Summary
A new handheld gaming PC called theMSI Clawleaked online, together with a list of some rather impressive-sounding hardware specs. The upcoming device appears poised tochallenge the Steam Deckonce it hits the market sometime this year.
Ahead of its two-year release anniversary, Valve’s popular handheld is nowadays looking at several high-profile competitors. Onesuch Steam Deck rival is the ASUS Rog Ally, which debuted in June 2023. Lenovo also joined the handheld gaming PC race with the Legion Go device back in October.
Taiwanese tech giantMSI teased a Steam Deck competitorof its own on January 4, strongly implying that its portable gaming system is going to be unveiled at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Mere hours following that teaser, an official-looking promo flyer depicting the upcoming device found its way online, courtesy of Twitter user wxnod. According to the leaked image, the upcoming handheld will be called the MSI Claw and feature a rather aggressive-looking exterior that is somewhat reminiscent of the ASUS Rog Ally, just colored black instead of white.
The MSI Claw will be identified by model number A1M, according to an apparent Geekbench profile of the device that emerged online on January 5, as first spotted by Twitter user Olrak29_. The leaked benchmark results indicate that the handheld will offer twice as much RAM as the Steam Deck and incorporate a significantly more powerful CPU in the form of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, which is part ofIntel’s Meteor Lake processor generationthat’s expected to fuel a wide variety of high-end 2024 laptops.
16 cores
4 cores
22 threads
8 threads
Up to 4.8 GHz
Up to 3.5 GHz
24 MB L3 cache
4 MB L3 cache
8 CUs
Up to 2.25 GHz
Up to 1.6 GHz
32GB LPDDR5X
16GB LPDDR5 (5500 MT/S)
64GB eMMC | 256GB SSD | 512GB SSD
7-inch
1280 x 800
2024
Unknown, but likely in the ballpark of $900
$399 (64GB) | $529 (256GB) | $649 (512GB)
While the leaked spec list is incomplete, its main takeaway is that the MSI Claw will ostensibly offer much more powerful hardware than Valve’s handset at the expense of battery life. Namely, its CPU of choice operates at 28 watts, which is fairly energy-efficient, but still well above theSteam Deckprocessor’s thermal design power of (up to) 15W.
The leaked promo poster also revealed that MSI is planning to give away multiple Claws to a number of lucky consumers who buy some of its products—like the company’s latest series of gaming laptops—later this year. There is currently no indication that this particular giveaway will be available outside of Taiwan and possibly China. However, the handheld console itself appears destined for an international launch, as indicated by the fact that MSI is seemingly planning to announce it at CES 2024, which kicks off on January 9.
Steam Deck
Valve’s long-awaited portable console is here, and it’s taking the handheld gaming market by storm. Valve partnered with AMD to create Steam Deck’s custom APU, optimized for handheld gaming. It is a Zen 2 + RDNA 2 powerhouse, delivering more than enough performance to run the latest AAA games in a very efficient power envelope.
