The new MSI Claw handheld is n’t off to a great start . The hand-held gaming PC , announce in January and released in early March , already set off dismay bellswhen MSI decided to put the handheld on sale before sending whole out to reviewer . Still , a smattering of YouTubers have get their hands on the twist — and the early impressions are n’t promising .

The latest review comes from The Phawx , who articulate the Claw is “ impossible to recommend ” in his review . There are a couple of key reasons . The big trouble , according to the review , is the Intel chipset . The Phawx demo some problem with the Intel chip throughArkham Knight , which has an emergence find Intel GPUs and requires a mod for launch .

In increase , the handheld has generally low execution , struggling in biz likeCyberpunk 2077andHorizon Zero Dawnat low graphics presets . TheSteam Deck OLEDand theAsus ROG Ally , both of which are meretricious than the MSI Claw , have notably higher execution in these title and generally lower ability economic consumption .

Power use of goods and services is a major point of disputation here . The Phawx calls the baseless power of the hand-held “ immoderately mellow , ” take that the handheld draws closely to 7.5 watts when it ’s idle . For comparison , you’re able to often run light-headed indie titles on a gadget like the Steam Deck OLED with only a few Isaac Watts , immensely ameliorate assault and battery life-time . allot to the video , you could expect four hours of shelling life with the handheld completely baseless and just an hr and a half under load . “ This thing just wastes exponent for no ground , ” as The Phawx puts it .

We are n’t cerise - nibble a review here . Retro Game Corps also brand a review of the handheld , say that it ’s “ not look that great ” for the Intel chipset . The Meteor Lake processor , according to the YouTuber , “ reminds me of AMD chipsets from , like , two or three generations back . ”

When wechecked out the twist in January , the MSI Claw reckon promise . base on an Intel chipset and offering alike ergonomics to the ROG Ally , it looked like a suitable contender in the evolving world ofhandheld gaming PCs . It ’s clear from early reviews that the twist still need a lot of workplace , however . reviewer mention proceeds with Intel ’s machine driver , mainly along with gamy power wasting disease , leading to a handheld that is a exonerated step below the current selection on the marketplace .

We could see improvement on the package front over sentence . The MSI Claw itself faces other issues . Its pricing is still much higher than the contest , with the faint Core Ultra 5 155H example fare in at the same price as the Asus ROG Ally with the Z1 Extreme . At this rate , we ’ll in all likelihood need to see improvements on the computer software side to bring the machine up to equation , along with a price drop to make it competitive . We ’re still waiting for an MSI Claw to show up so we can test it ourselves , and we ’ll be working on a full recap to see how it stack up once it ’s here .