msiKatana A15 AI 15.6” 165Hz QHD Gaming Laptop: Ryzen 9-8945HS, NVIDIA Geforce RTX 4070, 32GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, Cooler Boost 5, Win 11: Black B8VG-450US

I just got this laptop today. While setting it up I came to the realization that its running at 2560x1440 resolution.The product details say that its native resolution is 2560x1440 - but it says the resolution is 1080p.I totally those thought was a 1920x1080 display, but its actually much better than I expected.Haven't had a chance to use it for games yet, but so far everything seems good.

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.

Generally I like the performance and combination of GPU, CPU, and RAM.I bought a lower spec of this same machine but was sometimes having issue training AI models.The screen is good and clear. The battery life is fine but compared to the models having FHD screen it is worse.The keyboard is a bit of pain and takes time to get used to it if you are used to other keyboards.The other issue I have is with the external portable monitors that work with USB C only. The USB C connector when connected using a usb C cable doesn't turn on that external monitor, while I can do it with my MAC. So I am not sure how this issue can be resolved.

I had another laptop previously and it just wasn't sparking joy. I wanted this one but it was a bit heavier so I opted for the other. I regretted it. It was so buggy. So I sprung for this one. Beautiful, fast, no problems out of the box. Love it.

Battery literally lasts about 4 hours - WITH ultra battery saver mode - when it's not even being used. Just turn it on and it will die in a few hours. Not sure if the battery in this thing is bad or what but this is insane.It gets super loud when the fans turn on, the performance is fine. If you just want something you can easily take with you to play some games on, it would be fine. There is no way you will get anywhere near 165fps, maybe 60-80fps on most titles with High settings.I just wanted a laptop with 32gb of ram, a high resolution monitor, and a decent processor. Apparently that is too much to ask for. I will likely be returning this item as it does not suit the purpose it was bought for. My work laptop lasts like 3 days of use before it needs to be charged, for example... Very let down.It takes 1-2 seconds to right click on the desktop, or when clicking on the audio settings button. Sometimes the mousepad stops responding entirely for a few seconds at a time as well. Not sure if I was sent a dud or what's going on. Seems like there is some weird delay when doing a lot of stuff in windows.

This laptop was mainly bought to use with design and cad/cam software. No problems running Exocad and similar software smooth and fast

Unfortunately, I will be returning this laptop as it is simply just not worth the price. I have had the laptop for 3 days and have had multiple issues:- The battery life is terrible. It lasts less than 2 hours with just browsing and idling. It lasted a whole 30 minutes when gaming.- When idling for a few minutes, the screen shuts off. It is supposed to go into sleep mode, but the laptop frequently shuts completely off instead, losing all tabs and work progress.- Sometimes when trying to wake up the computer from sleep mode, the laptop will not turn on for 20-30 minutes whether plugged into a power source or not. The power button seems to not be functional during this time.- We have also had issues with it connecting to Wi-Fi.- Games sometimes run well, but randomly drop FPS.This thing is just not worth the hassle. The graphics are nice, but that's really about it.