MSI Katana 15 15.6″ 144Hz FHD Gaming Laptop: 13th Gen Intel Core i7, RTX 4070, 16GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, USB-Type C, Cooler Boost 5, Win11 Home: Black B13VGK-484US

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 care
The 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’s
This 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 Thoughts
This 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.

I have now had this laptop for four days over the weekend, and my initial impressions are as follows:
Great processor and gpu for the price point, especially if bought on sale. I purchased mine on Prime Day one. I think it was $300 off which was a great deal. Then Prime Day two rolls around and its another $100 off. Slight issue with Amazon because they won’t just match the price. At first I tried to cancel the order and wasn’t able to so I contacted customer service and they tried to cancel it and told me they couldn’t. Since they don’t price match, I was suppose to order another one for the cheaper price and return the first order. Kind of a hassle, but saving another $100 was worth it. I guess I got lucky because I got an email a couple hours later saying the original order was successfully cancelled.

As far as the laptop itself, I played with it over the weekend and it runs great. High end processor (i-7 13620H) and graphics card (RTX 4070) are the selling points. No much else with that combo for under $1600.

The size and weight of the system are pretty good. My last laptop was an Alienware 15, which was bulky and heavy. This is much lighter and has a pretty subtle chassis which is exactly what I wanted. The RGB keyboard is pretty standard, it felt a bit small at first but I’m sure it will just take some getting used to. I haven’t played with the customizable colors yet but the function keys allow it to be brightened, dimmed or turned off and on.

The screen (15.6 FHD 1,920 x 1,080 pixels) is adequate, just know what you’re getting. 1080p is FHD (full high definition). That is most likely why it’s price point is less than some other laptops with higher end resolutions like QHD or 4k. That being said, on a smaller 15″ screen FHD still looks great. The refresh rate is fast (144Hz) and I ran well above 60fps on max settings flawlessly on CP2077.

SSD size (1TB) is pretty standard, it is gen4, currently gen5 is the fastest, but gen4 is plenty fast enough. One issue people are having is the second ssd slot does not come with a mounting bracket or screw to hold it down. I knew of this issue before purchasing and I am planning on installing a second ssd (also ordered on Prime day for big discount). I contacted MSI thru live chat and they are sending me the mounting bracket. The whole process took less than 10 min. Minor irritation but not a big issue.

RAM is good (16gb), I plan to upgrade to 32gb soon when the bracket arrives and I am installing the second ssd. I didn’t put too much stress on the system while playing it over the weekend but it held decently with only the 16gb of RAM.

The major issue I have with this laptop is the battery life, It is absolutely horrendous. I started my gaming session (Diablo4) at 100% and after an hour I was down to 32%, and D4 isn’t the most system demanding game. So maybe get an hour and half of straight gaming out of it unplugged. This is the only reason it didn’t get 5 stars.

Overall, at this price point, (especially if you can find it on sale and stay plugged in) it is well worth it. After upgrading the RAM and installing a second SSD (both less than $100 each) any comparable system would be well over $2k.

Update: Received mounting bracket for SSD within a week of contacting MSI customer support. Quick and easy install of SSD and RAM. Battery life still sucks and is only down point of this laptop. If it got 2+ hours of gaming battery life it would be an easy 5 stars.

La utilizo para jugar, muy buen rendimiento, la tengo desde hace 4 meses muy buena recomendada precio calidad, juego a calidad alta de video y detalles. Estoy por comprar una nueva para mi hija. la recomiendo por su calidad . Teclado, pantalla y temepratura se mantiene controlada. buena refrigeracion. En resumen, la MSI Katana 15 ofrece un equilibrio sólido entre rendimiento y precio, y es una excelente opción para los entusiastas de los juegos que buscan una laptop gaming de alta calidad.

I bought this laptop to upgrade my old Lenovo ideaPad Y700 with a GTX 960M. The MSI Katana 15 B13V is a great way to get an RTX 4070 laptop at a great price.

Gaming is pretty good with it and I’m happy with the 1080p 144Hz screen. I upgraded the to 64GB RAM for video production and replaced the stock M.2 NVMe with a Kingston Fury and it doubled the speeds of data transfer.

I’ll update my review if something relevant happens in the future, but some months with it and I’m in love!

I had this for about a week now been playin non stop. I am a comp player so I am all about frames. I had a desktop before this got tired of not being able to be mobile with something so I switched over to laptop. This laptop by far beat my expectations. Max settings no problem on any game I’ve played. easily 150+-200fps no stutters/problems as well. I also play connected to a 360hz monitor for the majority of my gaming so the display means nothing to me really, but when I am on the go it still does not disappoint. Only thing I plan to do is upgrade ram and storage. Other than that I have zero complaints really