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MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ review - superlative playing power with familiar Windows handheld caveats

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MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ review - superlative playing power with familiar Windows handheld caveats

The new fastest Not A Steam Deck has some of the same old problems

Welcome to my review of the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, a handheld PC that went on sale four months ago. And if you think that’s bad, tell it to the 2025-spec Lenovo Legion Go 2 I’ve left, neglected and unappraised, in the dusty heights of my utility cupboard.

This one, mind, is still worth looking at a smidgen late. It’s the first palmable PC to use Intel’s Arc G3 Extreme SoC, including the Arc B390 integrated graphics that’s already impressed in skinny laptops. Considering both the underwhelming framerate gains of previous handheld chip upgrades, like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X’s second-gen Ryzen, and the fact that the last-gen Claw 8 AI+ was already a high performer, this here EX model could be the one to usher in a new standard in game go fast technology. Could, and ultimately, does – it’s more than twice as fast as a Steam Deck OLED in some games.

You know the routine by now: AI data centres, RAM shortages, component prices, pain. £1,399’s worth, in this case. As a result, the 'AI' in this handheld’s name seems less like it’s advertising a product feature and more like it’s whispering a name in a detective’s ear before passing out from its stab wounds.

It is, at least, intentionally aiming for high-end spec glitz from the off. Hall effect thumbsticks flank a 120Hz, 1920x1200 IPS so vast it overshoots the bottom edge, and inside, that G3 Extreme chip is joined by 32GB of system RAM (might have shaved some 9s of the price with 16GB, but hey) and a nicely spacious 1TB SSD.


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