MSI Claw 8 AI+ hands on: Intel Steam Deck rivals are getting good
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ just went official, and we got hands on with the new gaming handheld to see how it compares to MSI’s first attempt. The good news is that it’s a big step up all round, but there are still reasons to wait for final reviews before putting in that pre-order.
The original MSI Claw remains the first and only major player in the best handheld gaming PC space to be powered by Intel hardware, and while that held back the first unit, the use of a new Intel Lunar Lake chip sets up the MSI Claw 8 AI+ to at least stand a chance against its AMD-powered rivals.
As its rather silly name implies, one of the main improvements with the MSI Claw 8 AI+ is that it now has an 8-inch 1080p display rather than the 7-inch screen of its predecessor. It doesn’t revolutionize the handheld,d but as we found with the Lenovo Legion Go, the extra screen size is often welcome, whether you’re playing games, watching video, or taking advantage of Windows to do some more mundane tasks.
Build quality and general feel is a big step up with this unit too, as we suspected it would be the case when we took an MSI Claw 8 AI+ first look back in May. The new chassis has a superior mix of plastics that feel more premium in the hand and look better too.
Likewise, the contours of the device feel more refined, with the rear buttons being a big improvement too. That said, the grips feel a touch on the shallow side, with them lacking the palm-filling plump of the grips on the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X.
Otherwise, the controls feel good-quality enough, and the styling is pleasingly laid back, even if the cream-colored grips might be a concern for grime build-up. Nonetheless, it’s a far cry from the rather silly graphics that adorn the Acer Nitro 7 Blaze.
Flip over the Claw 9 AI+ and you can clearly see the two fans that cool this device. This doubling up of cooling power certainly has the potential to keep the device cooler (and potentially quieter, if the fans are able to run slower), but we’ll have to wait for our full review testing to really get a sense of how well this works.
Likewise, while the gaming experience on the Claw 8 AI+, with its Intel Lunar Lake CPU and 120Hz screen, certainly felt impressively smooth in action, its true performance uplift over the original Claw and other gaming handhelds remains to be seen. It certainly didn’t help that the only game loaded on the demo units was Hi-Fi Rush, so it wasn’t exactly critical to have 100fps+.
All told, though, the future for Intel-powered gaming handhelds looks surprisingly bright, even if the ease of use of the Steam Deck OLED means it remains our favorite for now.