MSI Katana 15 laptop review: Budget gamer with RTX 4050 and Alder Lake CPU

[Redaktion]

The 15-inch Katana has only been slightly revamped and comes with a new graphics card from the RTX 40xx series. Unlike many competitors, MSI combines the new GPU with a Gen12 instead of a Gen13 CPU from Intel. The retail price of US$1,499.99 as a "budget" price tag is rather steep. Is the Katana still worth it?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-Katana-15-laptop-review-Budget-gamer-with-RTX-4050-and-Alder-Lake-CPU.704037.0.html

[LL]

Se we have here a laptop that is worse and equal than a Lenovo 5 from 2021 while 33% more expensive.

[Game XGR ᵖʳᶦᶜᵉ/ᵖᵉʳᶠ ᶠᵀᵂ]

Basically an overpriced 3060, I'm pretty sure Nvidia itself demands a lot more money for the 4050 compared to 3050 and their DLSS 3 is designed to convince people into these higher prices.

[Neenyah]

LL & Game XGR - yep 👍 At this point it's just better to buy a laptop with a powerful CPU and an iGPU, then just use an eGPU to game. Not that much worse performance (or not worse at all, depends on a budget) yet quite cheaper. One can't really carry their eGPU enclosure around and play on a train but is there anyone seriously  playing AAA games on their daily commute, lol? Especially with short battery life when playing heavy games...
 
So decent laptop + eGPU is cheaper. And even cheaper is to build a powerful desktop and buy a decent tablet or Chromebook to have on the go.
 
At this point these gaming laptops have literally zero sense because those prices are absurd.

[Neenyah]

Btw, 1750€ is a budget gamer now?

Ah those good ol' days where budget gaming laptops, such as the Gigabyte A5 K1 with FHD 144 Hz 15.6" IPS screen, R5 5600H, 115W RTX 3060 and 16 GB RAM were going for 902€ (Computeruniverse.de), 2022 yet it seems like a century ago when the definition of budget has being literally doubled in less than 12 months. X1 Carbon i7 10th gen, LP 400 nits FHD screen, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD was going for literally those same 1750€ some two years ago and that's the premium ultraportable business machine.

So in 2024 we can expect to have budget gaming laptops starting around 3500€?

[sandeep]

Thanks for  the information but i think Acer predator neo 16 is a much better performing laptop then Msi katana 15 and this msi model has a lot of negative reviews too.