“The Claw” is MSI’s Steam deck, and it looks a lot like a Steam deck

Say “paw” with me. What does this name bring to mind? Are there cartoons on Saturday morning? A timeless Pixar classic? PC maker MSI wants you to start thinking about gaming, because it’s the latest company to offer a Steam Deck version, and this Steam Deck does bear a lot of similarities to Valve’s original handheld console, at least at first glance.

if leakage Not to spoil the surprise yet, MSI is pushing hard The explosive growth of the handheld game console market This design is very reminiscent of previous designs. However, there’s something going on underneath the plastic that makes it unique compared to the competition. First, the Claw goes in the opposite direction from all other AMD-powered units, instead using Intel Core Ultra processors.combine it with Lenovo Rescuer Go and ASUS ROG Allyboth powered by AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU, perform well in terms of performance.

There’s been a lot of speculation about whether Meteor Lake CPUs can match the Ryzen 7 series, but we’ll have to wait for full testing to tell if performance can match other large handheld devices.There are some signs of success with iGPU performance on Intel’s Meteor Lake chips, specifically the Core Ultra 7 155H edge out Ryzen 7 7840HS in synthetic benchmarks.

Then again, optimizing games for small sizes might be more important. Claw will use Intel’s Arc graphics and the chip maker’s XeSS AI upscaling technology to boost FPS without putting stress on the GPU. XeSS is not supported every title It’s there, but depending on what games you want, it can make gaming on your handheld a little easier.

MSI is also promoting its Game Stick, which has one of the largest batteries of any gaming handheld. The Claw has a 53-watt-hour battery, beating out the Legion Go and Steam DeckOLEDof the new 50 Whr battery. Time will tell if the battery life matches the size of the battery itself.

The 7-inch screen is not inferior at 120Hz refresh rate, but it is lower than the Legion Go’s 8.8-inch 144Hz. The Baseline comes with 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, a microSD slot, a headphone jack, and a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connection. All parts put together, the Claw weighs just under 1.5 pounds, which is effectively the same as a Steam Deck and a bit heavier than the ROG Ally.

This is another Windows 11-based handheld device, but with a twist. MSI is touting the system’s native app player, which will offer games across Windows and Android. This is the company’s UI running on Windows. It might not be that useful if it still requires you to open a separate app like Steam or the Epic Games Store, which defeats the whole purpose of the extra UI. Still, it makes it easier for you to access Android games or apps without changing any system settings or downloading additional apps.

Now, the name first conjures up the image of a cute claw machine alien Toy Story or supervillains from Inspector gadget. Still, it’s a more evocative title than slapping an existing Legion or ROG game series with a “Go” or “Ally” title. Man, those rainbow LEDs around the joystick do look pretty. We’ll take a look at how MSI’s console holds up against the competition and compare.

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