"Breaking: The MSI Claw – An Embarrassment Unveiled – Shocking Revelation!"

The MSI Claw is considered an embarrassment.

Nobody should consider purchasing an MSI Claw. While it's not technically defective, as the first 7-inch Intel Core Ultra handheld gaming PC, it doesn't suffer from regular crashes or other technical issues. However, the Claw falls so short compared to its competitors that it's essentially dead on arrival.

In nearly every aspect, the $750 MSI Claw feels like an inferior copy of the Asus ROG Ally, except it comes with a higher price tag! Opting for a Steam Deck OLED would provide a significantly better experience while saving hundreds of dollars.

Despite weeks of searching, I could only find three minor ways in which the Claw outperforms the competition.

I didn't begin my journey with the MSI Claw by running benchmarks. With my expectations already at rock bottom, I started with a simpler test: using the Claw as my daily driver for the not particularly demanding games I had already been playing on other handheld devices. I launched the PC port of Studio Ghibli's Ni No Kuni, Dave the Diver, and Fallout New Vegas—a game that's nearly 14 years old.

None of these games ran smoothly on the $749 MSI Claw, unlike on the $549 Steam Deck OLED. Even though the system indicated that they were running at 60fps or higher, and despite having a 48–120Hz variable refresh rate screen that should have helped, they still experienced stuttering or hitching. Moreover, the Claw dropped frames while the Deck remained stable and delivered fewer frames to begin with.

As a result, I decided to run some more repeatable benchmarks to assess how the Intel Core Ultra 155H in the Claw compares to its competitors. Here's what I found:

If you're still in shock, let me sum it up for you: the more affordable Steam Deck OLED outperformed the MSI Claw by a significant margin in terms of power and performance.

Even when the Claw was set to maximum power and plugged into a wall for a turbo boost, it ran some games slower than my Steam Deck did on battery power alone. Imagine paying two hundred dollars more to play games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 45 fps instead of 60—and only when you're plugged into the wall.

Compared to other Windows gaming handhelds, the Claw didn't perform any better. The competing Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go provided anywhere from 10 percent more performance to over double the performance, depending on the game and power mode.