Earlier this week MSI’s Claw handheld was leaked, showcasing the machine’s design and primarily confirming its existence, however right this moment MSI has formally unveiled it, calling it the Claw A1M. “Grip and Sport,” MSI says, and that’s about as becoming a tagline as you possibly can have for one thing like this. The Claw A1M will likely be competing instantly with Valve’s Steam Deck, ASUS’s ROG Ally, and Lenovo’s Legion Go. To not point out a handful of choices from lesser-known manufacturers like AYANEO and GPD.
MSI teased the Claw A1M previous to its announcement at CES right this moment. Nonetheless, the teaser didn’t present a lot of the machine aside from some delicate outlines of the joysticks with RGB. In addition to some up-close pictures of the again vents. Now MSI is sharing the total scope of the hand-held full with specs and a smattering of options. When it comes to design, it doesn’t look a lot totally different from the ROG Ally. Barely flared-out sides act as a form of ergonomic resting place to your palms whilst you maintain it. And it options equally angled, or virtually polygonal-shaped again buttons. These had been surprisingly comfy to faucet on the Ally throughout gameplay. So we count on as a lot right here too.
MSI has additionally applied more room on the again facet of the unit the place the hand grips are. This extra depth looks as if it might make it extra comfy to carry. The grips are additionally good and contoured, which ought to enable your fingers to relaxation properly in these curves. “Utilizing meticulously polished design particulars, from the curvature that matches the palm to finger grip positions and set off pressure, leads to Claw being ergonomically tailor-made for consolation and precision,” MSI says.
The MSI Claw A1M is the primary handheld powered by Intel’s Meteor Lake chip
So now for the large distinction between most of those handhelds already in the marketplace. It’s not design. Regardless of having delicate modifications, many of those look shut sufficient that you just may not know which is which for those who weren’t intimately conversant in every model. The place issues diversify is with the within chipset powering the unit. On the ROG Ally and Legion Go, and fairly a couple of from AYANEO, the handhelds are all powered by AMD APUs. Within the case of the ROG Ally and Legion Go it’s particularly the Z1 Excessive.
MSI has gone a unique route. It labored intently with Intel to make the Claw A1M the world’s first handheld gaming PC operating on Intel’s Meteor Lake processors. MSI suggests different variants will likely be accessible in some unspecified time in the future, noting that some “product specification, capabilities, and look might fluctuate by mannequin and differ from nation to nation.” In the interim, nonetheless, solely the A1M mannequin has been introduced. This mannequin comes with as much as an Intel Core Extremely 7 155H CPU (it may possibly additionally include an Intel Core Extremely 5 chip), and it makes use of Intel’s Arc graphics. It additionally has 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM (not the rumored 32GB that was floating round in benchmarks from the leak), and as much as 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD storage.
Moreover, it has two 2W audio system and it’s acquired an audio jack for headphones too. Simply in case you wish to play video games with out interrupting these round you. You would additionally wi-fi headphones, however that might simply deplete the 53Whr battery extra, which MSI says solely lasts about 2 hours whereas operating below a full efficiency workload. That being stated, the Claw does have the most important battery of its opponents. So with some software program magic and a little bit tuning, you possibly can most likely get the battery to last more. On the expense of recreation efficiency.
Nonetheless, you may not must take care of an excessive amount of efficiency dip. MSI was fast to level out the processor’s use of Intel XeSS expertise, which is meant to assist the Claw get boosted body charges for smoother efficiency due to some assist from AI upscaling algorithms. MSI says this “considerably boosts frames per second.” However we’ll have to attend and see what real-world testing is like. Both method, video games ought to nonetheless look fairly good. Particularly with the Claw’s giant 7-inch 120Hz show.
Pricing and availability
MSI hasn’t confirmed any precise launch dates but it surely does notice the machine is launching quickly. The Claw A1M will hit cabinets in February. So the discharge is simply across the nook. It’ll additionally are available at a value level of $699. That being stated, that’s the baseline price ticket. If MSI decides to launch any extra highly effective fashions, that value is barely going to go up. Nonetheless, it’s proper in keeping with what Valve, ASUS, and Lenovo are charging. And it’s considerably cheaper than the choices from AYANEO.