A new Steam Deck killer is on the way.
MSI is the latest to jump into the high-end gaming handheld market, putting out a short teaser with glimpses at the design. Unsurprisingly, we already have leaks about the handheld just a day after MSI’s official teaser. Coming from @wxnod on X, we now have a better idea of what it looks like and what it’ll be called, as first spotted by VideoCardz.
We’re hoping the Claw name isn’t indicative of the handheld’s ergonomics, but it does suit MSI’s dragon-heavy theme. From the early leaked specs courtesy of Geekbench, it’s clear that the MSI wants to take a big swipe at the competition with the Claw. Compared to the Lenovo Legion Go and the Asus ROG Ally, this could be one of the most powerful handhelds to date, thanks to the latest Intel mobile chips and a ton of memory.
Double the Performance
According to Geekbench, the MSI Claw will run the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, which is Intel’s response to the popular AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme mobile processor that’s seen in other gaming handhelds. Along with built-in Arc graphics, MSI could be jamming up to 32GB of RAM into its handheld, doubling the amount in the Legion Go, ROG Ally, or the Steam Deck. Unfortunately, the leaks didn’t reveal any other specs, so we have no information about the display yet.
If you weren’t a fan of the ROG Ally’s white colorway, you’re in luck with MSI. If the leaked image is accurate, The Claw shares a very similar design but in all-black. It looks like the Claw will have RGB joysticks and buttons, even sharing the same asymmetrical joystick layout as the Asus handheld.
First Look at CES
Since most of the Claw’s info comes from a leak, we have no official word on pricing or release details. Luckily, we won’t have to wait long since MSI’s teaser points to a potential reveal during CES 2024. If we had to guess, we’d say MSI wants to stay close to the pricing of the competition that’s around $600 to $700. The problem is we haven’t seen many gaming handhelds running the latest and greatest Intel mobile processors, so the MSI Claw could be more expensive than the rest.
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