Don’t buy the new MSI Claw handheld — at least not yet

Don’t buy the new MSI Claw handheld, at least not yet. After being announced in January, MSI confirmed that its Windows-based handheld gaming PC would launch on March 8 through the official MSI store — today, if you’re reading this article the day it’s published. It says units will start shipping on March 12, with retailers selling them by March 15. MSI has confirmed that there won’t be any reviews for the handheld in the near future, unless a media outlet happens to get their hands on what is described as a “very limited” initial run.

Buying any new product before third-party reviewers can poke and prod it is problematic, but the MSI Claw is an even riskier venture. It’s not only MSI’s first handheld gaming PC ever, but it’s also launching with one of Intel’s Core Ultra CPUs. We don’t know how this chip will perform inside the Claw, and that’s a problem for the Claw without any independent reviews.

A new challenger

We’ve seen the Core Ultra 7 155H at play in a proper laptop, and it gives performance that can rival chips like the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme that you’ll find inside the Asus ROG Ally. That’s in a laptop, however. The constrained form factor of the Claw will likely limit some performance. We’ve seen some of that already in the OneXPlayer X1, with some reviewers pointing to potential driver issues with the integrated Arc graphics.

The highest chip MSI will offer in the Claw is the Core Ultra 7 155H, but a cheaper version with the Core Ultra 5 135H is also available. The Core Ultra 5 135H is weaker than the Core Ultra 7 155H on paper, but I’m unsure how that will play out in real-world performance. As I saw with the Asus ROG Ally with the base Ryzen Z1, two variants of similar chips can have vastly different performance.

All of this is just speculation right now — for all I know, the Claw could come out and wipe the floor with the competition from Asus and Lenovo. The problem