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Thanks to devices like the Nintendo Switch and the Valve Steam Deck, gaming on the go has never been more popular, and just about every gaming hardware maker wants a piece of that sweet handheld gaming pie. But, while Asus and Lenovo iterated on the Steam Deck’s design with their products, they both opted for the AMD Z1 Extreme, a custom processor based on AMD’s latest GPU architecture. The MSI Claw (starting at $699, $799 as tested), while not too different in design from those two handhelds, uses Intel’s newest silicon, the Core Ultra, rather than AMD’s Z line of chips. On paper, this suggests bigger gains in performance, but in practice, Intel’s Arc integrated graphics processor (IGP) falls a few drivers short of prime time, with enough games delivering worse performance across the board—and, in some cases, not running at all—to cause concern. MSI’s Claw may seem sharp at first, but it won’t take long to see that this paw is not quite a threat just yet.
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Design: Touring MSI’s First PC Gaming HandheldMSI’s Claw is almost identical to the Asus ROG Ally, complete with asymmetrical joysticks and RGB lighting, a circular eight-directional D-pad, and menu buttons that hug the top corner of its 7-inch IPS screen. (It comes in all-black instead of white.) Two sets of shoulder buttons sit at the top of the device, while additional right and left macro triggers hug the back side. At the top of the console, you’ll find the system’s port hub, which includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot, volume and power buttons, and the sole USB-C port. The MSI Claw omits an additional touch panel, however, which will disappoint if you prefer touch-based over analog controls.Measuring 0.8 by 11.5 by 4.6 inches (HWD), the MSI Claw is a hair wider than the Ally and, at 1.48 pounds, just slightly heavier. In hand, the console feels substantial despite its plastic build. The grip on the MSI Claw is shallower than the ROG Ally, but overall, they’re the same in this department. This was a smart move, as the ROG Ally is easily one of the more comfortable handheld PCs we’ve reviewed.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Turning the Claw around, you’ll see that about 80% of its back is dedicated to ventilation, which is cool (pun intended), but it foregoes a stand, just like the Asus ROG Ally. (You’ll see that last line a lot in this review.) If you’re looking for additional support, the MSI Claw carrying case, which is sold separately, includes a kickstand.
The MSI Claw uses a full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) touch-screen display with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a refresh rate of 120Hz. That’s the same size and resolution as the Asus ROG Ally, and sharper than the Steam Deck OLED’s 1,200-by-800-pixel screen and the Nintendo Switch’s 720p screen. The Lenovo Legion Go still has the highest resolution (2,560 by 1,600 pixels), the fastest refresh rate (144Hz), and the biggest screen (8.8 inches) among its contemporaries.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
A sharper picture isn’t everything, however, as the Legion Go struggles to play games at full resolution. Meanwhile, the Steam Deck OLED and Nintendo Switch OLED IPS displays improve picture quality, thanks to their deeper blacks, higher contrast ratios, and brighter screens. The Claw’s 500-nit screen is no slouch, however, and while I didn’t formally test screen brightness and color range, both videos and games look bright and colorful to my eyes through this panel.Using the MSI Claw: Taking Control of the ClawThe MSI Claw runs full Windows 11, which means it works as a laptop when paired with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You’ll probably want to use one, as navigation is still a pain using solely the touch screen. Having a full-fat version of Windows has benefits, like downloading and installing Windows apps with ease. Other game launchers, like the Epic Games Store and the Xbox Game Pass app, are still not natively supported on the Steam Deck (only through the Linux back end), so accessing games on these other stores won’t be a hassle.MSI preinstalls MSI Center M into all Claw units. Center M aggregates your installed games into one place more or less in the same way that the Asus Armoury Crate and Legion Space apps do. However, these pre-installed apps appear hastily made: The resized thumbnails, the choice of type, and the way game titles barely fit into their squares are all tells. In its defense, Center M is ugly but functional, and it’s not as intrusive as Lenovo Space is on the Legion Go.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Center M is also for editing your user settings. Here, you can adjust the RGB lighting and the User Scenario, a preset profile that changes your system settings to accommodate your needs. You have a choice of five options: Extreme Performance, Balanced, Super Battery, Manual, and AI Engine. Now, I know what you’re thinking: The MSI Claw uses the new Intel Core Ultra, which has a neural processing unit, or NPU, specifically for running local AI workloads. Well, if the Claw indeed is, it’s not doing much with it here. The AI Engine, when enabled, utilizes AI to learn user behavior to adjust various settings for you automatically and depending on the situation. For example, it’ll change your fan speed and turn on RGB lighting when you start a game. MSI deployed something similar in the MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED, which featured an AI Vision function that would adjust contrast and brightness depending on what you were viewing, but no actual AI upscaling was involved. The same idea is applied here.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Regardless, navigating the MSI Center M was not without issue. In one bizarre instance, when navigating to the Noise Cancellation section, the system language suddenly changed to German. But Center M has its uses, and it makes updating your MSI Claw’s drivers painless, so it gets a pass.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The software, like Asus Armoury Crate and the Lenovo Space app, is a far cry from the Steam Deck operating system. And luckily, you can access the Steam Deck OS by triggering Big Picture Mode in Steam.MSI’s Claw also supports Nahimic, SteelSeries’ audio software that uses high-definition sound technology to boost audio performance. This is pretty useful and gives the twin 2-watt speakers some added bass. Without it, the Claw’s sound is noticeably hollow, reliant on these small speakers.Configuration and Components: Intel’s Latest and GreatestNaturally, the main draw of the MSI Claw is not how familiar it is to hold or how easy it is to use, but how different its internals are. It marks the first handheld gaming PC with an Intel processor inside, and, in this case, MSI picked the latest Intel CPU for its maiden voyage.Intel’s “Meteor Lake” laptop CPUs, commonly known as the Intel Core Ultra series, saw a stymied launch late last year into a full rollout just months ago. Featuring Intel’s entirely revised 3D architecture and extensive AI integration, the new silicon promises a wave of powerful new features.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
This is a bold move by MSI, especially when the Claw’s contemporaries use custom AMD CPUs designed around the needs of a handheld gaming PC. MSI instead opts for an Intel Core Ultra H series CPU, which is meant for high-performance systems, such as gaming laptops and content creation systems. Our review unit came equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, 16GB of DDR5 memory, and 1TB of solid-state storage, though you’ll find two cheaper models: A $749 version, which cuts the SSD storage capacity in half, and a $699 version which downgrades the CPU to an Intel Core Ultra 5 135H. You won’t find any dedicated GPU here; the system runs on the Intel Arc IGP.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The final add-on that sets the MSI Claw apart from the competition is the inclusion of Wi-Fi 7, which can be more than four times faster than Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, the latter of which is found in the Steam Deck OLED, the Asus ROG Ally, and the Legion Go.On paper, this means all of this provides a healthy balance of power, performance, and battery-saving efficiency—all of which are important for a gaming handheld. But with bleeding-edge tech comes novel problems, and we’ll see how the MSI Claw pans out in our next section, where we benchmark the device.Testing the MSI Claw: Not Sharp EnoughThe MSI Claw is a familiar device on its surface, but Intel’s new silicon sets it apart. With that on our minds, we pose this question: Was opting for the latest laptop CPU better than using an AMD processor engineered explicitly for handheld PC gaming? To quantify the MSI Claw’s performance, I subjected the handheld to the same benchmarking suite as our gaming laptops. With the MSI Claw on performance mode, I compared it with both of the available ROG Ally models (the Z1 Extreme and Z1), the Lenovo Legion Go, and two gaming laptops that are built around Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series laptop GPUs.
Productivity and Content Creation TestsOur first block of benchmarks measures general productivity across multiple scenarios. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.To further stress the CPU, using all available cores and threads, we run a few more tests to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).We also run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes various general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
In these tests, the MSI Claw came in slightly above or below both the ROG Ally systems and the Legion Go. The Claw proved itself significantly faster in the full storage benchmark, however, keeping pace with the Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7. Intel’s laptop CPU makes the MSI Claw the equivalent to a decent budget laptop if paired with the appropriate keyboard and mouse, since it can competently handle everyday computing tasks and then some. (Of course, the screen is tinier than any laptop’s.)Graphics and Gaming TestsWe run synthetic and real-world gaming benchmarks for gaming laptops and other mobile gaming hardware. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with IGPs) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Additionally, we use the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which gauges OpenGL performance. Or, at least we tried to: The GFXBench tests would not run on the MSI Claw, though they performed on the Legion Go fine.Our real-world gaming testing comes from the in-game benchmarks available in F1 2021, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These three games—all benchmarked at 1080p resolution—represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at Medium and Ultra quality, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while F1 2021 is run twice at Ultra quality settings with and without AMD’s and Nvidia’s performance-boosting FSR and DLSS features turned on.
These are the most important tests for the MSI Claw, and the results were disappointing. Our formal testing in 3DMark was mostly positive, especially considering the device’s form factor, but when we ran games on the hardware, we saw the MSI Claw lose its grip in surprising ways. Both F1 benchmarks failed to run, and we couldn’t get Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s high-end test to run, either. And the Claw delivered significantly worse numbers on Rainbow Six: Siege than the ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) and Legion Go. Even the lower-end Z1 ROG Ally pulled higher frame-rate averages. What happened here? Given the unusual hardware and software marriage, it might be a lack of optimization. AMD’s Z1 and Z1 Extreme were explicitly made for handheld PC gaming. Meanwhile, Intel’s H-series Core Ultra chip was initially designed, albeit with a better Intel IGP than ever, not as a gaming-first solution. Intel’s Arc IGP might be impressive on paper, but it fumbled with these tests in practice.More Gaming Tests: Playing on the Go Is Easier Said Than DoneDespite the early red flags while testing the MSI Claw, it’s not uncommon for benchmarks or specific game titles to run improperly on new hardware. To best understand how the Claw runs, I picked a wide range of new and old titles to see how Intel’s Arc Graphics performs—and the results were mixed here, too.First, I tried Cyberpunk 2077. Released in 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 saw one of the roughest launches in gaming history but also one of its most impressive comeback stories. Considering the hardware, Cyberpunk 2077 ran fairly on the Steam Deck and Legion Go.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Using the game’s internal benchmark, the Claw reported an average of 33fps using the Steam Deck preset settings. Keep in mind that’s with FSR 2.1 enabled. FSR, or FidelityFX Super Resolution, is AMD’s upscaling and frame-generation solution that helps boost frame rates in supported games (and doesn’t specifically require AMD graphics silicon). It’s also a crucial part of what helps these games run as well as they do on lower-end hardware. Tweaking the preset to Ultra Performance, the Claw squeezed out 41fps. And just to see what it can do, I turned ray tracing on the Low preset and observed an average of 28fps.Intel also has an upscaling option, called XeSS (Xe Super Sampling), its answer to FSR and Nvidia’s DLSS. XeSS uses AI to upscale and enhance lower-native-resolution visuals, enabling greater performance gains. With that in mind, I reran the benchmark, using Steam Deck presets with XeSS set to Performance. Here, the Claw averaged 36fps, slightly worse than FSR 2.1 but similar to what we observed on the Lenovo Legion Go.Let’s move on to Baldur’s Gate 3, 2023’s smash-hit RPG set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Baldur’s Gate 3 ran at a respectable frame rate on the Steam Deck OLED and the Lenovo Legion Go, and it performed pretty well here, too. At the Low graphics preset, the Claw reported 33fps, which fluctuated in either direction depending on what was happening on screen. Enabling FSR 2.2 improves the game overall, with frame rates bumping as high as 45fps to 50fps. In terms of frame rate, this is comparable with the handhelds above, though I felt some input lag.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
That last part is going to hang over many other titles I tested. Last year’s Resident Evil 4 hung in the upper 40s while playing Mercenaries mode, but I felt lots of input lag and frame-rate hitching, which made the overall experience unpleasant. The 2022 PC port of Sackboy: A Big Adventure maintained 60fps on the Medium preset, but again, input lag made the platformer feel choppier than usual. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the 2022 PC port of 2017’s PlayStation 4 blockbuster, stuttered and crashed when I tried to run it on the High preset. For comparison, this game held 30fps in that mode on the Steam Deck OLED. Low settings didn’t prove much better, as the average frame rate dropped below 30.With recent games out of the way, I also decided to try some older ones. Hot off the Fallout TV show hype, I redownloaded Fallout 4 to see if the now nine-year-old RPG would run on the system. And it did, surprisingly well—until I had to enter my name, anyway. For some reason, the game doesn’t support an on-screen keyboard. The Legion Go also ran into this issue, while the Steam Deck handled it. Keyboard shenanigans aside, the MSI Claw runs Fallout 4 well, far better than both the Steam Deck OLED and Lenovo Legion Go.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Smaller, older games like Metal Slug X and Final Fantasy VI ran fine on the handheld, at both full resolution and 60fps, but 2011’s Bioshock Infinite simply would not work on the MSI Claw. For comparison, the decade-old first-person shooter managed a steady 90fps at 720p on the Steam Deck OLED. Overall, this was a less-than-stellar showing from MSI’s handheld. MSI is working alongside Intel to continue improving system performance, so these test results can and likely will change after a few updates. (We saw as much during this review process.) However, considering the MSI Claw has been on the market for about a month now, it’s a little disappointing that it’s still struggling to run both new and older titles. Nevertheless, we expect performance to improve in the coming months, as MSI promises improved performance across Steam’s top 100 games with its latest update.Battery TestWe put the device’s battery to the test in our final trial. We benchmark the mobile PC battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We ensure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting (not relevant here!) turned off.
Moving over to the Balanced preset, we saw the MSI Claw deliver almost seven hours of battery life. This was a much better result than the Legion Go, but it was still well under the Asus ROG Ally. Now, this is simple video playback; MSI says you can expect up to two hours of actual gameplay on the Claw at maximum load, which tracks with my timed test of Baldur’s Gate 3 on battery.Verdict: Claw’s No Threat YetWhile impressive on paper, the MSI Claw inadvertently shows the difference a well-optimized, custom CPU can make. The combination of this form factor and this laptop CPU just isn’t ready for prime time, and Intel and MSI still have some driver updates to issue before we could consider a more positive recommendation. While it’s only a matter of time before MSI smoothes out the issues with the Claw, will it be enough if Asus and Lenovo continue to refine their products? For now, the MSI Claw needs an update and a price drop. Otherwise, the Steam Deck OLED remains our top choice, but if you prefer Windows, the Asus ROG Ally is the way to go.
Cons
Expensive
Spotty game performance, at best
Still needs critical driver updates
Glitchy MSI Center software
Unimpressive AI functions so far
Carrying case sold separately
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The Bottom Line
The MSI Claw is a PC gaming handheld brimming with potential, but it requires some critical updates and a price cut to earn a more positive recommendation.
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