MSI has officially revealed the MSI Claw, after details leaked a week in advance.
As reported by The Verge, this is a PC gaming handheld in the same price and size range as the Lenovo Legion Go. It distinguishes itself from the Go and other handhelds by utilizing the Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra processor.
The Claw is not the very first PC gaming handheld to run on Intel. That distinction goes to the GPD Win all the way back in 2016, which was packaged with an Intel Atom x7-Z8700. We have certainly come a long way, but what makes the Claw important is it breaks from the convention of using AMD’s APUs, like their competitors do, and so provides the market with a real alternative.
MSI claims the Claw’s new Intel Meteor Lake chips can outperform the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, so that’s definitely going to be a make or break selling point for the device. But if it turns out Meteor Lake performs equally, or even just a little worse, there could still be reasons for some consumers to choose it. Without getting lost in the weeds, some games and programs run better on Intel chips, and some do better on AMD chips.
The MSI Claw also boasts of a 53 watt, six cell battery, which puts it at the heavier and longer lasting range of devices. MSI claims it can run a cutting edge game for two hours, and older or lower spec games could run for as long as four hours.
Lastly, a surprising discovery the Verge made during their hands-on with the MSI Claw was that the device boasts some AI technology. You can toggle AI noise cancelling, and there’s also an option for AI NPU powered performance mode. The AI will adjust how much CPU wattage and backlight is used in real time, so it will be interesting to see if that could give the device the edge.
Other specs, including size and weight, are very similar to other competitors. Some particular aces it has is bundling in variable refresh rate and hall effect triggers. While the Verge reported it also has hall effect analog sticks, the MSI website does not say so. It may be a small oversight but maybe we shouldn’t expect it.
Using Intel chips and AI technology could make the MSI Claw the better device over its fellow gaming handhelds, but it’s just good in general to see more competition come in. Perhaps we aren’t that far away from even Nvidia making their own PC gaming handheld, to complicate this space and in spite of its relationship with Nintendo.
