I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers the squeaky toy aliens from Toy Story every time I hear the name of MSI’s series of handhelds. The Claw is back, and just as the aliens saved Woody and Buzz in Toy Story 3, the new Claw 8 EX AI may finally reach its full potential with a new Intel chip and refined controls that seem extra comfortable… for a price.
First, let’s not get this new handheld confused with MSI’s previous Claw 8 AI+. The “EX” in this one’s name comes from the processor it uses, Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme. The chip promises to be Intel’s first handheld-centric CPU that includes the same Arc B390 GPU as the company’s recent Panther Lake laptops. We’ve seen laptops with these chips perform just fine in 1080p gaming, so it’s not a stretch to believe they’ll do well in handheld form.
The handheld can hit a max TDP, or thermal design power, of 45W. That’s more than the max 35W of many other AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme handhelds when plugged in. You’ll likely not run the system on those settings unless you have an outlet handy. It also necessitates better cooling, so we’ll see how well the MSI Claw 8 EX AI handles the heat.
All that promised power will come for a price. The company told The Shortcut it’s aiming for around $1,500. That’s probably referring to the version with the Intel Arc G3 Extreme, though MSI is unlikely to offer an option with any lower-end processor. The company is also reportedly aiming for a release date of around June 23.
MSI claims it has revised its controls this time around, and the device now features Hall effect joysticks and triggers, similar to those on Lenovo’s Legion Go 2. The Taiwan-based gaming hardware company also says it has revised the haptic motors inside the grips to offer better feedback and rumble. For comfort, the grips now have a more controller-like shape, akin to those of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.
As for the 1200p screen, MSI has opted for an 8-inch display with a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. The device also supports variable refresh rate, or VRR, to reduce the risk of screen tearing while you try to push frame rates. Since it supports the new Intel chip, the Claw 8 EX AI also enables XeSS 3 multi-frame generation across games that support it. We can look forward to the promise that we may finally hit the max refresh rate on a handheld device without much fuss, so long as you don’t mind using so-called fake frames.
MSI also promises that the new handheld will support Xbox Mode. That means it will run a more gamepad-friendly version of Windows 11 with its own Center M software to handle device settings.
The new roundup of Intel-based handhelds coming to Computex includes Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 and the OneXPlayer 3. None of these upcoming devices has a price tag attached. The implication is that the ongoing RAM pricing apocalypse is so severe that we may not know the real costs of these devices until closer to release.
MSI’s last Claw 8 launched for $1,000, but due to the ravages of tariffs and RAM prices, it now costs closer to $1,130. Last week, Valve hiked the price of its 3-year-old Steam Deck OLED models to nearly $1,000 for the version with 1TB of storage. When you consider today’s market, $1,500 is unfortunately par for the course in this RAM-ravaged wasteland of 2026.
