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日本MSI Pulse 15 (B13V) – Top 5 Pros and Cons
The MSI Pulse laptops sit one step higher above the Katana laptops, but one step below the Vector series. Today we have the Pulse 15 (B13V), powered by the Raptor Lake H-series as well as the new 40-series graphics, including an RTX 4070 with a 140W power limit. What’s very interesting about it, however, is that it can’t hit these wattages, which seems to be the trend with other MSI laptops as well, including the 2023 Vector that we previously reviewed. We expect the Pulse to be a competent machine for both gaming and content creation, thanks to some pretty swift and high-res panels both with Full HD and Quad HD resolutions.
Today we’re presenting you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the MSI Pulse 15 (B13V).
MSI Pulse 15 (B13V): Full Specs / In-depth Review
4 reasons to BUY the MSI Pulse 15 (B13V)
1. Performance
The Pulse 15 is certainly a beast in terms of performance, with its Core i7-13700H, showing even the Core i7-12700H from last year who’s the boss around these parts. We didn’t expect to see such large gaps in benchmark scores, since both CPUs have 14 cores and 20 threads.
Results are from the Cinebench R23 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
As for the graphics, the 140W RTX 4070 breezes past the RTX 3070 and RTX 3070 Ti, however, the difference is smaller than we expected, which probably has to do with the lower power limit that the GPU reaches in practice (109W in tests vs 140W advertised).
Results are from the 3DMark: Time Spy (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the 3DMark: Wild Life benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
2. Display quality
The laptop comes with a lot of display options, but we settled for a QHD 240Hz IPS unit. It’s got superb viewing angles for when you’re watching videos and movies on it. The brightness could have been higher, maxing out at 304 nits, but still, we’d accept it over the panel on the Katana laptop. It also covers 100% of the sRGB and 99.5% of the DCI-P3 gamut, while offering accurate color reproduction as well.
Here are the results of our color accuracy test, with both the stock settings (left) and with our Design and Gaming profile applied (right). As you can see, both with and without the profile, the dE value sits below 2, which is perfect if you’re tackling design.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for MSI Pulse 15 (B13V) configurations with 15.6″ Sharp LQ156T1JW04 (SHP153C) (2560 x 1440) IPS.
*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].
Read more about the profiles HERE.
In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.
Office Work
Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.
Design and Gaming
This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.
Health-Guard
Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.
Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount
3. Upgradeability
The upgradeability of the Pulse 15 consists of two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of DDR5 memory, as well as only one M.2 slot for Gen 4 SSDs.
Here’s our teardown video, which shows how to access both the RAM and SSD slots of the Pulse 15.
4. Battery life
With a 90Wh battery pack, the laptop lasts for 11 hours of Web browsing, or 8 hours of video playback. Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.
1 reason NOT to buy the MSI Pulse 15 (B13V)
1. I/O
The port selection of the Pulse 15 comes with one USB Type-A 2.0 port as well as two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, one USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, an HDMI 2.1 port, a LAN port, and an audio jack. Considering the creator capabilities of the laptop, we would have loved to see an SD card slot and even Thunderbolt support.
