The MSI Claw EX is the most important handheld since Steam Deck — I still wouldn’t buy one

As The Verge’s resident handheld reviewer, I person astir each portable gaming PC connected a support successful my house. The MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus is now the first 1 I scope for. Thanks to a next-gen Intel chip and improved MSI design, the Claw EX is the astir powerful handheld that genuinely feels portable. It’s the handheld pinch the longest artillery life, and the first Windows handheld I tin spot to slumber and aftermath reliably.

Like the Steam Deck, erstwhile I property the powerfulness button, my crippled is ever correct wherever I near off. Unlike the Steam Deck, it tin hibernate for days without losing a important magnitude of charge.

Performance and battery? Windows and sleep? I wish I could opportunity “you tin person your barroom and eat it too.” But you can’t. You astir apt shouldn’t.

You can’t because this is simply a Ferris Bueller Product Review — this handheld costs a staggering $1,800, and you’ll beryllium fortunate to find it moreover astatine that price. (MSI’s Anne Lee tells maine the US should person constricted proviso sometime this month.)

Even if you could, you astir apt shouldn’t because Intel and MSI and Microsoft didn’t afloat instrumentality the landing. This is indeed a milestone for the handheld gaming space. But for illustration existent milestones connected a highway, you should astir apt thrust correct past.

The Claw EX does person comfortable grips, I’ll springiness it that. Those manta-ray-wings wonderfully dispersed retired its weight, to the constituent that the 1.73-pound (785g) portable feels acold much comfortable than the 1.58-pound (715g) Xbox Ally X erstwhile I clasp it supra maine successful bed.

And while a $1,800 handheld should really person an astonishing OLED screen, I decidedly for illustration the Claw EX’s 8-inch 1920 x 1200 48-120Hz VRR surface to the comparatively cramped 7-inch 1080p 1 successful the Allys. The only existent problem is glare — the ultra-glossy surface was not awesome connected my roadworthy travel this summer.

But the controls are simply average, the instrumentality is large (though it’s whoosh not whine), and those manta-ray grips tin buzz my hands erstwhile I move up the speakers. Sound reverberates inside.

No, the Claw EX’s existent strengths are capacity and artillery — but moreover there, the handheld sometimes fto maine down.

I’ve ever loved the building “potato graphics.” It’s specified a nosy measurement to picture what games look for illustration erstwhile your rig is excessively weak. They’re unsmooth and pasty — for illustration a potato! — moreover erstwhile moving smoothly. Or if you move up the graphics anyway, you get a “slideshow” because your hardware can’t present capable frames.

The first logic I scope for the Claw EX, earlier immoderate different handheld, is because I don’t automatically get potatoes aliases slideshow erstwhile I occurrence up demanding PC games.

Like my workfellow Jay Peters showed you connected motorboat day, the Claw EX makes games look so much sharper than they do connected a Steam Deck, and it’s not conscionable the Deck that’s getting beat. The Xbox Ally X pinch its AMD Z2 Extreme chip, and the old MSI Claw 8 pinch Intel Lunar Lake, aren’t playing demanding games smoothly astatine the 1080p aliases 1200p solution of their screens.

The Claw EX often can, and I’m seeing astir 40 percent much capacity than the Xbox Ally X successful my tests astatine 1080p. In galore games, for illustration Forza Horizon 6 and Cyberpunk 2077, that’s the quality betwixt playing astatine autochthonal solution aliases settling for less.

When I adhd a small upscaling, I tin moreover commencement enjoying games I haven’t been capable to bask handheld because of murphy graphics. I could plaything lightsabers successful Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and ace whips successful Indiana Jones and the Great Circle astatine bully value pinch soft framework complaint while binging K-dramas pinch my spouse.

Until, suddenly, I couldn’t — seemingly because Intel’s drivers aren’t playing bully pinch immoderate games yet. When my Indy visited the Great Pyramid, the Intel spot would simply not tally astatine the wattage I set, and I recovered spots wherever the full crippled would many times frost aliases moreover trigger a afloat strategy hang.

In Jedi: Survivor, the crippled is weirdly stuttery successful immoderate areas, moreover though I get acold much solution and smoother framework complaint connected the Claw EX than the Xbox Ally X. Until a caller Intel update, Expedition 33 had what looked for illustration aggravated graphical corruption astir its particle effects successful the game, turning them into glitchy spots of light.

And you should return Returnal benchmark numbers pinch a atom of salt, because galore graphical effects are wholly missing connected Intel. Undergrowth and volumetric fog are hardly there; chromatic objects nary longer detonate into showers of rock; transparent power shields are weirdly opaque.

The 2nd logic I scope for the Claw EX is that artillery life. Like immoderate of its competitors, it has a large 80 watt-hour battalion — but the Intel spot tin agelong that artillery moreover further than the competition.

Take Cyberpunk 2077, for example. To deed a soft 70fps mean astatine 720p resolution, the Xbox Ally X and the last-gen Claw require astir 30 watts of full power, draining their batteries successful astir 2.5 hours. With the caller Claw, you tin scope that aforesaid capacity pinch 21 watts, giving you a full other hr connected a charge.

Or return Balatro, the 2D magic poker game that’s go my best-case artillery life test. Just by toggling the Claw EX’s “Endurance” mode and mounting the surface to 48Hz alternatively of 120Hz successful the Quick Settings menu, I sewage the handheld’s full strategy powerfulness tie down to conscionable 6.5 watts, capable to past 12 full hours connected a charge. It’s uncommon to get epic artillery life for 2D indie games and capacity for triple-A ones from a azygous chip.

But this spot of the Claw EX is flawed, too. When I drain the artillery beneath 15 percent complaint pinch triple-A games, capacity dramatically dips. My spot couldn’t support its 25W capacity mode and switched to 15W instead. That capacity didn’t instantly travel backmost erstwhile I plugged the handheld in.

And though the Claw EX mightiness beryllium the first Windows handheld that decently sleeps and wakes correct retired of the box, that doesn’t excuse its different Windows woes.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve launched a crippled and been near staring astatine a achromatic screen, wondering erstwhile it’ll yet appear, only to observe it was already moving successful the inheritance and didn’t show itself. I don’t admit having to clasp down the Task Switcher fastener to hole a crippled that didn’t decently motorboat full-screen, aliases having to discontinue retired to desktop mode to download the latest Intel drivers. The handheld should really automatically alert maine erstwhile they’re available.

I astir did a spit return erstwhile Windows told maine I couldn’t usage my handheld’s power sheet because, and I quote, “Most of the features successful Quick Settings require management privileges. To usage each the features, please move to an administrator account.”

Thankfully, a reboot fixed that.

I instinctively scope for the Claw EX, alternatively of immoderate different handheld, because I’m borrowing it from Intel alternatively of paying rate — and because I’m consenting to tolerate its idiosyncrasies for less murphy graphics. At $1,800, I wouldn’t.

Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge