2.53GHz Intel P9500, NVIDIA 9600M GT 512MB)	5,757 3DMarks
Gateway P-7811 FX (2.26GHz Intel P8400, NVIDIA 9800M GTS 512MB)	9,355 3DMarks
HP Pavilion HDX18 (2.8GHz Intel T9600, Nvidia 9600M GT 512MB)	4,127 3DMarks
HP Pavilion HDX (2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9500, Nvidia Go 8800M GTS 512MB)	8,791 3DMarks
HP Pavilion HDX (2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB)	4,205 3DMarks
Gateway P-171XL FX (2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo X7900, NVIDIA Go 8800M GTS)	8,801 3DMarks
Toshiba Qosmio G45 (2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300, NVIDIA Go 8600M GT)	3,775 3DMarks
Toshiba Qosmio G45 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA Go 8600M GT)	2,934 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 1720 (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600M GT)	2,930 3DMarks
Dell Inspiron 1420 (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	1,329 3DMarks
Sony VAIO FZ (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	532 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	1,408 3DMarks
Asus F3sv-A1 (Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz, Nvidia 8600M GS 256MB)	2,344 3DMarks
Alienware Area 51 m5550 (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB	2,183 3DMarks
Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1526 (1.66 Core Duo, nVidia 7600Go 256 MB)	2,144 3DMarks
Asus A6J (1.83GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB)	1,819 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	827 3DMarks
Sony VAIO SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	794 3DMarks

HDtune results:

Speakers

Speaker performance on the MS-1651 leaves a bit to be desired in bass and midrange, but it does have adequate volume levels for listening to music or movies in loud areas. The speakers are located near the screen hinges beneath grills built into the touch sensitive media control panel.

The headphone output is clean without any distortion or noise. Volume levels are great even with my larger Sennheiser HD-80 headphones.

Ports and Features

Port selection is very nice for a 15.4" notebook, offering a wide range of outputs and inputs. One nice feature that is starting to be common on many notebooks is the eSata/USB combo port, which helps cramming more ports in less space. The multi-card reader holds SD cards nearly flush mount and is spring loaded when a card is inserted. One thing worth noting is the half-sized SD card blank used in the slot initially, and its tendency to get jammed into the slot needing pliers to remove.

I/O Ports

• ExpressCard/54
• VGA and HDMI
• E-SATA/USB Combo : 1
• USB 2.0 : 2
• IEEE 1394 : 1
• Line-In, Line-Out, Mic, Headphone
• Modem
• LAN

Front: IR Receiver

Rear: HDMI, VGA, AC-Input, TV-tuner antenna input (where applicable)

Left: Kensington lock slot, modem, optical drive, 1 USB, Line-out, headphone, line-in, microphone

Right: Expresscard/54, multi-card reader, firewire, 2 USB, eSATA, LAN

Battery Life

Battery life with the included 52WHr 6-cell battery gave a surprising 2 hours and 24 minutes with the Vista "Balanced" profile selected, screen brightness set to 60%, and wireless enabled and active. With the optional 9 cell battery it should be possible to get around 4 hours of battery life, which is excellent for a mobile gaming rig.

Heat and Noise

Heat output and noise is pretty normal compared to other gaming rigs, but the aluminum construction does make it feel warmer with better heat transmission through the metal to your wrists. While gaming with the notebook on your lap the CPU exhaust outputs very close to your leg, and after a while feels very hot. While playing Crysis the exhaust temperatures peaked at 135F. During normal non-gaming activity the overall system temperatures were very mild, peaking at 87F around the case. Exhaust fan noise is above a mild whisper at idle and low cooling demand and rises to a semi-loud whoosh when gaming.

Conclusion

The MSI MS-1651 is a sleek and stylish 15.4" notebook with a great looking brushed aluminum finish. System performance was excellent with the NVIDIA 9600M GT graphics card, and could easily play the latest games as long as you watched the resolution and settings. Build quality was great and the notebook felt very solid with the aluminum finish giving it more strength than standard plastic found on most notebooks. The keyboard could be improved to reduce the trampoline effect you get when typing, caused by the small gap between the keyboard and structure beneath it. System temperatures were great during web browsing and other light activity situations, but felt pretty hot while gaming. Overall the MS-1651 is a good contender in the mobile gaming notebook segment and with a starting price of $1,299 moderately priced against the competition.

Pros

• Great brushed aluminum finish
• Solid build quality and sturdy feel
• Great system performance
• Fullsize keyboard (with a few compromises)

Cons

• Hard to press touchpad buttons
• Brushed aluminum finish is hard to keep clean

Pricing and Additional Information

The MSI MS-1651 starts at $1,299 and can be purchased from the PowerNotebooks website.

 

check the RAM type in the "configuration". It is DDR2, but you wrote DDR3.

And the processor info as well. named P9500, but data refers to P8400..

 

AWWW MAN it isnt DDR3? i was gonna say for the money this laptop kicks some serious *** that being said this is still a great deal and as long as the GPU is DDR3 it will make this thing run like the wind

i didn't notice this in your review but how much does this baby weigh?

 

so a laptop with a 9600m GT is considered a "Gaming Laptop" now?

 

well you can manage Crysis with a 9600m, so while not gaming orientated it certainly has the power to run most modern games at OK settings.

As for the laptop it actually looks great, if only they kept a full sized keyboard and either made the number pad smaller or removed it completely.

 

Hm... I am really surprised that MSI would give a gaming notebook that keyboard with the Ctrl and Fn keys switched!!

At least for me, I would be utterly screwed in any FPS trying to crouch with the Ctrl key where it is!

Other than that though, it looks very nice for the price point.

 

In china, reviewers call ANY laptop with dedicated graphics a gaming laptop. I spit on them.
Be grateful man .

 

Great review, although I'm dissappointed with MSI and the keyboard!

Does anyone know where to get one of these in Hong Kong?

 

off topic but does keyboard mappers work with laptop keyboards. if so you can just swap them yourself

 

I run TF2 with EVERYTHING maxed out on this thing, never going below 45 FPS. That's a gaming laptop if I ever saw one

 

looks really cheap to me...

But still,thx for review Kevin

 

Nice review. I might have overlooked this, but is that 3DMark06 score at 1280x800 or 1280x1024?

 

All 3DMark06 tests run in-house are 1280x800 (Chaz will usually do his at 1280x1024 though)

 

Wow full size keyboard on a 15.4in. Add a 9800mGT and 1920x1200 res and Ill sell both my laptops for this one.

 

how heavy is that thing?

 

Good review!

Unfortunately, the keyboard layout totally ruins it for me. Yes, the built-in number pad is nice, but it just doesn't work in a 15.4" chassis. Many keys on the right side have shrunk quite severely as a result, and there are no dedicated home and end keys, which are keys I use quite a bit. Not to mention, they're using the incorrect placement of the fn and left ctrl keys, which would trip me up quite a bit.

 

lol i have a 7811fx and its the same thing and i can tell you EASILY it is not that big of a deal you get use to it quite quick.

 

Oh also one more heads up whats the weight on this thing?

 

I'd like to know as well. What is the weight of the laptop without the power adapter? Thanks

 

Nice review Kevin. This is a very solid, high-quality gaming notebook with great performance. I would call the look professional. The matte screen is great for office environments.

You can't do that with the Fn key, unfortunately.

 

My 1280x1024 resulted in 5254 if anyone wants to know the score at that res. (P9500)

 

It weighs six pounds, not too much.... Also, the keyboard really isnt a big problem. The shift key takes getting used to though....

 

Actually it does have dedicated Home and End keys on the numpad. But I do agree, the swapping of Ctrl and Fn plus the shrunken Shift and punctuation keys ruin the whole effect of having a full sized keyboard. On a 15" particularly I would find it very cramped feeling and I'm someone who relies heavily on the numpad for use with JAWS.

 

Thanks for the great review Kevin!!

 

awesome I didn't expect this notebook to be reviewed for some reason.

 

Same here.

 

The fn/ctrl issue does not bother me much. The real issue was getting used to the shrunken right shift key and "/" keys.

But it's been a relatively painless adjustment all things considered.

 

For 9600M GT w/512MB DDR3 VS R3850 w/512MB DDR3.
Who wins?

 

Laptops : The 3850m destroys a 9600m GT
Desktops : The 3850 Is a little above a 9600GT

3dmark06 scores:
3850m - 10,000
3850 - 10,000
9600m GT - 5,500
9600 GT - 9,500

Im pretty sure the 3850 on the desktop version is exatly the same as the chip on a laptop version.

 

As stated, it's about 6 lbs. I just wanted to add that I'm writing this now from class, having carried the laptop, and its power cord in my backpack (its a laptop backpack) with no problems.

 

Why is HDX18 getting lower scores than MS-1651?

 

Good question. I'm kind of baffled by the HDX 18t's benchmarks in general, but how a lower processor with the same GPU is outpreforming it is really a mystery.

 

Frequency means nothing.
Or should I say efficiency counts more?

 

Is the HDX18 Montevina? If not then its FSB is slower. Thats probably the bottleneck. The margin is over 1000 3Dmarks06...which isn't small for the SAME GPU.

 

HDX is Santa Rosa T7X00, 800MHz FSB.

 

That might explain the large 3Dmark gap then. I really don't know much about how it gets calculated though. It's worth looking into considering how much we all quote 3dmark scores.

 

For me 3dmark along with all of the benchmarks should only be used as LOOSE guidelines.

Really they aren't showing real world performance only performance in certain graphic intensive scenes. Plus, I don't find their calculations to be all that accurate because if you do a 3dmark 06 on one computer with the exact same settings you will find yourself with 3 different scores very probably hundreds of points different!! >.<

 

What's the weight of the PowerPro P 15:3?

 

6lbs with battery pack

 

Thanks!

 

Uhm . . . no. . . .

 

HDX is DDR2 Vram?

 

It uses GDDR2 VRAM.

 

no, it uses GDDR3 VRAM

 

Sorry, you're right. I was thinking of the HP dv5t.

 

How did you get a HP Pavilion HDX with 8800 GTS? Only option I found was a 9600 GT.

 

That was the old one?

 

hey kevin..
i am little more concerned about the screen..
howz the screen for u.. like while watching movies and playing games..

 

Do you mind checking the BIOS screen for a Swap Fn/Ctrl option? I know a few notebooks have it.

 

im almost 100% positive it doesnt have it