MSI Katana A15 AI 15.6” 144Hz FHD Gaming Laptop: Ryzen 7-8845HS, NVIDIA Geforce RTX 4060, 32GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, Cooler Boost 5, Win 11: Black B8VF-448US

Love this laptop! Never had any issues with overheating, use it almost everyday. Was getting solid frames even in modern games like the BF6 demo. Like any gaming laptop you are going to have to keep it plugged in or it will brain battery pretty fast, but can last a quick gaming session in a pinch. The 240hz display looks awesome. I have had several MSI laptops over the years and they are always great!

I'm typing this review on this laptop. It has worked flawlessly since I bought it. I have yet to find a game it wont run. If you use it on the cough, lay it on a hard flat surface like an eating tray so it can adequately dissipate its heat. It is durable as well. I strapped it to the back of my Harley on a 900 mile trip and it was just fine.

I felt like I did plenty of research going into this computer purchase, compared benchmarks and hardware to ensure I was making a choice in product that would last 3-5 years. Let me tell you, this laptop isn’t it for my application.I needed a laptop to be mobile and edit content, primarily graphic design and 1-5 minute video editing. This includes using the entire Adobe suite with either one or multiple programs (not all at once). I found my experience with this laptop to be subpar at best. Right away I was leery of the AMD processor, I much prefer Intel. I cannot prove that this CPU was the root cause of all my issues, but I have a feeling it was a contributor. I was very disappointed with the lack of reliability, and it seemed every time I needed to use the laptop, there was some issue. And then of course if I gave it a little time it would finally come around, just enough for me to question if I could “make it work” in the long run. It got to the point where I started documenting the issues 2 days in and noted weird things I was finding since this laptop just didn’t feel right. Below were several of the things I noticed in just over a week of owning and using daily. Keep in mind I came from a M3 Pro MacBook Pro prior to this.Delivered: 9/20/24Issues with laptop:Google chrome opens first search with bold text every time, super annoying. Incognito mode does same thing so doesn’t seem to be an account setting/issueInitially opened using Yahoo as search engine with brand new Google Chrome download. Could have been an issue with previous extensions that I had, since I had logged into google first before searching anything9/23Laptop was at 10% and went into power saver, keyboard dimmed and brightness went down. Plugged it in for an hour, go to turn it on, black screen. Plugged into other outlet (neither outlet is switched) and it finally fired up 10 minutes later.9/25Got home and opened laptop, won’t connect to home WiFi, which it’s been connected to for almost a week and has remembered. Turned WiFi off and on again, and now says No Wi-Fi Networks found. Need external WiFi adapter to use internet now.9/26Plugged in hard drive (offline) to work on project, computer won’t read hard drive. Previously Norton wanted to run a scan every time I plugged in, so not sure if that’s why it’s not recognizing the drive but I wasn’t able to do work off the SSD until I had WiFi again9/26Was editing a project with computer, closed lid for 15 minutes, came back and screen is black. Won’t turn on or restart… 20 minutes later it turns on after deciding it wanted to be shut down, and tabs are now all closed and unsaved work lost… not cool.9/28Finally used Adobe Premiere Pro for the first time on this device, playback is CHOPPY, it will play forward when previewing, then chop back a few frames, then play forward, they chop back a few frames. Not a clean simple playback to review my timeline and see how my project looks…Trackpad pinch to zoom doesn’t zoom-in on timeline in Premiere… throws off typical workflow, VERY annoying9/29Perfectly on que… blue screen of death “Recovery” while turning on… time to get a MacBook.Another odd thing: EVERY time the computer restarts MSI Center and Xbox re-pin themselves to the taskbarI also added quite a few add-ons to “try” making the laptop feel more like a Mac. I added things like 3 finger drag, spacebar preview, phone link, changed photoshop and Illustrator settings to allow pinch to zoom… and even with all of this to help my workflow feel more like a Mac, the clunky computer workflow and unreliability kept me feeling disconnected from my work.

The media could not be loaded. After a whole lot of research, I came to the decision that this was the best bang for my buck in terms of gaming laptops.I know a 4080 or a 4090 would have been better, and it could’ve used a bit more VRAM. But those laptops were easily at least $500 more and up, and it just didn’t seem worth it imo.And man, does it still do a great job.I’ve played almost every game at Ultra and Maximum settings with little to no issues.If running natively on the laptop screen, it’s buttery smooth. I am using a 34’’ curved monitor, and projecting to two screens at once at 3500 resolution, which can cause some games to lag a little at Ultra settings, but after some minor tweaks I can still run everything great!Overall, this laptop is a piece of art. It’s form is sleek and sexy, it’s relatively lightweight, the screen is great, it’s RGB keyboard looks awesome, and it’s just a total powerhouse, not to mention extremely affordable for what you’re getting.Incredibly happy with my purchase, one month in and I have no regrets. The speakers are nothing special, but the sound quality it outputs is clear. Also, I haven’t really tested out the battery, I hear it’s got a short lifespan, but I keep it plugged in so I don’t really notice.It does get REALLY hot though, and quite easily, even when just using Chrome I’ve clocked it at about 104 degrees Fahrenheit.If you’re thinking about getting this laptop, I would **highly recommend** getting a laptop cooling fan to sit underneath. There are some great brands for reasonable prices on Amazon.I purchased the Kevin Gaming Laptop Cooling Fan (I think that’s its name),, it can go up to 2,800 rpm and keeps my laptop at a nice 90-94 degrees.

The Katana A15 AI B8VG is a capable gaming laptop once you get past the blue screens. On set-up just keep letting it fix itself while updating BIOS, downloading the Microsoft updates, and graphics drivers. You will have to let it restart several times. It took about 25 mins but became stable once everything was up to date. A mild inconvenience but still annoying.I caught it on Amazon Day which knocked off almost a few hundred bucks making it completely worth the price tag.I use mine for gaming and business without any issues. I love the way the keys feel. The 4070 does its job well enough for the time being.- 1 star: The main drawback to this laptop in my experience is the battery life. You will only get a few hours out of it tops unless you stay in power saving mode which gives me another 2 hours. I bought another charging cord to keep at work, but the whole point of a laptop is to be mobile. So, if you can't be tethered to an outlet a couple times day, it may not be for you.Overall, it's a good mid-range gaming laptop that puts you on a bit of a leash.