MSI Claw review: an embarrassment

Nobody can buy an MSI Claw. It’s not technically damaged: the primary 7-inch Intel Core Extremely handheld gaming PC doesn’t repeatedly crash or something like that. However the Claw falls to date wanting the competitors that it’s successfully lifeless on arrival.

In nearly each method, the $750 MSI Claw seems like an inferior clone of the Asus ROG Ally — besides it prices extra, not much less! You can get a much better expertise whereas saving a whole bunch of {dollars} when you select a Steam Deck OLED as a substitute. 

I’ve spent weeks trying to find a silver lining. Ultimately, I solely discovered three tiny methods the Claw improves on the competitors.

I didn’t begin my MSI Claw journey by operating benchmarks. My expectations have been already at all-time low, so I started with a neater take a look at: making the Claw my each day driver for the not-particularly-intensive video games I’d already been enjoying on different handhelds. I fired up the PC port of Studio Ghibli’s Ni No Kuni, Dave the Diver, and Fallout New Vegas — a sport that’s practically 14 years previous. 

Each certainly one of them runs easily on a $549 Steam Deck OLED. Not one ran easily on the $749 MSI Claw. They might stutter or hitch, even when the system instructed me they have been hitting 60fps or above and regardless of a 48–120Hz variable refresh charge display screen that ought to have smoothed issues out. The Claw would additionally drop frames when the Deck stayed steady and delivered fewer frames to start with. 

So, I fired up some extra repeatable benchmarks. How unhealthy may the Intel Core Extremely 155H actually be in comparison with rivals? Right here’s a peek:

In case your jaw has not but hit the ground, let me bottom-line it for you: the inexpensive Steam Deck OLED all however fully wiped the ground with the MSI Claw in energy and efficiency. 

The Claw, set to most energy and plugged right into a wall for a turbo increase, ran some video games slower than my Steam Deck did on battery energy alone. Are you able to think about paying 2 hundred {dollars} extra to play video games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 45 fps as a substitute of 60 — and solely while you’re plugged into the wall?

Towards Home windows gaming handhelds, the Claw fared no higher: the competing Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go provided wherever from 10 % extra efficiency to over double the perf relying on the sport and energy mode. 

There was one shiny spot: Returnal, one of the vital intensive PC titles I attempted, truly ran higher on the Claw than it did on the Deck or Ally. However not nicely sufficient to be playable… and once I sat all the way down to play an hour every of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077, I didn’t discover them playable both. Each are playable on the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Lenovo Legion Go at an identical (low) settings, so the Claw has no excuse for delivering a uneven mess.

I even fired up 3DMark Time Spy and Hearth Strike to see if MSI might need by accident despatched me a lemon, however no — my Claw scored barely increased than MSI’s personal inner benchmark. And sure, I ran these benchmarks on the latest Intel graphics driver that was purported to ship huge enhancements, not the one the Claw initially shipped with. 

No less than the Claw doesn’t appear to have worse battery life than Home windows friends. MSI gave it a 53-watt-hour battery pack, barely bigger than Legion Go and notably bigger than Ally, and I noticed roughly the identical 1.5 hours of Shadow of the Tomb Raider on a cost. I obtained 2 hours and 25 minutes of Fallout New Vegas and achieved a most runtime of 4 hours and 19 minutes in Balatro, one of many least demanding video games I’ve but performed on a handheld. (My first run lasted 3.25 hours; I obtained an additional hour by setting the system to Tremendous Battery mode and aggressively dimming the display screen.)

However in comparison with the Steam Deck OLED, which may simply go twice as lengthy in Balatro and lets Lara Croft raid tombs for over two hours, it’s not nice — and I’ve no clue how MSI can justify saying the Claw “lasts 50 % longer” than the common handheld in its advertising marketing campaign. 

It’s value noting that MSI did put an honest quantity of thought into the Claw’s UX. Whereas the {hardware} could look like a low-rent Batman version of Asus’ ROG Ally, cribbing the identical actual button structure and many of the similar curves, it might really feel a tad higher within the fingers. I respect its bigger grips, extra substantial face buttons, and its Corridor impact joysticks and triggers for longevity. Just like the Ally, the Claw has among the finest audio system on a gaming handheld, right here augmented with surprisingly good Nahimic digital encompass sound that delivered delightfully all-around-me echoes as I did not delve via tombs. 

I do want MSI hadn’t adopted a stiffer but sloppier D-pad or added so many pointless spikes to its vents — they’ve repeatedly saved me from discovering its cost port in a darkish bed room. The Claw’s rumble feels terrible, too. No less than MSI allows you to flip it off! 

However the primary factor I’d like to show off is Home windows.

It’s been nearly a full 12 months since Asus launched the ROG Ally and over two years because the Steam Deck, however Microsoft has finished nothing significant to make its working system friendlier for a gamepad-operated display screen. I may virtually copy / paste my criticisms from the ROG Ally evaluate: I bumped into the identical actual points summoning digital keyboards and enjoying video games — issues that largely simply work on a Steam Deck regardless of and / or due to its Linux underpinnings.

And, I bumped into very related sleep points to those I noticed on the Lenovo Legion Go: I merely can’t belief this transportable to not wake itself up once I put it down or drop it right into a bag. Solely right here, it’s barely worse as a result of the MSI Middle utility tends to hold when waking from sleep — typically disabling my gamepad controls till I reboot it.

Whereas MSI Middle additionally buries essential options like remappable controls, I like that it contains launchers for each main PC sport platform, comes with plenty of useful Fast Entry shortcuts that work proper out of the field (like a change that turns off RGB lighting), and is comparatively snappy. The Deck, Ally, and Legion Go all had buggier, extra sluggish interfaces at launch. 

At this time, although, all of them are way more full-featured, and all allow you to natively set up updates — whereas the Claw nonetheless expects you to navigate to MSI’s web site and obtain essential bits manually or look ahead to Home windows Replace to ship the products.

The MSI Claw isn’t the worst handheld gaming PC I’ve ever touched. Years in the past, I performed with some that didn’t even deserve a evaluate, handhelds so poorly thought out and narrowly marketed I didn’t really feel the necessity to warn you. However shops like Greatest Purchase truly carry the MSI Claw — and within the present crop of competing handhelds, it’s the worst purchase of all of them.

Images by Sean Hollister / The Verge