MSI Katana 15 B13VEK
Specifications
Price comparison
Average of 3 scores (from 8 reviews)
Reviews for the MSI Katana 15 B13VEK
Source: Expert Reviews
There’s a lot to like about the latest Katana from MSI. It’s compact, graced with a good keyboard and a decent sound system, while performance – both gaming and general – is very impressive. It would have been impossible to recommend with a price of £1,500 thanks to the sub-par display and wretched battery life but, at £1,200, the failings are a little easier to swallow. That said, a half-decent 165Hz display and an 80Wh+ battery is not a ridiculous ask for that sort of money.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 12/04/2023
Rating: Total score: 60%
Source: Techradar
The MSI Katana 15 (2023) balances design and performance with a relatively affordable price to be a great option for those seeking their first or at least an affordable gaming laptop. It has solid 1080p performance and everything – except for the battery life and trackpad – is good enough.
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 08/17/2023
Rating: Total score: 80% price: 80% performance: 90% mobility: 60% workmanship: 80%
Source: Laptop Media
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 07/22/2023
Source: Expert Reviews
There’s a lot to like about the latest Katana from MSI. It’s compact, graced with a good keyboard and a decent sound system, while performance – both gaming and general – is very impressive. It would have been impossible to recommend with a price of £1,500 thanks to the sub-par display and wretched battery life but, at £1,200, the failings are a little easier to swallow. That said, a half-decent 165Hz display and an 80Wh+ battery is not a ridiculous ask for that sort of money.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 04/24/2023
Rating: Total score: 60%
Source: Laptop Media
Like in the past, MSI’s Katana 15 has its downsides. But thanks to the early adoption of the RTX 4000 GPUs, this device can become a best seller in no time. In fact, NVIDIA’s RTX 4050 shows an incredible performance jump, making it not only obliterate the RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti, but also trade blows, and even beat the RTX 3060. Unfortunately, this leads to some shenanigans with the pricing of the new laptops. The Katana, which was known for its low price (hence more than one cost-cutting compromise), now is not so friendly towards your budget. This makes it pretty hard to recommend. But what are the aforementioned compromises in the case of the Katana 15 (B13V)? Well, let’s start with the all-plastic build. It doesn’t feel cheap, but its chassis is a little flexy. Not to mention the bouncy lid. Indeed, now all models receive a 4-zone RGB backlit keyboard, but the touchpad is far from the likes of the Lenovo Legion 5 from 2022 for example. Not only that, but there is no Thunderbolt 4 connection, and one of the USB Type-As runs at 2.0 speeds
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 03/29/2023
Foreign Reviews
Source: The Gioididong
VN→ENPositive: Gaming design; decent processor; great GPU; high performance.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 09/26/2023
Source: FPT shop
VN→ENPositive: Powerful hardware; high gaming performance; big screen; simple design; comfortable keyboard.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 04/06/2023
Source: Cell Phones
VN→ENPositive: Powerful processor; great dedicated graphics card; high gaming performance; premium design; solid workmanship.
Hands-On, online available, Very Long, Date: 03/08/2023
Comment
NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU: Mid-range graphics card for laptops based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. Offers 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM (96 Bit) and is configurable with a TGP of 35 - 115W (+ Dynamic Boost).
With these GPUs you are able to play modern and demanding games fluently at medium detail settings and HD resolution.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
i7-13620H: Alder Lake based mobile CPU with 6 performance cores and 4 efficient cores. The performance cores offer hyper threading, leading to 16 threads that can be processed. The CPU clocks from 1.8 to 4.9 GHz and supports vPro.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
15.60":
15-inch display variants are the standard and are used for more than half of all laptops.
The reason for the popularity of mid-sized displays is that this size is reasonably easy on the eyes, often allows high resolutions and thus offers rich details on the screen, yet does not consume too much power and the devices can still be reasonably compact - simply the standard compromise.
» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.MSI: Micro-Star International (MSI) was founded in 1986 in Taiwan. MSI is especially known as a manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards for PCs, but also offers computer accessories, complete systems, motherboards, graphics cards, laptops, desktop PCs, monitors and other components. However, the Microstar brand name in Germany belongs to the Medion company. MSI is known for its gaming products and has developed a wide range of gaming laptops and desktop PCs. The company is also active in workstations, servers and industrial automation. MSI has offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
66.67%: This rating is poor. More than three quarters of the models are rated better. That is rather not a purchase recommendation. Even if verbal ratings in this area do not sound that bad ("sufficient" or "satisfactory"), they are usually euphemisms that disguise a classification as a below-average laptop.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.
