Conclusion
...solid framerates at the native 1080p resolution and games play well on the 144Hz display.MSI's budget range of gaming laptops has been refreshed with the Katana GF66. Starting at £749, the range succeeds in offering 1080p gaming essentials without breaking the bank, and for PC gamers starved of desktop graphics cards, it's refreshing to see some GF66 models in stock and available to buy.
Our £1,199 review unit, armed with an eight-core Intel Core i7-11800H processor and 85W GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop graphics, delivers solid framerates at the native 1080p resolution, and games ultimately play well on the 144Hz display.
Those core ingredients will suffice for users wanting to game on latest-generation hardware, but MSI's overall implementation leaves room for improvement. The display, while fast, offers poor colour coverage and middling brightness, fan noise is clearly noticeable at all times, and battery life falls well short of the competition.
Bottom line: entry-level Katana GF66 models might be worth a shout for newcomers to PC gaming, but the level of refinement doesn't warrant spending over a thousand pounds.
Fast 144Hz refresh rate
Decent connectivity
Poor battery life
Display could be brighter
Some bloatware
HEXUS.where2buy
The MSI Katana GF66 gaming laptop is available to purchase from CCL Computers.
HEXUS.right2reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
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