I’m not giving up my Steam Deck for MSI’s new Claw

This is not a reappraisal of the MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus, the first gaming handheld disposable pinch Intel’s caller Arc G3 Extreme handheld gaming chip. Now that my workfellow Sean Hollister is done reviewing the Steam Machine, I’ll fto him spell heavy connected the caller Claw astatine immoderate constituent successful the future. This article, instead, is my first impressions of the caller MSI Claw arsenic personification who chiefly plays games connected a Steam Deck OLED. Sean called the Claw the “next-gen handheld,” and I wanted to find out: Would it beryllium a worthwhile upgrade for Deck fans for illustration me? Could it perchance beryllium worthy the eye-watering $1,799 price?

For me, the Claw has a precocious barroom to clear. The $789 Steam Deck OLED is my favourite handheld — possibly my favourite gadget — since the original Nintendo Switch. It’s comfortable to hold, has a great-looking display, and has a bully capable artillery to past beautiful overmuch immoderate evening of gaming for me. It lets maine play the immense mostly of my Steam room wherever I want. But the Deck isn’t awesome for every crippled I own; top-of-the-line AAA games occasionally play poorly, pinch muddy graphics, bad framework rates, aliases both. I will suffer done those drawbacks for galore games, but each erstwhile successful a while, I move to my PS5 for titles that don’t activity good connected the Deck.

Without maine changing a azygous setting, the improvements were instantly clear: All 3 looked overmuch nicer than they do connected my Steam Deck. In FFVII, Cloud’s spiky blonde hairsbreadth successful had less blurry edges, and I could really spot meaning successful his look erstwhile he was turned around. In a tricky firefight connected an airfield successful First Light, I had a overmuch easier clip seeing wherever the enemies were shooting maine from.

Frame rates were overmuch better, too. With FFVII, the Claw and the Deck some defaulted to 30fps, but aft tweaking the framework complaint settings, the crippled hovered betwixt 70–100fps connected the Claw, moreover during the leader conflict against the Scorpion Sentinel, yet it struggled to consistently deed 60fps connected the Deck. While wandering astir First Light’s packed chess lucifer astatine the fictional Grand Carpathian Hotel, I saw betwixt 80–90fps — the Deck mostly maintained astir 35fps — and moreover erstwhile I cranked everything up to Ultra connected the Claw, I was still getting astir 60–70fps. 007 First Light’s default settings for some handhelds was 1280 x 800 astatine murphy quality, however, truthful things don’t look markedly different connected the Claw without immoderate tweaking. But successful mobility the crippled looks and plays better.

Expedition 33 wasn’t rather arsenic overmuch of an improvement. From infinitesimal one, it looks much sharper connected the Claw than it does connected the Deck, wherever it’s often a fuzzy mess. On the Claw, the default settings successful Expedition 33 kept a framework complaint of astir 30–40fps successful the game’s opening area, but toggling connected Intel’s XeSS upscaler and framework procreation toggles gave maine much for illustration 70–90fps worthy of smoothness.

However, location was a distracting graphical rumor wherever characters and objects would get weird glowy aliases achromatic artifacts astir the edges successful close-up shots during battles and cutscenes.

Each crippled did usage much powerfulness connected the Claw. In First Light, I mostly saw artillery drain of astir 35W connected the Claw and betwixt 22–23W connected the Deck, for example. But pinch the Claw’s larger 80Whr battery, compared to the Deck’s 50Whr battery, that intends that some handhelds would theoretically get 2 afloat hours of artillery life, contempt the Claw’s improved graphics and framework rate.

I besides threw a overmuch lighter crippled astatine the Claw to spot really businesslike Intel’s spot mightiness beryllium compared to what’s disposable connected the Steam Deck: Balatro, the roguelike poker game. Both handhelds sipped powerfulness during Balatro, draining the artillery astatine astir 14W and 9W, respectively. When I reduced each chip’s TDP to the lowest it could spell while maintaining 60 frames per second, it looked for illustration some the Claw and the Deck OLED would past a small complete six hours, truthful nary existent upgrade there.

Overall, gaming connected the Claw feels great. But the Windows handheld package acquisition connected the Claw is conscionable atrocious compared to the straightforwardness of SteamOS connected the Steam Deck. When I first booted the Claw, I had to spell done various Windows setup screens and downloads and updates, and it took an hr and a half earlier I could moreover commencement uncovering my measurement to installing and mounting up Steam. That mightiness partially beryllium mediocre Wi-Fi, but location were still measurement excessively galore hoops to jump through, and I don’t bask confusingly bouncing betwixt the 4 layers of Windows, Xbox Mode, MSI’s proprietary software, and Steam.

I besides don’t deliberation the Claw’s hardware is worthy the premium complete the Steam Deck OLED. The Claw has a fewer perks complete the Deck, including a bigger 8-inch screen, drift-resistant Hall effect analog sticks, and prongs pinch a “laser-etched dot texture” that are easy to grip. But the Claw has an IPS LCD show that’s not arsenic vibrant arsenic the Deck’s OLED screen, it’s considerably heavier than the Deck (785g vs. 640g), and it doesn’t person the Deck’s built-in touchpads, which I for illustration utilizing arsenic other inputs for my games. The Menu and View buttons connected the Claw felt just excessively acold retired of scope for my thumbs, making pausing a crippled a spot much problem than it should be. And I don’t for illustration the RGB lights astir the Claw’s joysticks — the gamer glow has ne'er been my vibe — though you tin move them disconnected successful settings.

So, to reply my original questions, is the Claw an upgrade to my Deck OLED? In my fewer hours of testing, I’m not convinced. Sure, I’m missing retired connected immoderate power, but the Deck is simply a much comfortable instrumentality to clasp and usage for me. Is the Claw the amended action for personification picking betwixt it and a Deck OLED? That’s a trickier mobility to answer; Windows handhelds still person entree to multiplayer games for illustration Fortnite that don’t support Linux owed to anti-cheat software. That elasticity and the improved capacity mightiness beryllium the tipping constituent if you person $1,700 to walk connected a handheld.

If you’re really connected the fence, I’d urge waiting for my workfellow Sean’s heavy dive. But I’m not giving up my Deck, and I don’t deliberation you should unreserved to get the Claw, particularly erstwhile location are still truthful galore package issues that request to beryllium worked out. They conscionable aren’t worthy dealing pinch connected a instrumentality astir a expansive much costly than Valve’s.