MSI Claw 8 AI+ hands-on review: promising second chance for an Intel-powered gaming handheld
MSI's second gaming handheld feels much more promising thanks to its new design and Intel Lunar Lake
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ has looked like a promising gaming handheld since we first saw it at Computex 2024 behind glass and now we got to play it at IFA 2024. We got to hold the larger but more comfortable handheld and see its bigger and brighter 8-inch screen. What’s more, I was able to play one game with the handheld during my 30-minute session. Though it was a limited demo, I got a taste of how its Intel Lunar Lake chip will handle gaming.
Overall I came away impressed with MSI’s second debut in the crowded PC gaming handheld space. The controls feel nice and they include hall effect thumbsticks and triggers. MSI has also fully overhauled its Center M software to make perusing your game library easier without having to interact with Windows 11. The new MSI Quick Settings overlay also has some handy Xbox Game Bar shortcuts to simplify streaming and taking screenshots. I hope the MSI Claw 8 AI+ will be a much better gaming device than the company’s original Claw handheld and I can’t wait to get more time with the device.
Pros:
✅ 📺 Bigger, brighter 8-inch screen with minimal bezels
✅ 🕹️ Great feeling hall-effect thumbsticks
✅ 🥶 Fantastic cooling solution
✅ 🔋80Wh and Intel Lunar Lake efficiency could yield 10+ hour battery life
Cons:
❌ 🔫 Unusual squared-off triggers might be off-putting
❌ 🐏 Specs including storage and 16 or 32GB of RAM still TBD
❌ 📆 January 2025 release could make the MSI Claw 8 AI+ less relevant
📺 Big 8-inch screen. One of the most obvious improvements of Claw 8 AI+ is its larger screen, measuring 8 inches instead of the previous 7-inch display. It’s now a class size larger than the Asus ROG Ally X, Zotac Zone, and the new Acer Nitro Blaze 7.
📐Slimmer design. The larger 1080p display puts it on more equal footing with the Lenovo Legion Go, however, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ feels remarkably smaller and thinner compared to Lenovo’s behemoth thanks to its leaner design. That makes it easier to pack when traveling.
🤩 Brighter screen too. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ also has a much brighter screen, hitting closer to 500 nits of brightness. Hi-Fi Rush, the only game we were allowed to play on the prototype Claw 8 AI+ looks sharp and vibrant on the display. The higher brightness really made the colors on the already colorful game pop even more, especially on the white clouds.
👔 Cleaner look. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ has a distinct light-on-black motif with metallic-colored plates covering most of the controller grips. It almost reminds me of the Ouya controller, but it has a slightly tan tinge instead of straight gunmetal gray. I like the new two-toned look as it makes it more distinct. The original MSI Claw could have been mistaken for a black version of the original Asus ROG Ally.
🥶 Major cooling. The backside of this handheld looks much more like a gaming device. The top edge of the device has bare heatsink fins like I would see on a desktop graphics card including the. The rear panel features large air intake panels. And the corrugated design is an excellent contrast to the smooth front while also giving you a bit more texture to grip the device.
👾 Center M gaming software. MSI has also cleaned up the Claw 8 AI+ software with a better-designed Center M overlay. The software essentially collates all your games and launchers into one UI so you never have to tap on Windows 11. It’s a bit splashier than Asus Armory Crate and I like how it blows up the game art and turns it into a background wallpaper.
🎮 Xbox Game Bar built-in. MSI has also overhauled its Quick Settings overlay, so the touch buttons are now super-sized and much easier to tap with your thumb. If you squint really hard at the top of the MSI Quick Settings, you can see it also includes a few of Xbox’s Game Bar options including taking screenshots and streaming.
🕹️ Hall-effect thumbsticks and triggers. Like many other gaming handhelds, MSI has integrated some hall-effect parts to the most commonly used controls; the thumbsticks and triggers. The magnetic-based sensors should allow these controls to survive years of wear and tear and tear. The thumbsticks themselves feel like they have a good amount of travel and about the same resistance I feel on a standard Xbox controller. I’m not the biggest fan of squared-off triggers, but they were easy to get used to during my hands-on time with the device.
⚙️ Intel Lunar Lake inside. The original MSI Claw’s first crack at being the first and only Intel-powered handled was a mess, to say the least – but the new Intel Lunar Lake chip should be a much better fit. On paper, the new Intel chips will deliver 31% better gaming performance thanks to the Xe2 architecture behind the Arc graphics. We were only allowed to play Hi-Fi Rush on the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and it was able to run at a steady 60fps though it’s hardly what I would call a demanding game. I can’t wait to run games like Black Myth: Wukong and Alan Wake 2 on MSI’s new handheld to push it to its limits.
📝 Final specs TBD. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ specs are still very much in the air. MSI told me it will run on an Intel Core Ultra 7 chip, but didn’t share exactly which CPU it will use. The memory could also either be 16GB or 32GB LPDDR5x-8533 memory – I’m hoping for the latter as the Asus ROG Ally X’s jump from 16GB to 24GB greatly improved its performance. Storage capacity is another mystery on this device, MSI has only said its system uses full size M.2 2280 SSDs, so it should be upgradable to 2TB in theory.
🔋 10+ hour battery life? MSI Claw 8 AI+ might hit double digits hours since its battery is almost twice as large going from a 53Wh cell to 80Wh. Intel has also made some bold claims of 20-30 hour battery life on laptops powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 2 chips, the very same ones that will power this handheld. However, MSI has yet to give any exact battery life estimates for the Claw 8 AI+, so we can only speculate for now.
📆 Coming January 2025, price unknown. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ has an unusually late release date in January 2025. While I understand that MSI might be hesitant to just launch it sooner before the holidays after the original Claw handheld turned out to be such a lemon for performance and compatibility, releasing sooner might be in MSI and Intel’s best interest now that AMD has confirmed its Z2 chip for handhelds will arrive next year.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director and a gaming handheld aficionado. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.