I review gaming laptops for a living — act fast on the best Prime Day gaming laptop deal

MSI Katana 15
(Image credit: Laptop Mag/Momo Tabari)

Prime Day 2023 has burst through the door and it's presenting us with great deals left and right, and if you're in need of new hardware to game with, it's easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of gaming laptops on sale right now. But as someone who has been reviewing laptops for years, I've found the best gaming laptop deal for something I personally tested and fell in love with. Yes, the MSI Katana 15 is now $250 off in this phenomenal deal.

Packed with a 13th Gen Intel i7 processor and RTX 4070, the MSI Katana 15 is $1,349 at Amazon. I've seen plenty of gaming laptop deals during Prime Day, but this one is easily the most impressive, offering ideal mid-range RTX 4070 gaming performance alongside a powerful processor for 16% off.

MSI Katana 15: $1,599 $1,349 @ Amazon

MSI Katana 15: $1,599 $1,349 @ Amazon
The MSI Katana 15 is an excellent mid-range gaming laptop boasting an Intel Core i7-13620H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage and a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel IPS 144Hz display. While we found its color depth and peak brightness to be underwhelming, it is an excellent choice for cost conscious gamers needing something strong without breaking the bank.

Why the MSI Katana 15 is the best gaming laptop Prime Day deal

The MSI Katana 15 is an excellent mid-range gaming laptop boasting Intel Core i7-13620H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage and a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel IPS 144Hz display. While we found its color depth and peak brightness to be underwhelming, it is an excellent choice for cost conscious gamers needing something strong without breaking the bank.

When I reviewed the MSI Katana 15 I gave it a 4/5 and noted its superb gaming performance, solid productivity scores, satisfying keyboard and decent sound system. Even at its initial launch price, I believed it was pretty affordable for its specs and that MSI had chose great price at $1,599. But now seeing that the laptop has dropped to $1,349, it has become a real steal.

On the Geekbench 5.5 overall performance test, the Katana 15's multi-core score of 11,581 is surprisingly great considering the category average is all the way down at 5,643. It also performed excellently in gaming metrics, managing 96 frames per second on Grand Theft Auto V at 1080p, 94 fps on Far Cry 6, 103 fps on Dirty 5, 106 fps on Assassin's Creed Valhalla and 99 fps on Borderlands 3. 

There are only major two reasons we'd recommend against purchasing the MSI Katana 15 as your next gaming laptop. First of all, it's only ideal for those needing a mid-tier GPU, as those who prefer budget or high-end laptops should look elsewhere. But even then, I've previously written about how buying an RTX 4080 laptop or higher is setting your money on fire, so be sure to reconsider that decision.

Second, the Katana 15's display is underwhelming and is easily its greatest flaw. It only reproduced 46.1% of the DCI-P3 color gamut in our tests, and its average brightness rested at 248 nits. This is undeniably lackluster and dim, but considering the price point, it's no surprise that MSI had to sacrifice something to maintain its affordability.

Looking for more phenomenal Prime Day deals? We've got you covered! Visit our Prime Day deals hub for the best summer discounts.

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Claire Tabari
Contributing Writer

Self-described art critic and unabashedly pretentious, Claire finds joy in impassioned ramblings about her closeness to video games. She has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism & Media Studies from Brooklyn College and five years of experience in entertainment journalism. Claire is a stalwart defender of the importance found in subjectivity and spends most days overwhelmed with excitement for the past, present and future of gaming. When she isn't writing or playing Dark Souls, she can be found eating chicken fettuccine alfredo and watching anime.