CES 2024: MSI shows Claw – Intel-based Steam Deck competitor

The gaming laptop features a seven-inch LCD display and a 53Wh battery, which MSI says provides two hours of battery life even with demanding AAA games.

The gaming laptop features a seven-inch LCD display and a 53Wh battery that MSI says provides two hours of battery life even with demanding AAA games.

MSMI has become the latest PC maker to try to counter Valve’s Steam Deck with the Claw, a new Windows-based gaming laptop it’s announcing at CES. The Claw runs on Intel’s new Core Ultra processor Meteor Lake, announced last month, and can be equipped with «up to» Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, MSI said in a press release. At CES 2024, MSI said it plans to release three models priced between $699 and $799 that will be available in the first half of the year, with the base model coming with a Core Ultra 5 and 512GB of memory.

Although Valve didn’t invent the portable gaming PC form factor, the Steam Deck’s release in early 2022 was followed by a wave of releases from major manufacturers. Asus released the ROG Ally, Lenovo — Legion Go, and Logitech — G Cloud, which is focused on streaming.

The ROG Ally is the first of its kind.

MSI has a few different arguments for why its Claw is worth looking at. It features a new processor from Intel that supports Intel’s XeSS resolution upscaling technology in compatible games. MSI claims that this processor allows the laptop to play «AAA games effortlessly». There’s also a 53Wh battery, which MSI claims is the largest in its class and offers two hours of battery life at full load, and a cooling system with vents that are claimed to be 50 percent larger than the competition.

And it’s a great deal more than the competition.

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Despite its name, which makes me think of any number of uncomfortable hand positions, MSI claims the Claw has been optimized for comfort during long gaming sessions. At 675g, it’s slightly heavier than the original Steam Deck and measures 294mm wide, 117mm high and 21.2mm thick. MSI claims it features tactile buttons and Hall-effect triggers, which, with any luck, should prove durable in the long run. The joysticks are also equipped with Hall-effect joysticks, which will hopefully prevent them from shifting in the future.

Here’s the thing.

Claw features a seven-inch IPS display with 120Hz, 1080p resolution and typical brightness of 500 nits, which is similar to the screen found in the Asus ROG Ally, and MSI tells us it should also have a variable refresh rate. The screen falls between Valve’s 800p Steam Deck resolution and the larger 1600p display of the Lenovo Legion Go, though it doesn’t have the OLED display of the later revision of Steam Deck.

And it’s a good match for the larger 1600p display of the Lenovo Legion Go.

Other specs include 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of PCIe M.2 storage — the $799 model has just that amount. On top of the device are a microSD slot for more storage, a Thunderbolt 4 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a power button equipped with a fingerprint sensor. In addition, there are macro buttons on the arm that can be assigned different functions, and there is RGB lighting around each of the thumbsticks — like the Asus ROG Ally.

At the top of the device, there’s a microSD slot, a microSD slot, a Thunderbolt 4 5-mm headphone port and a power button.

As for software, the Claw runs Windows 11 with MSI’s own Center M software, offering shortcuts to games and game libraries. In addition to PC games, MSI says the Claw can run Android games using its App Player (though it’s worth noting that people have run similar emulators on other Windows-based handhelds as well).

The Claw is also capable of running Android games using its App Player (though it’s worth noting that people have run similar emulators on other Windows-based handhelds).

If the recent influx of gaming laptops has taught us anything, it’s that the portable gaming PC form factor is filled with endless trade-offs between power, battery life, portability, specs and, of course, price. We’ll have to wait and see if MSI has found the right balance.

We’ll have to wait and see if MSI has found the right balance.