The PC gaming handheld market is booming right now, and there are plenty of Windows-based alternatives to the Steam Deck to choose from. Most manufacturers opted for AMD-based devices, but MSI is one of the only using Intel CPUs with integrated graphics to power their handhelds. And you know what? On the MSI Claw 8 AI+—it absolutely works—with the Intel Core 7 258V putting out good performance numbers while sipping battery life from the 80Wh tank.
This is a big improvement over last year’s MSI Claw 7, which had an Intel Core 100 Series CPU inside. It’s also a big improvement over most of the handhelds we’ve reviewed, which says a lot about Intel’s Lunar Lake platform and how good it is. We’ve been loving Lunar Lake laptops, and it’s interesting to see how well the platform adapts to the smaller, gaming-focused form factor.
Even with Windows holding back the user experience compared to SteamOS, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ is worth checking out if you want the best handheld gaming performance right now—assuming you can find one in stock. It’s not the best value, but it gives the best frame rates in demanding titles without compromising on reducing resolution and game settings.
About this review: MSI loaned us the Claw 8 AI+ for the purposes of this review, but had no input into this article and did not see its contents before publishing.
Lunar Lake wins big
MSI Claw 8 AI+
Portable and powerful
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is a big improvement over last year’s Claw 7 AI+, with a larger screen, bigger battery, more storage, and plenty of power thanks to the Intel Lunar Lake processor. The larger screen makes Windows 11 slightly easier to use with a touchscreen, but the price might be a hard hurdle to pass.
- Excellent Windows gaming performance
- Bright, beautiful screen with high refresh rate
- More comfortable than you’d think
- The price is a big hurdle
- MSI software is slightly glitchy
- Not for smaller hands
- Hard to find in-stock
Price, specs & availability
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ A2VM launched on January 15, 2025, with an MSRP of $900. It’s been available straight from MSI and Newegg, Best Buy, B&H, and Amazon, although stock levels have been low, so keep checking if you’re looking for one. The price has also gone up since launch, to $1,000, likely due to tariffs in the U.S.
Pricing aside, the Intel Core Ultra 200 Series inside this handheld is far more powerful when playing CPU or GPU-heavy games. It averaged 60FPS in many of the games we tested at native resolution, up to twice the performance of what we normally see from AMD-based handhelds, like the Steam Deck OLED.
What I liked about the MSI Claw 8 AI+
Plenty of power for demanding games and a gorgeous screen
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is a large, powerful PC gaming handheld that, with its two-tone design, isn’t going to appeal to everyone. The black-and-gray design is different from the slew of black devices, at least, and the screen takes up most of the space anyway.
On top, you get two Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports that can be used for docking, power, or charging another device with USB PD. Next to the two physical volume buttons, there’s a microSD slot and a 3.5mm audio jack. Most of the top is also taken up with exhaust vents for the cooling system, which does a surprisingly good job of keeping the console cool while not toasting your fingertips.
The Hall Effect joysticks and triggers are responsive and feel awesome, and the overall ergonomic performance is good. The triggers are easily reached, even with the device’s size. The ABXY buttons and the joysticks have RGB lighting around them, which can be turned off to save battery life, but it’s really nice that the buttons are backlit, when most handhelds don’t. The two back buttons are in a decent place to be easily reached, but I wish the grips had a little more texture for easier holding.
The large vents on the back and top edge swiftly pass air over all the components, and the fans are mercifully quiet and have a nice tone even at full speed. The speaker system is loud enough and manages not to sound thin, which is all you really need when you’re probably going to be using headphones most of the time anyway.
Plenty of performance for playing with
I played a mix of handheld and docked games with the MSI Claw 8 AI+, and it responded well when plugged into a Razer USB-C dock that uses USB4. To get some baseline performance numbers against our current favorite Windows PC handheld, I ran the MSI Claw 8 AI+ in its various power limits using the Windows Balanced power plan:
|
ROG Ally X 13W |
ROG Ally X 17W |
ROG Ally X 25W |
ROG Ally X 30W |
Claw 8+ 8W |
Claw 8+ 17W |
Claw 8+ 30W |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Time Spy |
2,079 |
2,767 |
3,323 |
3,463 |
1,738 |
3,787 |
4,605 |
|
CPU |
5,231 |
5,910 |
6,419 |
7,368 |
2,941 |
5,547 |
7,795 |
|
GPU |
1,880 |
2,530 |
3,064 |
3,177 |
1,621 |
3,587 |
4,295 |
|
PCMark10 |
5,341 |
6,043 |
6,147 |
6,876 |
6,144 |
7,230 |
6,844 |
Until now, the ROG Ally X has been our pick for Windows-based gaming handhelds because it has the right mix of ergonomics, price, and performance. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ uses slightly different lower power settings, but with both handhelds having 17W and 30W options, it’s easier to compare them.
The Claw 8 AI+ zooms past the ROG Ally X in synthetic benchmarks, and even the lowest 8W setting beats the ROG Ally X when it’s using 5W more power. Make no mistake about it: This is one of the most powerful PC gaming handhelds we’ve tested. It’s only beaten by the OneXFly F1 Pro, powered by the newer Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU, which costs substantially more at $1,499.
|
sRGB |
DCI-P3 |
Adobe RGB |
Measured Gamma |
Measured White Point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
99% |
76% |
75% |
2.2 |
7600 |
The 1200p, 120Hz refresh rate IPS panel with VRR isn’t the OLED that everyone wishes for on a gaming handheld, but it comes with its own benefits that are better for mobile gaming. It’s brighter, for a start, with a 500 nits max brightness that we tested at 503.6 nits peak, which is pretty darn good and will make gaming outside or in well-lit places like public transportation easier.
It’s got nearly full coverage of the sRGB gamut, although it’s not quite as good as the panel used in the ROG Ally X for both DCI-P3 and AdobeRGB gamuts. It still has enough color coverage for things to pop, and the warmer white point hasn’t been a problem for me when gaming or when reading documents. And it’s unfortunately glossy and suffers from reflections, so you might find yourself repositioning while playing to avoid the glare.
the MSI Claw 8 AI+ is worth checking out if you want the best handheld gaming performance right now
And battery life is fantastic, with synthetic tests of video playback at 50% brightness draining the battery by 6% every hour. Gaming loads are a bigger draw on the battery life, but there’s still plenty of power for three or four hours of gaming with in-game settings turned down to more modest ones at the 1200p native resolution.
Its gaming performance is unmatched
Every single game we played had no issues with the MSI Claw 8 AI+, from new blockbusters like The Last of Us: Part II getting anywhere between 37 and 57FPS on high preset with XeSS enabled, to twitchier games like Hades running at anywhere up to 598FPS with V-Sync unlocked. Spider-Man: Miles Morales managed anywhere between 50 and 82FPS using medium settings while swinging around New York City, while the Steam Deck OLED could manage an average 28FPS, and the Legion Go only 12.51FPS.
Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 55.82FPS with XeSS on while using the Steam Deck preset but with native resolution, which is impressive since most gaming handhelds get around 30FPS here. We also tested Cyberpunk 2077 at 720p, to see how it stacked up against the Steam Deck OLED. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ got 81.12FPS here, vs 29.8FPS on the Steam Deck OLED. That’s almost three times the performance, and makes the MSI Claw 8 AI+ the place to play one of this generation’s most demanding titles.
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What I didn’t like about the MSI Claw 8 AI+
Nobody has gotten Windows handhelds quite right yet
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ gets so much right that it’s hard to find actual faults, other than the usual slew of annoyances about how Windows 11 performs on the smaller screen. Those are the same issues every Windows handheld has, and I can’t pick on MSI for this. Not having a touchpad for Windows use is handled by a Desktop mode toggle that makes the left thumbstick control the mouse cursor, and it’s done pretty well.
The only hardware annoyance I found was that I wished the grips on the back of the Claw 8 AI+ were a little bit more pronounced so they would sit nicer on your fingers when reaching for the back buttons. I’ve got larger hands, so maybe it wouldn’t be that much of an issue for smaller hands, but then they’d find it hard to use the larger device.
Make no mistake about it: This is one of the most powerful PC gaming handhelds we’ve tested.
MSI Center M needs some work
One of the things that continues to be an issue with Windows handhelds is the software manufacturers put together to try and make Windows behave more like a console. MSI’s effort is called Center M, and it consists of a dashboard that takes over the desktop, and a quick menu that pops up as an overlay to change settings on the fly. It’s also fairly barebones, which I actually prefer, and would be okay if the program didn’t glitch out at times.
I haven’t experienced the main program having issues, but the Center M button on the Claw sometimes stopped working until the unit was rebooted. The Game Bar quick menu gave me more issues, often not responding to button presses, or lagging behind the button press by many seconds. When it did respond as expected, being able to change things on the fly or add a performance overlay was easy to enable.
It’s worth reiterating that this is an issue with every Windows-based PC handheld, and none of the manufacturers have figured it out to the fluidity of SteamOS. Maybe the upcoming Xbox handheld will be the first true competitor to get the user experience right.
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The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is the most powerful mainstream PC gaming handheld
But it might not be right for you, and Windows continues to be a problem
You should buy the MSI Claw 8 AI+ if:
- You want the most powerful gaming handheld available
- You play demanding games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077
- You want your handheld running Windows
You should NOT buy the MSI Claw 8 AI+ if:
- You have smaller hands
- You want a better value proposition
- You want an OLED screen
One of the problems with PC gaming handhelds is that they all end up being compared to the Steam Deck, which was fair enough when the market was small, but now there are a ton of Windows-based handhelds. Then the comparisons always end up with “the hardware is awesome, but Windows is not,” tainting every bit of performance analysis. I think it’s time for that to stop.
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is the best Windows-based PC gaming handheld I’ve tested.
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is the best Windows-based PC gaming handheld I’ve tested. It might be a little rough around the edges, but in terms of raw gaming performance, it’s right near the top. Intel’s Arc iGPU drivers keep improving all the time, and there’s probably a bit more left in the tank for this handheld in the coming updates.
The only issue for me is the value proposition. The MSRP is high, and while the gaming performance is undoubtedly good, people are already avoiding the ROG Ally X because of the MSRP. I still think there’s a place for the MSI Claw 8 AI+, though, as the only premium PC gaming handheld that isn’t relying on overseas customer support.
Lunar Lake wins big
MSI Claw 8 AI+
Portable powerhouse
The MSI Claw 8 AI+ is a big improvement over last year’s Claw 7 AI+, with a larger screen, bigger battery, more storage, and plenty of power thanks to the Intel Lunar Lake processor. The larger screen makes Windows 11 slightly easier to use with a touchscreen, but the price might be a hard hurdle to pass.
