MSI Katana GF66 11UC [GF66 11UC-865XPL]

Designed by Japanese illustrator Nagano Tsuyoshi

In 2021, MSI has updated its gaming laptop lineup with the introduction of 2 new lineups, Katana and Sword. In the new hierarchy of the company, they follow MSI's flagship GP Leopard laptops and upper mid-range models from the Pulse GL series. In appearance, the novelty is hard not to notice the relationship with the models from the Pulse and Thin series. The laptop inherited from them a graceful jet-black case with a solid red backlight, a minimalist matte lid and a proprietary keyboard, which was made according to SteelSeries patterns. The corners of the display are also beveled, and the display itself can be opened 180 degrees. The difference between them lies only in the design of the geometric pattern of the air intakes on the bottom cover. By the way, the famous Japanese illustrator Nagano Tsuyoshi is responsible for the design and concept of Katana.

Direct competitor to popular laptops Acer Nitro and ASUS TUF

Thanks to competent pricing, rich equipment and the use of optimal components, MSI Katana is asking for competitors to popular laptops Acer Nitro and ASUS TUF. For the same thousand-odd dollars, the potential owner of Katana will get their hands on a 12-thread Core i5 11400H processor, 16 GB of overclocked RAM and a fast 512 GB NVMe SSD. Like its competitors, NVIDIA RTX 3050 is used as a graphics card in the test sample. Despite belonging to the Ampere family, it has a limited power consumption limit and in reality turns out to be only 20% faster than the old GeForce GTX 1650. But it supports modern technologies like DLLS and ray tracing. In general, it turns out to be an excellent option for games in Full HD and medium-high graphics settings, but the future potential of such a bunch is not the most impressive. At least if a real nextgen arrives.

High-quality modern laptop that has everything you need

Otherwise, this is a smart modern laptop, which has everything you need for online ice skating with friends, and for performant work. This list includes a comfortable backlit keyboard, a gigabit LAN port, a Wi-Fi 6 receiver, up-to-date USB ports, and a decent IPS display by the standards of the low-cost segment. Its refresh rate is 144Hz, but the colour reproduction is better than most other gaming laptops with the same price and technical set. Just keep in mind that it runs DOS out of the box, so you will have to install Windows yourself.