I’m Not Giving Up My Steam Deck For Msi’s New Claw

This is not a reappraisal of nan MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus, nan first gaming handheld disposable pinch Intel’s caller Arc G3 Extreme handheld gaming chip. Now that my workfellow Sean Hollister is done reviewing nan Steam Machine, I’ll fto him spell heavy connected nan caller Claw astatine immoderate constituent successful nan future. This article, instead, is my first impressions of nan caller MSI Claw arsenic personification who chiefly plays games connected a Steam Deck OLED. Sean called nan Claw the “next-gen handheld,” and I wanted to find out: Would it beryllium a worthwhile upgrade for Deck fans for illustration me? Could it perchance beryllium worthy nan eye-watering $1,799 price?

For me, nan Claw has a precocious barroom to clear. The $789 Steam Deck OLED is my favourite handheld — possibly my favourite gadget — since nan original Nintendo Switch. It’s comfortable to hold, has a great-looking display, and has a bully capable artillery to past beautiful overmuch immoderate evening of gaming for me. It lets maine play nan immense mostly of my Steam room wherever I want. But nan Deck isn’t awesome for every crippled I own; top-of-the-line AAA games occasionally play poorly, pinch muddy graphics, bad framework rates, aliases both. I will suffer done those drawbacks for galore games, but each erstwhile successful a while, I move to my PS5 for titles that don’t activity good connected nan Deck.

Without maine changing a azygous setting, nan improvements were instantly clear: All 3 looked overmuch nicer than they do connected my Steam Deck. In FFVII, Cloud’s spiky blonde hairsbreadth successful had less blurry edges, and I could really spot meaning successful his look erstwhile he was turned around. In a tricky firefight connected an airfield successful First Light, I had a overmuch easier clip seeing wherever nan enemies were shooting maine from.

Frame rates were overmuch better, too. With FFVII, nan Claw and nan Deck some defaulted to 30fps, but aft tweaking nan framework complaint settings, nan crippled hovered betwixt 70–100fps connected nan Claw, moreover during nan leader conflict against nan Scorpion Sentinel, yet it struggled to consistently deed 60fps connected nan Deck. While wandering astir First Light’s packed chess lucifer astatine nan fictional Grand Carpathian Hotel, I saw betwixt 80–90fps — nan Deck mostly maintained astir 35fps — and moreover erstwhile I cranked everything up to Ultra connected nan Claw, I was still getting astir 60–70fps. 007 First Light’s default settings for some handhelds was 1280 x 800 astatine murphy quality, however, truthful things don’t look markedly different connected nan Claw without immoderate tweaking. But successful mobility nan crippled looks and plays better.

Expedition 33 wasn’t rather arsenic overmuch of an improvement. From infinitesimal one, it looks much sharper connected nan Claw than it does connected nan Deck, wherever it’s often a fuzzy mess. On nan Claw, nan default settings successful Expedition 33 kept a framework complaint of astir 30–40fps successful nan game’s opening area, but toggling connected Intel’s XeSS upscaler and framework procreation toggles gave maine much for illustration 70–90fps worthy of smoothness.

However, location was a distracting graphical rumor wherever characters and objects would get weird glowy aliases achromatic artifacts astir nan edges successful close-up shots during battles and cutscenes.

Each crippled did usage much powerfulness connected nan Claw. In First Light, I mostly saw artillery drain of astir 35W connected nan Claw and betwixt 22–23W connected nan Deck, for example. But pinch nan Claw’s larger 80Whr battery, compared to nan Deck’s 50Whr battery, that intends that some handhelds would theoretically get 2 afloat hours of artillery life, contempt nan Claw’s improved graphics and framework rate.

I besides threw a overmuch lighter crippled astatine nan Claw to spot really businesslike Intel’s spot mightiness beryllium compared to what’s disposable connected nan Steam Deck: Balatro, nan roguelike poker game. Both handhelds sipped powerfulness during Balatro, draining nan artillery astatine astir 14W and 9W, respectively. When I reduced each chip’s TDP to nan lowest it could spell while maintaining 60 frames per second, it looked for illustration some nan Claw and nan Deck OLED would past a small complete six hours, truthful nary existent upgrade there.

Overall, gaming connected nan Claw feels great. But nan Windows handheld package acquisition connected nan Claw is conscionable atrocious compared to nan straightforwardness of SteamOS connected nan Steam Deck. When I first booted nan Claw, I had to spell done various Windows setup screens and downloads and updates, and it took an hr and a half earlier I could moreover commencement uncovering my measurement to installing and mounting up Steam. That mightiness partially beryllium mediocre Wi-Fi, but location were still measurement excessively galore hoops to jump through, and I don’t bask confusingly bouncing betwixt nan 4 layers of Windows, Xbox Mode, MSI’s proprietary software, and Steam.

I besides don’t deliberation nan Claw’s hardware is worthy nan premium complete nan Steam Deck OLED. The Claw has a fewer perks complete nan Deck, including a bigger 8-inch screen, drift-resistant Hall effect analog sticks, and prongs pinch a “laser-etched dot texture” that are easy to grip. But nan Claw has an IPS LCD show that’s not arsenic vibrant arsenic nan Deck’s OLED screen, it’s considerably heavier than nan Deck (785g vs. 640g), and it doesn’t person nan Deck’s built-in touchpads, which I for illustration utilizing arsenic other inputs for my games. The Menu and View buttons connected nan Claw felt just excessively acold retired of scope for my thumbs, making pausing a crippled a spot much problem than it should be. And I don’t for illustration nan RGB lights astir nan Claw’s joysticks — nan gamer glow has ne'er been my vibe — though you tin move them disconnected successful settings.

So, to reply my original questions, is nan Claw an upgrade to my Deck OLED? In my fewer hours of testing, I’m not convinced. Sure, I’m missing retired connected immoderate power, but nan Deck is simply a much comfortable instrumentality to clasp and usage for me. Is nan Claw nan amended action for personification picking betwixt it and a Deck OLED? That’s a trickier mobility to answer; Windows handhelds still person entree to multiplayer games for illustration Fortnite that don’t support Linux owed to anti-cheat software. That elasticity and nan improved capacity mightiness beryllium nan tipping constituent if you person $1,700 to walk connected a handheld.

If you’re really connected nan fence, I’d urge waiting for my workfellow Sean’s heavy dive. But I’m not giving up my Deck, and I don’t deliberation you should unreserved to get nan Claw, particularly erstwhile location are still truthful galore package issues that request to beryllium worked out. They conscionable aren’t worthy dealing pinch connected a instrumentality astir a expansive much costly than Valve’s.