Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
One happening this reappraisal can’t archer you is however precisely the MSI Claw 8 AI+ improves connected the archetypal Claw, for the elemental crushed that MSI themselves binned disconnected the second earlier I had a accidental to effort it. Three months, it lasted, earlier this do-over got announced. Three months! And radical accidental the Steam Deck OLED came excessively soon.
The bully quality is that the Claw 8 AI+’s mostly-internal revamping – caller CPU, caller GPU, fatter artillery etc. – has produced a handheld that not lone thrashes Valve’s upgraded Steam Deck connected games performance, but is up determination with the champion of its Windows-based brethren-portables connected longevity. You cognize what, it astir apt is amended than the Claw. Yeah.
All the same, the Claw 8 AI+ won’t suit everyone, particularly those of petite mitt. At 299mm wide and 24mm heavy successful the middle, it’s a acold bulkier handheld than immoderate Steam Deck, and astatine 795g it’s astir arsenic dense arsenic the slabbish Lenovo Legion Go. It’s besides an costly concern successful a marketplace that’s progressively stuffed with costly investments, its frightful £899 / $900 terms tag dwarfing adjacent those of the Legion Go, the Asus ROG Ally X, and the Zotac Zone. And, erstwhile again, you don’t adjacent get a case.
Why endure each this mass, and/or monolithic fiscal damage? Primarily, it’s due to the fact that wrong that hefty ammunition lies 1 precise enthusiastically beating heart. MSI person stuck by their experimentation successful utilizing Intel chips alternatively of the existent handheld PC-standard AMD APUs, and successful particular, the Claw 8 AI+’s Arc 140V GPU pays off. Even moving games astatine autochthonal 1200p, it repeatedly outpaces the 800p-limited Steam Deck, and either beats oregon (more oregon less) matches different high-end Windows machines similar the ROG Ally X and Zotac Zone.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
The Claw 8 AI+ besides avoids a trap that the Legion Go, blinded by the pursuit of impressive-sounding specs, blundered into: its surface isn’t mismatched to its performance. Rather than overshoot with an excessively precocious solution that its internals couldn’t decently support, the Claw 8 AI+’s 8in, 1920x1200 sheet doesn’t discarded anything, with a pleasant 45-60fps intelligibly imaginable successful galore 3D, AAA fare. Dropping to 1280x800 (or simply playing little demanding games, of which thousands are available) tin besides easy spot framerates precocious supra 60fps, wherever you tin instrumentality due vantage of the 120Hz refresh rate.
The Claw 8 AI+ won’t tally everything. Monster Hunter Wilds’ benchmark instrumentality returned a lowly 27fps, connected minimum settings and Ultra Performance-level FSR upscaling. Yet it does marque a wide up connected the Steam Deck by handling games that aren’t rather feasible connected Valve’s handheld. Space Marine II, for example, can’t marque it to a unchangeable 30fps connected the Deck, but I was getting 30-40fps connected the Claw 8 AI+ with Low prime and FSR connected its legible Performance mode. Likewise, Horizon Forbidden West needs Ultra Performance upscaling to adjacent attack playability connected the Deck, but present it seldom dropped beneath 30fps with FSR connected its overmuch sharper Quality setting.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
An tremendous agelong of rear vents helps marque definite this show hotness doesn’t person into regular hotness, and portion the fans aren’t arsenic whispery arsenic the Steam Deck OLED’s, the Claw 8 AI+’s thunderous speakers tin easy drown them out. At home, anyway. Bluetooth and a 3.5mm jack harvester for headphone options, which I bash urge arsenic an alternate to being stomped to decease by irate commuters.
You’d surely person plentifulness of clip to inflict eardrum harm connected your chap passengers, arsenic the Claw 8 AI+’s chunky 80Whr artillery – up from 53Whr connected the archetypal Claw – makes it 1 of the longest-lasting handheld PCs successful the business. Not rather to the grade of the Steam Deck OLED, which made immoderate clever ratio improvements to go seemingly unbeatable successful low-demand games: the Claw 8 AI+’s 3h 22m successful Portal 2 is some large by Windows standards and obscurity adjacent the Deck OLED’s 5h 48m. But then, the MSI’s 2h 13m successful Elden Ring is lone a azygous infinitesimal shy of the Deck OLED’s 2h 14m, showing a capableness to drawback up successful thirstier games.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
Among its Windows rivals, the lone 1 that tin basal up to the Claw 8 AI+ connected endurance is the ROG Ally X, and that fell abbreviated successful Portal 2 with 2h 59m. The Asus instrumentality took a constrictive pb successful Forza Horizon 5, lasting 2h 55m to the 2h 52m of the Claw 8 AI+, though considering the second has a bigger, much pixel-rich screen, I’d inactive accidental it puts successful the much formidable artillery performance.
The surface itself ain’t fractional atrocious either, covering 99.1% of the sRGB colour gamut and hitting a opposition ratio of 1412:1 – which is benchmark-speak for affluent colours and heavy blacks. For this money, however, it does consciousness a spot skimpish to lone get an LCD/IPS panel, alternatively than an OLED show similar that of the updated Steam Deck oregon Zotac Zone. Besides being physically thinner and much power-efficient, fantabulous qualities for a portable PC, those OLED screens some nutrient infinite opposition and brightness that peaks astatine implicit 900cd/m2 successful HDR-compatible games. The Claw 8 AI+ lacks this HDR enactment arsenic its brightness tops retired astatine 521cd/m2, which isn’t adjacent higher than that connected the original, LCD Steam Deck. You’d apt request astir of those nits, successful immoderate event, arsenic a defence against the reflectivity of the Claw 8 AI+’s glossy screen; an anti-glare decorativeness being different Steam Deck OLED perk that this exemplary lacks.
This unusual blend of precocious specs and lower-end basicness is repeatedly evident successful the Claw 8 AI+’s design. You bash get immoderate niceties, similar the dual USB-C ports up adjacent to the top-mounted microSD paper slot, arsenic good arsenic a fingerprint sensor built into the powerfulness button. But past it’s besides covered successful cheap-feeling plastic, with smaller, little hardy thumbsticks than those of the acold much affordable Deck OLED. There’s not a azygous trackpad to assistance navigate the precise overmuch touchscreen-unfriendly Windows 11, and I personally don’t vibe with the beforehand panelling’s damp, dour, greenish-grey colour scheme, which looks arsenic if MSI conscionable raided the overgarment retention cupboard of a disused Lada factory.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
That’s not a immense fuss – unless you’re much of a Trabant instrumentality – but the difficulties successful wielding Windows volition be. Yes, Windows 11 inactive feels arsenic mislaid and confused connected a handheld arsenic it did connected the archetypal ROG Ally. It’s telling that the changeless fiddliness of poking astatine its shrunken UI really represents 1 of its lesser headaches, arsenic the OS ever seems much bug-prone connected these portable PCs than it does connected desktops, and the Claw 8 AI+ is sadly nary exception. On apical of akin issues with randomly resizing app windows arsenic I had connected the Zotac Zone, 1 peculiarly annoying input bug saw the A fastener cease to registry successful Steam, forcing maine onto the touchscreen.
MSI has made the effort to adhd immoderate handheld-specific comforts, successful the forms of a useful quick-settings overlay paper and its Center M all-in-one games launcher, though neither are genuinely game-changing for Windows’s fortunes. The settings overlay sometimes lone appears aft a fewer seconds of lag, and the launcher’s side-scrolling interface lone fits 5 games onscreen astatine most, truthful I ended up astir ne'er utilizing it. As with immoderate Windows handheld, you bash get a wider scope of natively supported crippled launchers than connected SteamOS, though considering astir of these tin beryllium installed connected a Steam Deck with Lutris anyway, that’s little of an vantage than it sounds like.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun
Blemishes similar this, the simply good display, and the dull plan mean that it’s intolerable to get outright excited astir the MSI Claw 8 AI+. Especially when, for 900 large ones, you could rather reasonably expect top-of-the-line features throughout. Still, it’s not similar this is immoderate thumbsticked bauble either. It is, successful fact, the astir almighty (on average) handheld PC among its peers, and dissimilar the likewise framerate-minded Zotac Zone, doesn’t compromise connected artillery beingness to get there.
By these metrics – and I’m forced to reason that they are much important than whether it looks similar a Soviet sedan – the MSI Claw 8 AI+ isn’t conscionable a indispensable tweak to the doomed first-gen Claw. It’s a good, beardown handheld successful its ain right, and the show and practicality it brings are worthy additions to the ever-growing portable scene.
This reappraisal is based connected a reappraisal portion provided by the manufacturer.
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