MSI Finally Releases Claw 8 AI+ And Claw 7 AI+ Lunar Lake Gaming Handhelds

Let's talk about super-portable gaming PCs. Yeah, alright—it's another handheld post; we just got tired of writing "handheld." But seriously, these things are cool, and if you haven't had the chance to put your hands on one, you should really try it out. It's hard to fathom, if you're of a certain age: a full-on multi-core x86-64 CPU with powerful integrated graphics and a battery capable of running it for a few hours at a time, all in a compact handheld package the perfect size for playing games.

So today we've got the official announcement from MSI regarding its updated Claw handhelds. We've already reported on these two machines, so this post will be relatively brief. However, there are a few new details to talk about with the official announcement, so let's do a quick refresher first.

The two devices are the Claw 7 AI+ and the Claw 8 AI+. The Claw 7 AI+ appears to essentially be a refresh of the original MSI Claw handheld with a "Lunar Lake" Core Ultra 7 SoC inside. That's a huge change from the Meteor Lake part in the previous-generation part, improving both responsiveness and GPU performance, but we really liked the rest of the Claw handheld, so retaining those great qualities makes sense.

What kind of great qualities? A gorgeous 120-Hz IPS touchscreen in FHD resolution, fast PCIe 4.0 storage, hall-effect joysticks, gyro controls, Wi-Fi 6E, dual Thunderbolt 4 jacks, and a big 6-cell 54 Whr battery. The move to Lunar Lake means memory is on-package, and the standard model comes with 32GB.

That might seem unnecessary for a gaming system, but remember that we're using integrated graphics here, so the memory is shared. 32GB lets you use as much as 16GB of the RAM for video purposes without impinging needlessly on the amount of memory available for general-purpose usage.

Meanwhile, the Claw 8 AI+ is all-new, and brings a slightly larger display along with a few other changes. The 8" screen is now 1920×1200 resolution, but retains the 120-Hz refresh rate and 500 nits peak brightness as well as the VRR support. The new machine has an "Easy Access" M.2 socket that comes filled with a 1TB SSD, and the Wi-Fi adapter gets upgraded to Wi-Fi 7.

Arguably the most exciting upgrade for the Claw 8 AI+ is the battery, which is a full 80 watt-hours, same as the ASUS ROG Ally X. We found laptops based on Lunar Lake to have superior battery life versus the already-impressive efficiency of AMD's "Phoenix", so the battery life of the Claw 8 AI+ might be quite excellent indeed, although MSI makes no particular claims about it.

External connectivity on both machines is identical; besides the aforementioned Thunderbolt ports, you also get a microSD card reader and a 3.5mm combo audio jack, plus a fingerprint sensor on the power button if you're keen on using Windows Hello. The Claw 8 AI+ is a bit heavier, as you'd expect, but it's still significantly lighter than Lenovo's Legion Go handheld.

Unfortunately, both Claw machines are currently out of stock at every US retailer. We can at least tell you the pricing: the Claw 7 AI+ with 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage goes for $799, while the Claw 8 AI+ with the bigger screen and 1TB of storage will run you $899. These are premium-priced handhelds, but they're also top-shelf systems that could serve double duty as a mobile workstation with a quality dock, too. With that in mind, don't forget to check out our docks post from Friday—while the Plugable units are no longer on sale, the Sabrent and OWC docks are still marked down as low as $35.