Katana A15 AI 15.6” 144Hz FHD Gaming Laptop – Ryzen 7-8845HS, GeForce RTX 4060, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, Cooler Boost 5, Windows 1, B8VF-448US

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.

So far a great laptop.It's lighter and more powerful than my old Acer Predator and generates half the heat. The keyboard function keys are weird to get used to but you get used to it.The sleep function...this laptop does not like sleeping. It randomly wakes up for no reason lolGaming, this laptop does what I bought it to do, and does it well. Again, with less heat than my previous laptops.The ports are all stiff and solid, which you want. USBs dont wiggle at all and dont randomly fall out.The buttons feel great to press, soothing for my autism.The wifi adapter on here is really strong, way stronger than my old laptop. The 4070 and Ryzen 9 combo are fantastic for pretty and intense games like Helldivers.NOTE: if you have trouble with the built in crosshair (which is usefull tbh), then go to the settings for it and disable the option allowing you to move it with cursor. Works wonders so your game stops switching to desktop.