Something this assessment can’t inform you is how precisely the MSI Claw 8 AI+ improves at the unique Claw, for the straightforward reason why that MSI themselves binned off the latter sooner than I had a possibility to check out it. 3 months, it lasted, sooner than this do-over were given introduced. 3 months! And other folks say the Steam Deck OLED got here too quickly.
The excellent news is that the Claw 8 AI+’s mostly-internal revamping – new CPU, new GPU, fatter battery and so forth. – has produced a hand held that no longer most effective thrashes Valve’s upgraded Steam Deck on video games efficiency, however is up there with the most efficient of its Home windows-based brethren-portables on longevity. You already know what, it almost definitely is healthier than the Claw. Yeah.
The entire identical, the Claw 8 AI+ gained’t go well with everybody, particularly the ones of petite mitt. At 299mm large and 24mm thick within the heart, it’s a some distance bulkier hand held than any Steam Deck, and at 795g it’s nearly as heavy because the slabbish Lenovo Legion Cross. It’s additionally a pricey funding in a marketplace that’s increasingly more full of pricey investments, its frightful £899 / $900 ticket dwarfing even the ones of the Legion Cross, the Asus ROG Best friend X, and the Zotac Zone. And, as soon as once more, you don’t even get a case.
Why bear all this mass, and/or large monetary injury? Basically, it’s as a result of inside that hefty shell lies one very enthusiastically beating middle. MSI have caught via their experiment in the usage of Intel chips as a substitute of the present hand held PC-standard AMD APUs, and specifically, the Claw 8 AI+’s Arc 140V GPU will pay off. Even operating video games at local 1200p, it again and again outpaces the 800p-limited Steam Deck, and both beats or (kind of) suits different high-end Home windows machines just like the ROG Best friend X and Zotac Zone.
The Claw 8 AI+ additionally avoids a entice that the Legion Cross, blinded via the pursuit of impressive-sounding specifications, blundered into: its display screen isn’t mismatched to its efficiency. Quite than overshoot with a very excessive answer that its internals couldn’t correctly make stronger, the Claw 8 AI+’s 8in, 1920×1200 panel doesn’t waste anything else, with a pleasing 45-60fps obviously conceivable in a lot of three-D, AAA fare. Shedding to 1280×800 (or just taking part in much less hard video games, of which hundreds are to be had) too can simply see framerates excessive above 60fps, the place you’ll be able to take right kind benefit of the 120Hz refresh charge.
The Claw 8 AI+ gained’t run the entirety. Monster Hunter Wilds’ benchmark device returned a lowly 27fps, on minimal settings and Extremely Efficiency-level FSR upscaling. But it does make a transparent up at the Steam Deck via dealing with video games that aren’t rather possible on Valve’s hand held. Area Marine II, as an example, can’t make it to a strong 30fps at the Deck, however I used to be getting 30-40fps at the Claw 8 AI+ with Low high quality and FSR on its legible Efficiency mode. Likewise, Horizon Forbidden West wishes Extremely Efficiency upscaling to even means playability at the Deck, however right here it seldom dropped beneath 30fps with FSR on its a lot sharper High quality atmosphere.
A huge stretch of rear vents is helping be sure that this efficiency hotness doesn’t convert into common hotness, and whilst the fanatics aren’t as whispery because the Steam Deck OLED’s, the Claw 8 AI+’s thunderous audio system can simply drown them out. At house, anyway. Bluetooth and a three.5mm jack mix for headphone choices, which I do suggest as a substitute for being stomped to loss of life via irate commuters.
You’d surely have quite a few time to inflict eardrum injury in your fellow passengers, because the Claw 8 AI+’s chunky 80Whr battery – up from 53Whr at the unique Claw – makes it some of the longest-lasting hand held PCs within the industry. Now not rather to the level of the Steam Deck OLED, which made some artful potency enhancements to change into apparently unbeatable in low-demand video games: the Claw 8 AI+’s 3h 22m in Portal 2 is each nice via Home windows requirements and nowhere close to the Deck OLED’s 5h 48m. However then, the MSI’s 2h 13m in Elden Ring is just a unmarried minute shy of the Deck OLED’s 2h 14m, appearing an ability to catch up in thirstier video games.
Amongst its Home windows opponents, the one one that may rise up to the Claw 8 AI+ on staying power is the ROG Best friend X, and that fell brief in Portal 2 with 2h 59m. The Asus tool took a slim lead in Forza Horizon 5, lasting 2h 55m to the 2h 52m of the Claw 8 AI+, despite the fact that taking into account the latter has a larger, extra pixel-rich display screen, I’d nonetheless say it places within the extra ambitious battery efficiency.
The display screen itself ain’t part unhealthy both, protecting 99.1% of the sRGB color gamut and hitting a distinction ratio of 1412:1 – which is benchmark-speak for wealthy colors and deep blacks. For this cash, on the other hand, it does really feel just a little skimpish to just get an LCD/IPS panel, slightly than an OLED show like that of the up to date Steam Deck or Zotac Zone. But even so being bodily thinner and extra power-efficient, very good qualities for a transportable PC, the ones OLED monitors each produce countless distinction and brightness that peaks at over 900cd/m2 in HDR-compatible video games. The Claw 8 AI+ lacks this HDR make stronger as its brightness tops out at 521cd/m2, which isn’t even upper than that at the unique, LCD Steam Deck. You’d most probably want maximum of the ones nits, in any match, as a defence towards the reflectivity of the Claw 8 AI+’s shiny display screen; an anti-glare end being any other Steam Deck OLED perk that this fashion lacks.
This strange mix of excessive specifications and lower-end basicness is again and again obtrusive within the Claw 8 AI+’s design. You do get some niceties, like the twin USB-C ports up subsequent to the top-mounted microSD card slot, in addition to a fingerprint sensor constructed into the ability button. However then it’s additionally lined in cheap-feeling plastic, with smaller, much less hardy thumbsticks than the ones of the way more inexpensive Deck OLED. There’s no longer a unmarried trackpad to lend a hand navigate the very a lot touchscreen-unfriendly Home windows 11, and I for my part don’t vibe with the entrance panelling’s damp, dour, greenish-grey color scheme, which seems like MSI simply raided the paint garage cabinet of a disused Lada manufacturing facility.
That’s no longer an enormous hassle – except you’re extra of a Trabant fan – however the difficulties in wielding Home windows will likely be. Sure, Home windows 11 nonetheless feels as misplaced and perplexed on a hand held because it did at the first ROG Best friend. It’s telling that the consistent fiddliness of poking at its shrunken UI in reality represents one among its lesser complications, because the OS all the time turns out extra bug-prone on those moveable PCs than it does on desktops, and the Claw 8 AI+ is unfortunately no exception. On height of equivalent problems with randomly resizing app home windows as I had at the Zotac Zone, one specifically nerve-racking enter trojan horse noticed the A button stop to sign in in Steam, forcing me onto the touchscreen.
MSI has made the hassle so as to add some handheld-specific comforts, within the kinds of a to hand quick-settings overlay menu and its Heart M all-in-one video games launcher, despite the fact that neither are in reality game-changing for Home windows’s fortunes. The settings overlay infrequently most effective seems after a couple of seconds of lag, and the launcher’s side-scrolling interface most effective suits 5 video games onscreen at maximum, so I finished up nearly by no means the usage of it. As with every Home windows hand held, you do get a much wider vary of natively supported recreation launchers than on SteamOS, despite the fact that taking into account all these will also be put in on a Steam Deck with Lutris anyway, that’s much less of a bonus than it feels like.
Blemishes like this, the simply ok show, and the boring design imply that it’s unattainable to get outright enthusiastic about the MSI Claw 8 AI+. Particularly when, for 900 giant ones, it is advisable rather slightly be expecting among the best options right through. Nonetheless, it’s no longer like that is some thumbsticked bauble both. It’s, if truth be told, probably the most robust (on moderate) hand held PC amongst its friends, and in contrast to the in a similar fashion framerate-minded Zotac Zone, doesn’t compromise on battery lifestyles to get there.
Through those metrics – and I’m compelled to conclude that they’re extra vital than whether or not it seems like a Soviet sedan – the MSI Claw 8 AI+ isn’t only a essential tweak to the doomed first-gen Claw. It’s a just right, sturdy hand held in its personal proper, and the efficiency and practicality it brings are worthy additions to the ever-growing moveable scene.
This assessment is in response to a assessment unit equipped via the producer.
