The extremely anticipated MSI Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld might lastly get an official full announcement in only a few weeks, as a brand new leak suggests the Intel-powered machine shall be debuted on the CES 2025 commerce present in January 2025.
MSI‘s finest handheld gaming PC contender and direct Steam Deck rival initially broke cowl on the Computex commerce present in June 2024. It was then proven off in slightly extra element on the IFA present in Berlin in September 2024, the place I acquired to expertise it and write our MSI Claw 8 AI+ preview, so its arrival has been a very long time coming.
The rumor comes straight from CES, because it has featured the machine in its innovation awards forward of the present. Yow will discover the itemizing right here, with it exhibiting that CES has acknowledged the machine as an “honoree” for the 2025 present. The blurb on the positioning factors out that the machine “is the world’s first and solely handheld to characteristic Intel’s new Lunar Lake CPU with 2nd Gen ARC graphics.”
The positioning goes on to checklist some options of the product that had been already identified, but additionally lists another elements that haven’t been proven intimately. For example, it factors out the “newer and bigger 8” display screen” and that it’ll run Home windows 11 but additionally then lists the machine as having “48 TOPS of compute energy,” although this refers back to the AI processing capability of the machine slightly than its graphics energy. Notably, it lists the battery capability as 82WHr, which the blurb says is sufficient to present “4+ hours of gameplay for AAA titles.”
The unique MSI Claw is an fascinating different to the likes of the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go because it makes use of an Intel CPU, as an alternative of the AMD chips used on these units and the Steam Deck. This totally different strategy had the potential to make a tool with extra energy and battery life than alternate options, had Intel’s CPU delivered meaningfully extra graphics grunt or decrease energy consumption. Nevertheless, finally, it failed to actually ship on both entrance.
The Intel Lunar Lake chip within the MSI Claw 8 AI+ (why couldn’t MSI skip the AI hype nonsense and simply name it the MSI Claw 2?), although, is anticipated to supply an enormous leap in graphics functionality and will enhance battery life too. Together with these enhancements, the marginally giant 8-inch display screen gives a visible increase over smaller 7-inch display screen units, whereas the styling, construct high quality, and ergonomics of the brand new machine all enhance on its predecessor.
In the end, the proof of the Claw 8 AI+ shall be in how its chip performs and the way its silicon compares to the second-generation AMD handheld CPUs anticipated to energy the Asus ROG Ally 2, Lenovo Legion Go 2, and probably even the Steam Deck 2. Based mostly on this leak, we’ll hopefully get extra of an opportunity to search out out in early January 2025.
