MSI Katana 15 15.6” 165Hz QHD Gaming Laptop: Intel Core i7-13620H, NVIDIA Geforce RTX 4070, 16GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, Cooler Boost 5, Win 11: Black B13VGK-2000US

I bought the Katana 15 B13V with 16 GB of DDR5 Ram, RTX 4070 gpu, and i7-13620H cpu on Prime Day marked down to $1349 from $1599.I primarily bought this because my desktop's motherboard uses DDR4 and is becoming dated and I wanted to play Baldur's Gate 3 at max settings. I'd like to build another desktop, but want to drop that kind of money until DDR6 is a thing instead of building it in the middle of the DDR5 Lifecycle. That's still a few years out.So this was a great purchase for my needs. It is literally desktop performance in a laptop at a mid-range price.Let's start with the cons and why I don't careThe display isn't the best. Don't get me wrong, its great, but not anything special. That doesn't bother me, because its connected to my 4k monitor. Who cares about laptop screens anyway. 4k resolution doesn't make much of a functional difference on a small screen. Costs were cut there for sure. Costs were probably also cut on the battery. It doesn't last long not plugged in on normal loads, and its probably not even feasible to use it unplugged while gaming. This would suck if I planned to use it unplugged, but again, this matters not to me. There is also a technology implemented called CoolerBoost 5. Its pretty necessary to run when gaming newer games at max settings. It gets PlayStation loud. If you're an audiophile, then you're going to need some good noise-canceling headphones to really enjoy anything on this machine. This doesn't bother me, because I'm not an audiophile, and even if I was, I have a couple great sets of noise-canceling headphones. It also doesn't bother me because without it, all of the great things about this thing wouldn't mean squat.... let me explain...Now for the Pro'sThis thing runs great without load on balanced power settings (No CoolerBoost). Without CoolerBoost, its about as quiet as it comes. I only use it for browsing and playing music outside of gaming. It does great. I haven't tried watching any 4k videos on it yet, but I imagine it would handle that well on balanced power settings as well.Remember when I mentioned the noise level from the CoolerBoost 5 as a con. Well, Coolerboost is probably just as important of a feature as any of the hardware this machine packs. Gaming laptops get a bad rep, mostly because they literally burn up a lot faster than a desktop and are difficult and expensive to fix when they do. The reason being is inadequate cooling. This is a tiny box to fit all of those extreme heat producing components in. Getting desktop-like cpu temps and gpu temps in a laptop should be a pipedream. Seeing temps in the 85-90 degree Celsius range or higher is just part of the territory. With CoolerBoost on, this thing hangs in the 60-75 degree range with BG3 running max settings. That's as good or better than my desktop. Have you heard of temp-throttling? Yeah, that's only a thing if you let it be a thing with this machine. That said, without CoolerBoost active while running BG3 at max settings, I watch those temps move to the Upper 80s and low 90s, like one would expect with this kind of hardware in such a small box. It is well worth the noise to have a machine packing an i7 13th gen chip and RTX 4070 gpu that can sport desktop temps while actually using the hardware at its potential.Final ThoughtsThis machine is fantastic if you're looking to replace a desktop with a laptop that will likely last. All of the right corners have been cut. Due to the temps sitting at desktop level, I anticipate the hardware components to potentially last indefinitely. This will still be a very serviceable and more portable machine when I do get my desktop built. The potential issues I see are needing to replace fans at some point due to the CoolerBoost. They could also last too, its just a possible logical consequence of running the fans at high RPMS. I imagine the most important fix that I'll run across is replacing the battery. Those things will always go bad eventually, but more quickly if there are periods of high humidity in your gaming area. Think about spring or fall days where the AC isn't running. Years of that will kill a battery.

This is my 16yr old son’s school computer for a programming class. He has had it all school year and recently had an issue which needed repair. The companies manufacturer warranty covered the cost 100% and the process, other than dealing with USPS, was extremely easy and fast. MSI was amazing and we appreciate their work and timely repair! ( My son uses this a ton and it has been a great purchase. The need for repair was probably from his overuse of the device and unrealistic expectations for what it could handle. The device is solid and we would purchase it again in a heartbeat.)

I bought this computer to replace my old one in terms of gaming. I only use it for playing games and watching YouTube. Except I can't play any games at all.A few months after I got it, it began freezing while I played games. Freezing so bad that I had to turn my computer off completely. Control+alt+delete did nothing, it was just fully frozen. So I sent it in to be fixed by MSI themselves. I get it back and it's okay for like three months then starts doing the same thing. I send it in again (thank goodness that I bought a warranty) and get it back being told nothing is wrong with it. Except then I starts blue screening. So I send it in to be replaced with a brand new one.I got the new one in April. It worked fine for a while until it didn't. It's frozen twice. One freeze happened yesterday while playing a game. I attempted to turn the games graphic settings and stuff down, thinking that it was moving too fast for the computer or something. (I shouldn't have to considering the specs of the computer.) That only made things worse.My computer crashed so hard it broke. It could not repair itself at start up. The troubleshooting options either didn't work or I had no idea what they would do. I ended up resetting the entire computer which meant I lost everything that was on it (only my games which are saved on a cloud server). For a gaming computer it cannot seem to perform it's core function of gaming and I know absolutely nothing about computers and what could be wrong with it or how to fix it myself.I can't get a refund because it's been more than three months. I can't fix it myself or begin to understand what's wrong with it and I'm tired of being gaslit by IT/MSI people. (Some have been very helpful and kind, mind you, but none seem to be able to fix my problem.) I'm so tired of dealing with this, so frustrated and disappointed. All I wanted was a stronger computer to play games on. A computer savvy friend even helped me pick this one out only for my experience to become a circus where I'm the clown.I don't know what to do now.

The165 Hz QHD display version has outstanding visuals. In researching this laptop it was cautioned that the 165hz display would slightly affect game play due to the power draw. On first person shooters I did notice the reaction time on my part had to be quicker than on my other laptop to achieve the same results, but I would not trade for a lower resolution panel. If you are a highly competitive gamer, I would go with the 144Hz panel. My overall experience with this laptop is much more than I expected for the price point. You do get a plastic body, but the internals have cooling pipes of a more expensive laptop. Very happy at this point but will upgrade ram to 32Gb