is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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I wrote that no one should buy MSI and Intel’s original handheld gaming PC. I literally called it an embarrassment, and the company blacklisted me after that. MSI stopped pitching me news, and stopped answering my emails, even after the company began to write off its dud of a handheld.
So you can imagine my surprise to find: MSI and Intel have gone from worst to nearly first. In many games, it’s twice as fast as the original Claw. And with new drivers that bump its performance up to 30 percent higher since launch — I tested — the newer $1,000 MSI Claw 8 AI Plus might just be the best Windows handheld you can buy.
The Claw 8 has become a fixture in my life as I carve and puzzle through the hauntingly beautiful painted worlds of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Blue Prince, respectively. I have a lot of other handheld review units floating around, but I rarely want to reach for a different one.
Let’s get this out of the way: it’s called the “AI Plus” because this “AI Engine” is supposed to automatically configure performance using Intel’s NPU. But it’s very dumb in practice and not a reason to buy.
Yes, it runs Windows, and if you’ve read any of my handheld reviews you’ll know how I feel about that. Windows 11 has become a bloated mess filled with annoying upsells and unwanted AI cruft, is annoying to navigate by controller alone, and often wakes up poorly from sleep. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sworn at Windows handhelds for popping awake in the middle of the night, or spontaneously deciding it was time to turn their remaining battery life into hot exhaust in the middle of my sealed backpack.
But the MSI Claw 8, with Intel’s Lunar Lake, isn’t as bad as the Windows norm. When you combine that with the newly improved performance, the longest battery life of any handheld in all but the most lightweight games, and an excellent 8-inch screen, it’s enough to knock the Asus ROG Ally X off its high perch — at least until the Xbox version arrives this October.
The MSI Claw 8 AI Plus is the biggest mainstream handheld, at nearly a foot long, 5 inches tall, and an inch thick, and it’s the only current-gen handheld with an Intel chip. Last year, both size and Intel pedigree were liabilities — but thankfully every handheld maker is paying more attention to ergonomics this year, and Intel’s Lunar Lake is a big improvement.
Scalloped grips and balanced weight distribution make the Claw comfortable for me to hold, it no longer looks like a ROG Ally knockoff, and while it isn’t light at 1.75 pounds (795g), that’s only a quarter-pound heavier than the Ally X. That’s despite the Claw having an extra inch of diagonal screen real estate and the same 80 watt-hour battery capacity as Asus.
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