The Expected Worth of MSI’s New Claw 8 Handheld Will Make You Cry

I’m certain I’m not the one one who remembers the squeaky toy aliens from Toy Story each time I hear the identify of MSI’s collection of handhelds. The Claw is again, and simply because the aliens saved Woody and Buzz in Toy Story 3, the brand new Claw 8 EX AI might lastly attain its full potential with a brand new Intel chip and refined controls that appear further comfy… for a worth.

First, let’s not get this new handheld confused with MSI’s earlier Claw 8 AI+. The “EX” on this one’s identify comes from the processor it makes use of, Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme. The chip guarantees to be Intel’s first handheld-centric CPU that features the identical Arc B390 GPU as the corporate’s current Panther Lake laptops. We’ve seen laptops with these chips carry out simply superb in 1080p gaming, so it’s not a stretch to imagine they’ll do nicely in handheld type.

The handheld can hit a max TDP, or thermal design energy, of 45W. That’s greater than the max 35W of many different AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme handhelds when plugged in. You’ll possible not run the system on these settings except you could have an outlet useful. It additionally necessitates higher cooling, so we’ll see how nicely the MSI Claw 8 EX AI handles the warmth.

All that promised energy will come for a worth. The firm informed The Shortcut it’s aiming for round $1,500. That’s most likely referring to the model with the Intel Arc G3 Extreme, although MSI is unlikely to supply an choice with any lower-end processor. The firm can be reportedly aiming for a launch date of round June 23.

MSI claims it has revised its controls this time round, and the system now options Hall impact joysticks and triggers, just like these on Lenovo’s Legion Go 2. The Taiwan-based gaming {hardware} firm additionally says it has revised the haptic motors contained in the grips to supply higher suggestions and rumble. For consolation, the grips now have a extra controller-like form, akin to these of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.

As for the 1200p display, MSI has opted for an 8-inch show with a most refresh fee of 120Hz. The system additionally helps variable refresh fee, or VRR, to scale back the danger of display tearing when you attempt to push body charges. Since it helps the brand new Intel chip, the Claw 8 EX AI additionally allows XeSS 3 multi-frame technology throughout video games that assist it. We can stay up for the promise that we might lastly hit the max refresh fee on a handheld system with out a lot fuss, as long as you don’t thoughts utilizing so-called faux frames.

MSI additionally guarantees that the brand new handheld will assist Xbox Mode. That means it is going to run a extra gamepad-friendly model of Windows 11 with its personal Center M software program to deal with system settings.

The new roundup of Intel-based handhelds coming to Computex consists of Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 and the OneXPlayer 3. None of those upcoming units has a price ticket connected. The implication is that the continuing RAM pricing apocalypse is so extreme that we might not know the true prices of those units till nearer to launch.

MSI’s final Claw 8 launched for $1,000, however as a result of ravages of tariffs and RAM costs, it now prices nearer to $1,130. Last week, Valve hiked the worth of its 3-year-old Steam Deck OLED fashions to just about $1,000 for the model with 1TB of storage. When you think about at this time’s market, $1,500 is sadly par for the course on this RAM-ravaged wasteland of 2026.