The MSI Claw A8 Is The Next-Gen Windows Handheld I’ve Been Waiting For

The handheld market has come so far over the last few weeks, and we’re finally ready to push into the next generation. AMD announced the Z2 Extreme earlier this year, which is the long anticipated follow-up to the Z1 Extreme seen in loads of popular handhelds over the last few years, and MSI has announced the first handheld to have it in the new MSI Claw A8.

Speaking about the Z2 Extreme chip, it’s more powerful than the Z1 Extreme, but it’s also significantly more power efficient meaning that the MSI Claw A8 should be able to tap into its huge 80wh battery to last even longer than the 8 AI+. There’s now 24GB of memory which is a little below the 8 AI+ but an improvement on the original claw, and 24GB does seem to be the sweet spot for AAA gaming on a handheld.

 For the most part, The MSI Claw A8 is very similar to the Intel-based Claw 8 AI+, except it sports a slightly updated design with even better ergonomics. It’s slightly lighter and it feels a little less clunky in the hands as well. If the improved ergonomics wasn’t enough for you, it has been designed in 5 great colours with the stunning white and also a very nice lime-green coming when it launches later this year.

Otherwise, the MSI Claw A8 features that same fantastic 1080p 8-inch LED screen with a 120hz refresh rate and VRR support and whilst an OLED would absolutely complete the package, the screen is fantastic and extremely bright and vibrant for playing games.

When it comes to the total package, you still get two USB-C ports, there’s two back buttons on the back of the unit for shirt-cuts, and the D-Pad and face buttons are still some of the best on a handheld to date, and I absolutely love that MSI keep making loads of subtle improvements to their handheld.

As far as actual performance goes, we’ll need to wait to get this into our hands for a longer play-test but the Z1 Extreme is very capable, so we’d expect even more out of the Z2 Extreme and it to be very capable in playing the latest AAA games.

If you’re wanting to stick with Intel, MSI also announced a new Polar Storm MSI Claw 8 AI+ which has a larger 2TB SSD and a new glittery white colour, and the same incredible performance, larger screen and battery as the original Claw 8 AI+.