MSI Katana A15 AI (2024) Laptop Review

The MSI Katana 15 is only available in black. See the bottom of the laptop.

The build quality is decent. The chassis is entirely plastic and feels well assembled, with no gaps in the construction. There's some flex on the lid but almost none on the keyboard deck. The weakest part is the display, which twists noticeably when manipulating it. As for the finish, although it's relatively scratch-resistant, it picks up a lot of fingerprints and smudges, as most dark-color laptops do. The feet feel solid and stick firmly to the bottom.

The hinges are sub-par. They wiggle sideways in their sockets, giving the impression that they're loose, but they also have far too much resistance to allow for a one-handed lift. On the upside, there's no screen wobble when typing heavily, and their wide range allows you to set the display flat on the table, which is handy when you need to show the content to someone opposite you.

The MSI Katana A15 AI's serviceability is great. Accessing the internals is relatively straightforward; you only need to remove 14 Philips screws, then release the bottom panel's clips with a prying tool. One screw is below an easily removable sticker. There's also one screw that's smaller than the others, so it's best to keep it aside to make the reassembly easier. Both storage slots support M.2 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs. The unoccupied slot is next to the battery (below the wireless adapter)—you'll need a mounting bracket to install the SSD. Unfortunately, MSI doesn't provide a service guide.

• Documentation
• 200W power adapter and cord

The MSI Katana 15 is available with the following displays:

• 15.6" IPS 1920 x 1080 144Hz (45% NTSC)
• 15.6" IPS 2560 x 1440 165Hz (100% DCI P3)

A 1080p resolution looks reasonably sharp on a 15.6-inch display. Individual pixels are visible up close, but this isn't an issue at typical viewing distances. The QHD panel is noticeably sharper, with a pixel density of 188 PPI, making it a better option if you play a lot of RPGs or atmospheric games where you have the time to appreciate the graphics or intend on using the laptop for productivity. As for the 16:9 aspect ratio, although it has very little impact on the gaming experience, it does feel outdated, as most recent laptops, including productivity and gaming models, have adopted the slightly taller 16:10 format.

The FHD display has a 144Hz refresh rate, giving you improved input responsiveness and motion smoothness over a standard 60Hz screen; however, its response time is quite slow, resulting in noticeable blur trails behind fast-moving objects. The QHD display will provide a superior visual experience, as it has a 165Hz refresh rate and a faster-advertised response time of 2.5ms.

The FHD display's contrast ratio is good and within the typical range of most IPS panels. However, it's still relatively low compared to other display technologies like VA and OLED. This contrast level makes blacks look gray in dim settings. The QHD display's contrast is likely in the same ballpark.

The FHD display doesn't get very bright. It's fine for indoor use, but you might still have trouble seeing some content in well-lit environments or direct sunlight. It gets pretty dim, though, which helps reduce eye strain when viewing content in the dark. MSI doesn't advertise the QHD panel's brightness.

The display's matte coating handles reflections well. For the most part, you'll only have trouble with reflections when viewing dark-color content. Intense light sources are visible when viewing light-color content with the screen at max brightness, but they aren't overly distracting. The QHD panel has the same coating.

The QHD display's black uniformity is likely similar.

The FHD display’s horizontal viewing angle is okay. The image dims and washes out fairly quickly when moving to the side, so you need to be close or directly in front of the screen to get perfect accuracy. The QHD panel likely has the same horizontal viewing angle.

The vertical viewing angle is mediocre. Again, the image looks dimmer and more washed out from above or below. You need to look at the screen more or less straight on to see an accurate image. The QHD panel likely has the same vertical viewing angle.

The accuracy of the FHD display is passable out of the box. The white balance inaccuracies are relatively minor and hard to spot. However, many colors are visibly off, as the display can't reproduce highly saturated tones due to its narrow color gamut. An overly cool color temperature gives the image a slight blueish tint, and the gamma is too high throughout, over-darkening most scenes.

The FHD display has a poor color gamut. It doesn't even have full coverage of the commonly used sRGB color space, meaning that most content will look washed out. If you want the best visual experience or need to perform color-critical work like content creation, it's best to go with the QHD panel, as it has full DCI P3 coverage.

The QHD display is likely also flicker-free.

The MSI Katana has an excellent keyboard. Its layout feels spacious and is easy to get used to. Keycap stability is good overall, though some keys, like S and F, wiggle a bit more than others. The keys have a good amount of travel, require little force to actuate, and provide decent tactile feedback. There are four RGB lighting zones—you can change the lighting profile via the MSI Center app. The arrow keys have additional functions when used with the FN key, like activating the Cooler Boost feature (up), enabling and disabling the crosshair (down), playing and stopping media (left), and activating Sleep mode (right). The latter can be an issue if you aren't careful, as you can accidentally put the computer to sleep while gaming.

The touchpad is decent. It could be bigger, considering the amount of space available on the deck, but it tracks all movements and gestures well. Palm rejection works as intended, and there's no problem when performing actions like dragging and dropping or zooming in and out of images. This is a diving board touchpad, so you can only click in the bottom half. The buttons feel tactile but require a fair amount of force to actuate, and the right click only works in a small area at the bottom right corner of the touchpad.

The speakers are bad. They're very quiet, and they sound hollow and unnatural, with almost no bass.

The MSI Katana A15 has a bad webcam. The image looks soft, noisy, and overexposed, with an overly cool tint and unnatural colors. Voices sound clear over the microphone, but there's some noticeable background noise.

The MSI Katana A15 has a good port selection. Two of the three USB-A ports (one on each side) support USB 3.2 Gen 1 data transfer speed of up to 5Gbps, while the third one (on the left) supports USB 2.0 data transfer speed (up to 480Mbps). The USB-C also supports USB 3.2 Gen 1 data transfer speed as well as DisplayPort 1.4. The Ethernet port has a max speed of 1Gbps.

The wireless adapter is an AMD RZ616 Wi-Fi 6E. Wi-Fi 6E gives access to the 6GHz band, providing faster speeds, lower latency, and less signal interference than previous Wi-Fi standards. However, you need a router that supports Wi-Fi 6E to benefit from these features.

The MSI Katana 15 is available with the following CPUs:

• AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (8 cores/16 threads, up to 5.1GHz, 16MB L3 cache)
• AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS (8 cores/16 threads, up to 5.2GHz, 16MB L3 cache)

Both are high-performance processors typically found in gaming, content creation, and workstation laptops. They're essentially a refresh of the older AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS and Ryzen 9 7940HS but with better NPU (Neural Processing Unit) performance (up to 40% faster than previous generation) to speed up A.I.-based tasks, like image generation in photo editing apps and background blurring during video calls. Core count and composition are the same for both CPUs; the only difference is that the Ryzen 9 8945HS has faster clock speeds, resulting in slightly better performance overall.

The MSI Katana is available with the following GPUs:

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU 6GB GDDR6 (105W TGP /w Dynamic Boost)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6 (105W TGP /w Dynamic Boost)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6 (105W TGP /w Dynamic Boost)

The available GPUs range from entry-level (RTX 4050) to the upper mid-range (RTX 4070). They all support the same features, like DLSS, ray tracing, Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex, so you aren't losing out on features if you go with the lower-end configurations. All three run at a TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 105W with Dynamic Boost, which is near the upper end of their recommended 35-115W power spectrum.

For the most part, the RTX 4050 is mainly designed for 1080p gaming with low to medium settings. You might be able to play at 1440p in lighter games, like 2D platformers and older or highly optimized titles, albeit with some tweaks in the graphical settings. If you plan on getting a model with a QHD display, you'll want to get at least an RTX 4060, preferably an RTX 4070. The RTX 4060 can handle games at 1440p; however, you'll have to play with pretty low settings and/or rely on DLSS and Frame Generation to get playable frame rates. You'll have to lower the settings on models with an RTX 4070, too, just not as much.

You can configure this laptop with 16GB or 32GB of RAM. The memory is user-replaceable up to 64GB.

The laptop can be configured with 512GB or 1TB of storage, which is upgradeable. Two M.2 slots support 2280 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs—you'll need a mounting bracket to add the second SSD.

The MSI Katana’s overall score in Geekbench 5 is outstanding. Its AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU has strong performance overall, making it suitable for a variety of productivity tasks. That said, its multi-thread performance is a bit lackluster compared to the more power-hungry HX CPUs, like the ASUS ROG Strix G16 (2024)'s Intel Core i9-14900HX, as well as the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (M3, 2023)'s M3 Max SoC, with the latter scoring 94% higher. In short, the Ryzen 9 8945HS can handle demanding tasks; just know that there are significantly faster CPUs on the market. The Ryzen 7 8845HS is only slightly slower, less than 5% difference in most workloads.

As for GPU computing tasks, all of the available NVIDIA discrete GPUs can handle intensive tasks, so choose based on your needs and budget. Compared to the RTX 4060, the RTX 4050 is roughly 7% to 10% slower, while the RTX 4070 is about 15% faster.

The MSI Katana's overall score in Cinebench R23 is outstanding. Its AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU can easily handle intensive, multi-threaded workloads and general heavy multitasking. Again, there are significantly faster CPUs on the market if you need even better performance.

The MSI Katana A15 is outstanding for Blender work, thanks to its NVIDIA discrete GPU. Every configuration can handle 3D rendering, so choose the GPU based on your needs and budget.

The MSI Katana 15 with a 105W NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU scores well in the Basemark GPU benchmark. As mentioned in the GPU section, the RTX 4060 can handle most titles at 1440p, but you need to turn down the settings and/or rely on features like DLSS and Frame Generation to get high frame rates. The RTX 4070 remains the best option for gaming at 1440p. The RTX 4050 is mainly for 1080p gaming, and even then, you might have to turn down some settings because it only has 6GB of VRAM.

Borderlands 3 runs well at 1080p on the MSI Katana with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU. The gameplay is mostly smooth, though there are some noticeable stutters due to frame drops. The posted results are benchmarks obtained in the default Balanced mode. Switching to the Extreme Performance mode increases the average frame rate to 115 fps with high settings and 221 fps with low settings, an increase of 20 fps and 8 fps, respectively.

Here are additional benchmarks in Red Dead Redemption 2 to give you a better idea of the performance:

Red Dead Redemption 2

• 1080p, Quality, Extreme Performance: 75 fps
• 1080p, Low, Extreme Performance: 118 fps

Every configuration can run Civilization VI and other similar strategy games with no issues. You can even play this game at 1440p or 4k and still get smooth gameplay. The Extreme Performance mode increases the average frame rate to 192 fps with high settings and 276 fps with low settings.

Counter-Strike 2 runs very well at 1080p on the MSI Katana with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU. There are occasional stutters, but they don't happen often enough to significantly impact the overall gaming experience. You can run this game and other similar titles at 1440p with few issues, even on the base RTX 4050 models. Switching to the Extreme Performance mode boosts the average frame rate to 261 fps with high settings, but the average frame rate with low settings remains in the same ballpark at 347 fps, as the system is CPU-bound.

Every configuration of the MSI Katana A15 can deliver smooth gameplay in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and other similarly demanding games without issues, even without the use of DLSS. Switching to the Extreme Performance mode increases the average frame rate to 174 fps with high settings and 183 fps (CPU-bound) with low settings. The large frametime spikes are scene changes and aren't representative of the performance.

The keyboard gets a bit toasty under load and can cause some mild discomfort, as the hot spot is near the middle, right above the letter Y. Activating the Fan Boost feature lowers the keyboard temperature to 45.3 °C (113.54 °F) but increases the fan noise significantly to 58 dBA. The bottom of the laptop reaches 45 °C (113 °F) with Fan Boost on.

The MSI Katana A15 has a few pre-installed applications, including:

• MSI Center: Lets you monitor CPU/GPU and memory usage, temperatures, and fan speed. You can also change the performance and power profile, add a crosshair, disable the Windows key, customize the keyboard's RGB backlighting, and access support pages.
• Nahimic: Audio customization app. Lets you change the speakers' audio profile and tweak the sound via EQ.
• Norton 360: Antivirus software and malware/ransomware protection. Requires subscription.

The keyboard has a four-zone RGB backlight; you can change the lighting profile in the MSI Center app.