Handheld gaming is all the rage right now, and MSI wants a piece of the action. After teasing the device just a few days ago, MSI has revealed the Claw, a Windows 11-based gaming handheld that takes aim at the Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go, and ROG Ally. Unlike those devices, this one runs on Intel’s latest Meteor Lake chip, and it promises superior battery life.
MSI isn’t reinventing the wheel with the Claw—it looks almost identical to the other micro-PC machines we’ve seen lately. There are generous grips on each side of a 7-inch 1080p display, featuring a standard array of buttons and thumbsticks. MSI has employed its “Mystic Light” RGB setup in small rings around the thumbsticks and under the transparent ABXY cluster.
The triggers and thumbsticks use Hall effect mechanisms, which is the technology seen in high-end custom game controllers. Cheaper contact sensors can wear down over time, causing the stick to drift even when stationary. This problem has famously afflicted the Nintendo Switch across multiple hardware redesigns. Hall effect sensors don’t rely on physical contact, so there’s no wear and no drift. MSI also equipped the Claw with a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port. That means not only can you charge at high speeds, but you’ll also get super-fast data transfers and expandability.
None of these tiny gaming PCs have stellar battery life, but MSI says it’s addressing that with the Claw. It packs an impressive 56Wh battery (compared with 50Wh in the Steam Deck OLED), which is apparently good for two hours of gaming under “full workload conditions.” Like the competition, there are multiple power modes that can extend the battery life. MSI is paying for the larger battery, though. The MSI Claw tips the scales at 675 grams (1.48 pounds), but the ROG Ally is only 608 grams.
The Claw’s true claim to fame is that it’s the first gaming handheld to ship with Intel’s new Meteor Lake chips. Both the Steam Deck and ROG Ally run on mobile-optimized AMD chipsets. Meteor Lake is untested in this form factor, but it has the potential to outperform the competition. The Core Ultra 7 155H has a whopping 16 CPU cores spread across three power levels, plus a powerful Arc GPU. There’s even an on-device neural processing unit for running AI workloads. That’s not currently important for gaming, but you never know what the future will bring. The Claw will also offer 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage.
MSI doesn’t have a firm launch date in mind, but it hopes to release the Claw in the first half of 2024. It will run Windows 11 Home, but MSI also has a built-in emulator that allows you to play Android games as well. The starting price is expected to be $699, the same as the premium ROG Ally and the Legion Go. It’s a bit more expensive than the Steam Deck OLED, but it does offer better specs and PC game compatibility.
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