You may’t have missed the MSI Claw in the event you’ve been handheld gaming units not too long ago. The unique took the idea of transportable handhelds and ran with it, providing a seven-inch 1080p display and a quick Intel processor in an revolutionary handheld shell.
However MSI wasn’t completed there. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ A2VM is right here, and it’s higher than the unique in each method. The display is greater and brighter, the processor sooner, the battery the most important in the marketplace in an effort to carry on enjoying whereas others must go and cost. It’s light-weight at simply 795g, infused with AI, and could be the most effective handheld PC in the marketplace proper now.
The brand new Claw takes every little thing that was nice in regards to the unique and improves upon it. Now you may get an eight-inch display with a decision of 1920 x 1200 and able to placing out an enormous 500 nits of brightness. It helps a 120Hz refresh price too, for these video games that stay or die by their framerates, and has VRR functionality to maintain your gameplay clean. It’s a touchscreen too, making fingertip management of your video games a risk for these occasions when the controller’s sticks and buttons simply received’t do.
Reducing-edge {hardware}
These occasions will likely be few and much between, nevertheless, because the controller constructed into the Claw 8 AI+ takes a few of the greatest know-how and melds it to create an built-in gamepad that you simply received’t need to put down. The analogue sticks and triggers use Corridor impact magnetic magic to detect your actions with out contact between elements. Elsewhere, customized buttons similar to shortcuts to Fast Settings and MSI Heart M permit you fast and easy accessibility to the Claw’s settings and preferences with out having to undergo Home windows menus. There’s RGB within the sticks and buttons too, to create a placing look whilst you play, in addition to six-axis inertial measurement for utilizing tilt controls in video games. In fact, you get a 3.5mm audio socket, however there’s Bluetooth 5.4 on board too, so you possibly can reduce the wire with a wi-fi headset. There’s even a fingerprint reader for the type of safety that ensures nobody else can use your Claw 8 AI+.
The Claw 8 AI+ is cutting-edge handheld {hardware}, with parts that wouldn’t be misplaced in status laptops. The Intel Core Extremely 7 258V processor affords eight cores, 4 of that are the Efficiency sort that push video games to new heights. The max turbo frequency of 4.8GHz means you’ll by no means be left behind by any software program, and the Intel Arc Graphics 140V is able to driving the display to its fullest extent. There’s 32GB of quick RAM too, together with a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD to maintain these loading occasions below management (with a Micro SD reader to increase the storage in a handy method), and the most recent Wi-Fi 7 for quick, dependable connections to gaming servers and the broader web. A pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports high off the spec record properly, providing charging, video output, connection to docks (similar to MSI’s Nest docking station, which could be purchased in a bundle with the Claw) and exterior GPUs.
Pure gaming energy
And all this comes with a surprisingly low energy draw. The six-cell, 80Wh battery is bigger than that within the earlier Claw, and the hand-held is extremely optimised to make use of as little energy as potential whereas delivering wonderful gaming experiences for as much as 4 hours at a time. This implies it lasts longer, and there is a 65W energy adapter within the field to juice it again up when it does ultimately run out of vitality. Cooling is offered by MSI’s Cooler Increase HyperFlow know-how, with a dual-fan, dual-heat pipe system to effectively dissipate the warmth of gaming classes.
It’s not all in regards to the {hardware}, nevertheless. The MSI Heart M has had an overhaul for the brand new handheld, and now integrates Home windows Sport Bar right into a dynamic house web page that reveals the duvet artwork of your video games in addition to dealing with peripheral and community administration, efficiency profile switching, and AI-powered {hardware} changes.
The Claw 8 AI+ is totally optimised for AI. It’s a Copilot+ PC, with an NPU on board and as much as 119 TOPS accessible from the chipset, which makes it good for extra than simply video games. Operating a full copy of Home windows 11, you’re in a position to hook it as much as a monitor, mouse and keyboard and use it similar to every other PC, for content material creation, shopping, or gaming on the larger display.
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Accessible for pre-order at Currys for £899, and with a docking bundle accessible for individuals who need to use it as a high-performance house PC, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ is a stellar gaming machine that matches proper in your bag.
