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MSI Katana A15 B8 VF-478NEU (Quick Look) - Trying to get the Best Components for the Least Amount of Money
MSI's latest laptop might have a 2017 type of design, but it houses some very modern tech.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone, and welcome to a Gamereactor Quick Look, this time taking a look at a brand new MSI Katana.
Now, the Katana series has been around for a while, and what always constitutes an MSI laptop is that they really care about customizability and adaptability of their model ranges, meaning that this is a Katana, but it's also a Katana with a lot of sort of sub-names to denote what kind of specs and panel that you've chosen."
"So it has a really silly name, so it's called the MSI Katana A15 AI B8 VF-478NEU, but again, what that denotes is essentially what kind of specifications are inside, what kind of panel choice that you've gotten.
So if you like the general chassis and the idea of a brand new Katana, you would go to MSI's website and you would see what's what, or you would basically search for MSI Katana and find a deal on a laptop from the newer range that you like."
"It is confusing, but in the name of customer choice, it's hard to bicker over it, basically.
It's just silly with the naming convention, that's all.
So the Katana is, and has always, meant to be sort of a mid-ranger, meaning that you can put pretty nice specifications in here, components in here which are from the newer ranges from say NVIDIA and Intel or AMD, but you don't pay as much because there is some savings from a cost perspective on that chassis that we just spoke about, and it certainly shows here."
"As you can probably see, the design cues look very 2017, with a huge chin bezel right here only housing the company logo of the ones that built it, and a lot of space which isn't really being utilized to anything.
Furthermore, while this doesn't pick up fingerprints, it doesn't feel like really solid, nice plastics."
"Certainly you would expect that at higher price ranges.
This trackpad is off-center, which I personally don't like, and it's also tiny compared to a lot of modern standards that we've come to expect.
Even this top bezel that is housing the webcam looks bigger than it kind of has to be."
"But that is not what this is about.
This is about getting the best components in a semi-precise form factor for the least amount of money.
So what do you get?
Well, this newest Katana houses AMD's brand new 8040 CPU series, which is lovely."
"It also comes with a whole host of different NVIDIA RTX 40 series graphics cards, obviously the Max-Q part of that spectrum, meaning that they are designed for laptops and therefore not eating your entire battery in 10 minutes.
So that should be good all on its own."
"There is also a lot of panel for your buck right here.
We found out when we received that this has a particularly rare panel.
More specifically, it has a 165Hz QHD panel rather than a 1080p 144Hz panel, which seems to be the norm on many of the Katana mid-rangers, which was odd."
"But again, just know that a QHD 165Hz panel exists out there, and that's quite cool, even though it is flanked by these huge, annoying bezels.
Overall, I don't really like the design of it.
I don't like this here, even though it probably helps with cooling."
"What I will say is that it obviously is very well ventilated.
I don't know if you can tell, but these perforations here at the bottom, these small lines where you can see inside the actual chassis, they're not just for show.
Within here is actually full access to the bottom of the laptop, where there is a 6-heat pipe design, which is lovely to see, but all this perforation, meaning that it can draw in more air, and it'll do so pretty easily thanks to these huge rubber standoffs, which raises it above the surface area, meaning that basically cooling shouldn't be as much of an issue."
"Now, furthermore, there is quite a cool set of specifications within this testing unit.
We have a Ryzen 7 8845HS CPU connected to a RTX 4060 8GB GPU, 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, 16GB of DDR5 memory.
The only thing that we were a bit surprised by is that this is a really small 3-cell battery."
"Does it last long on its charge?
We just don't know.
We're going to have to fully test it after we've done filming it today, but we wouldn't be surprised if it didn't last so long away from the wall."
"But the pricing is, as I said at the top, pretty aggressive.
You can get a 4070 version, with an RTX 4070, obviously, which goes down to around 1400-ish Euros.
Now, obviously, this will vary greatly depending on country and situation, timing, etc."
"But there is some really strong sale pricing, so if you wait until Black Friday, you might be able to pick up a Katana that's relatively new for a relatively low cost.
We'll review this fully, and we'll see you soon.
Thank you."
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