MSI Claw review: an embarrassment

No person will have to purchase an MSI Claw. It’s now not technically damaged: the primary 7-inch Intel Core Extremely hand held gaming PC doesn’t steadily strike or the rest like that. However the Claw falls thus far scale down of the contest that it’s successfully useless on arrival.

In virtually each means, the $750 MSI Claw appears like an inferior clone of the Asus ROG Best friend — excluding it prices extra, now not much less! You should get a a long way higher revel in month preserve masses of bucks if you select a Steam Deck OLED in lieu. 

I’ve spent weeks looking for a silver lining. Finally, I best discovered 3 modest tactics the Claw improves at the pageant.

I didn’t get started my MSI Claw advance through working benchmarks. My expectancies had been already at rock backside, so I started with an more uncomplicated check: making the Claw my day by day motive force for the not-particularly-intensive video games I’d already been enjoying on alternative handhelds. I fired up the PC port of Studio Ghibli’s Ni Refuse Kuni, Dave the Diver, and Fallout Unused Vegas — a recreation that’s just about 14 years impaired. 

Each and every one in every of them runs easily on a $549 Steam Deck OLED. No longer one ran easily at the $749 MSI Claw. They’d stutter or hitch, even if the gadget advised me they had been hitting 60fps or above and regardless of a 48–120Hz variable refresh charge display that are supposed to have smoothed issues out. The Claw would additionally reduce frames when the Deck stayed strong and delivered fewer frames first of all. 

So, I fired up some extra repeatable benchmarks. How unholy may the Intel Core Extremely 155H truly be in comparison to opponents? Right here’s a peek:

If your jaw has now not but strike the ground, let me bottom-line it for you: the more cost effective Steam Deck OLED all however utterly wiped the ground with the MSI Claw in energy and function. 

The Claw, i’m ready to most energy and plugged right into a wall for a turbo spice up, ran some video games slower than my Steam Deck did on battery energy lonely. Are you able to believe paying 2 hundred greenbacks extra to play games video games like Silhoutte of the Tomb Raider at 45 fps in lieu of 60 — and best whilst you’re plugged into the wall?

In opposition to Home windows gaming handhelds, the Claw fared disagree higher: the competing Asus ROG Best friend and Lenovo Legion Advance presented any place from 10 % extra efficiency to over double the perf relying at the recreation and gear method. 

There used to be one glorious spot: Returnal, one of the crucial in depth PC titles I attempted, in reality ran higher at the Claw than it did at the Deck or Best friend. However now not neatly enough quantity to be playable… and after I sat all the way down to play games an occasion every of Silhoutte of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077, I didn’t in finding them playable both. Each are playable at the Steam Deck, ROG Best friend, and Lenovo Legion Advance at an identical (low) settings, so the Claw has disagree oblivion for turning in a uneven mess.

I even fired up 3DMark Generation Undercover agent and Fireplace Clash to look if MSI would possibly have by accident despatched me a lemon, however disagree — my Claw scored quite upper than MSI’s personal interior benchmark. And sure, I ran those benchmarks at the fresh Intel graphics motive force that used to be meant to bring large enhancements, now not the only the Claw firstly shipped with. 

No less than the Claw doesn’t appear to have worse battery pace than Home windows friends. MSI gave it a 53-watt-hour battery collect, quite greater than Legion Advance and particularly greater than Best friend, and I noticed more or less the similar 1.5 hours of Silhoutte of the Tomb Raider on a rate. I were given 2 hours and 25 mins of Fallout Unused Vegas and accomplished a most runtime of four hours and 19 mins in Balatro, some of the least difficult video games I’ve but performed on a hand held. (My first run lasted 3.25 hours; I were given an remaining occasion through environment the gadget to Tremendous Battery method and aggressively dimming the display.)

However in comparison to the Steam Deck OLED, which is able to simply travel two times as lengthy in Balatro and shall we Lara Croft raid tombs for over two hours, it’s now not stunning — and I haven’t any clue how MSI can justify announcing the Claw “lasts 50 percent longer” than the common hand held in its advertising and marketing marketing campaign. 

It’s usefulness noting that MSI did put a significance quantity of concept into the Claw’s UX. Occasion the {hardware} would possibly appear to be a low-rent Batman version of Asus’ ROG Best friend, cribbing the similar precise button series and many of the identical curves, it could really feel a tad higher within the fingers. I respect its greater grips, extra really extensive face buttons, and its Corridor impact joysticks and triggers for longevity. Just like the Best friend, the Claw has one of the vital perfect audio system on a gaming hand held, right here augmented with unusually just right Nahimic digital encompass tone that delivered delightfully all-around-me echoes as I didn’t delve thru tombs. 

I do want MSI hadn’t followed a stiffer but sloppier D-pad or added such a lot of useless spikes to its vents — they’ve time and again saved me from discovering its rate port in a cloudy bed room. The Claw’s rumble feels unfortunate, too. No less than MSI means that you can flip it off! 

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

It’s been virtually a complete week since Asus exempt the ROG Best friend and over two years because the Steam Deck, however Microsoft has performed not anything significant to construct its running gadget friendlier for a gamepad-operated display. I may almost novel / paste my criticisms from the ROG Best friend evaluate: I bumped into the similar precise problems summoning digital keyboards and enjoying video games — issues that most commonly simply paintings on a Steam Deck regardless of and / or on account of its Linux underpinnings.

And, I bumped into very matching bliss problems to those I noticed at the Lenovo Legion Advance: I merely can’t consider this transportable to not wake itself up after I put it indisposed or reduce it right into a bag. Best right here, it’s quite worse since the MSI Heart importance tends to hold when waking from bliss — occasionally disabling my gamepad controls till I reboot it.

Occasion MSI Heart additionally buries impressive options like remappable controls, I really like that it contains launchers for each primary PC recreation platform, comes with loads of to hand Fast Get admission to shortcuts that paintings proper out of the field (like a transfer that turns off RGB lighting fixtures), and is fairly snappy. The Deck, Best friend, and Legion Advance all had buggier, extra slow interfaces at settingup. 

These days, regardless that, they all are way more full-featured, and all allow you to natively set up updates — month the Claw nonetheless expects you to navigate to MSI’s web page and obtain impressive bits manually or stay up for Home windows Replace to bring the products.

The MSI Claw isn’t the worst hand held gaming PC I’ve ever touched. Years in the past, I performed with some that didn’t even deserve a evaluate, handhelds so poorly concept out and narrowly advertised I didn’t really feel the want to alert you. However shops like Absolute best Purchase in reality elevate the MSI Claw — and within the stream truncate of competing handhelds, it’s the worst purchase of all of them.

Pictures through Sean Hollister / The Verge