The world of Windows-based handheld gaming devices is always growing larger – and today, we have the MSI Claw A8 with us. The full name of this device, in particular, is the MSI Claw A8 BZ2EM. It’s important but I’ll only refer to it as the MSI Claw in this entire review.
Specs and performance
So, let’s go through the specs first. This MSI Claw A8 is powered with:
- AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme
- AMD Radeon 890M
- 24GB of LPDDR5 RAM at 8000MT/s
- 1TB NVMe SSD
For certain games, the FPS number is slightly lower on the MSI Claw A8 because it is using a 16:10 screen. With those extra pixels, it’s no surprise that the FPS number is slightly lower compared to the Ally X’s 16:9 screen.
Overall, we are very happy with the performance of the Claw A8 as it manages the WUXGA 1200p display well.
Battery life
The MSI Claw A8 is also equipped with an 80Wh battery inside, and that results in around 1 hour and 49 minutes in the PCMark battery life test while set to 35W TDP while locked at 100 nits brightness. That is quite impressive given that it has a larger and higher resolution display. I actually thought the battery life would be worse, by the way.
Charging time
As for the charging time though, this is a bit disappointing. The MSI Claw A8 can only take in 65W at most, so it will take nearly 2 hours to complete the charge from 0% to 100% completion while it is turned off, and there is about 8W of power loss throughout the entire charging cycle.
Since it can only take in 65W maximum, the battery will be very slowly charging if I am playing games at full performance with the charger plugged in. I experienced this as I only got from about 15% to 25% battery charge when I’m playing a game with the charger plugged in.
We are not sure why MSI don’t support 100W charging as that would definitely improve the experience.
Ports
I also want to quickly go through the ports first. I’m glad that they have dual USB-C ports and one of them is a 40Gb/s USB 4 port.
Design
But before that, let’s talk about the design. Yeah, I’m sure a lot of people are hyper-focused on that lime green color. It just so happened that we have it in the lime green color. It is also available in white as well.
When I first looked and touched this MSI Claw A8, I was surprised by how lightweight it is, and the design is very angular. Every part of this device is angular, with rounded edges between the facets. It’s certainly a unique design and I actually quite like it.
And surprisingly, I also like the grips. Yeah, the grips are very comfortable for my hands. The way I grip the device is… quite weird as my fingers wrap back inward, and the grip here is not that wide compared to the ROG Xbox Ally X. That’s a personal preference thing, of course.
However, I don’t like the positions of both the M1 and M2 keys as they are just way too easy to be pressed accidentally. I ended up disabling both the M1 and M2 keys as well. That is of course up to your personal preference.
Then we have these tiny shoulder buttons and triggers. It definitely felt strange at first but I got used to it really quickly.
There’s one thing that I like a lot – the thinness of the MSI Claw A8. I mean, the original ROG Ally was thin as well, but people complained about the ergonomics so much that ROG had to bulk it up to improve the grip at the cost of thickness. MSI somehow balanced the thinness and ergonomics pretty well, in my opinion.
Screen
One thing that I think MSI did well is the screen size. It’s using an 8-inch IPS LCD screen that has a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels and goes up to 120Hz refresh rate too.
Because it is using a 16:10 aspect ratio screen, it just felt like the screen is a whole lot bigger compared to the ROG Xbox Ally X. The size between these two devices aren’t that much different, mind you.
As for the screen quality, it’s pretty okay. It can go up to around 530 nits maximum, and down to around 26.5 nits minimum. The color gamut coverage is pretty good as it covers nearly 100% of sRGB but only around 75% of DCI-P3 color gamut. For gamers, DCI-P3 does not matter that much.
Fan noise
While the screen, the grip, and the thinness are all great – there is one annoying thing – the fan noise. The MSI Claw A8 uses two thin fans that are just whiny. To listen to how loud the fan is, watch our video at the top of this review.
When we opened up and look at the inside, the fans are very similar to the fans found in the original ROG Ally which also has super whiny fans.
Upgradability
Since we’re here, let’s talk about the upgradability too. The MSI Claw A8 is super simple to open up – just 6 screws at the back, and the back panel pops out with just my fingernails.
We have access to all the components already – the battery, the M.2 2280 SSD, and also the two clusters of buttons. We went through the entire disassembly in another video, so watch that at the top right corner or down in the description below. MSI designed the daughterboards in a rather efficient way but swapping out the joysticks could be troublesome.
Software features
With all of the hardware stuff out of the way, let’s now talk about the software. The MSI Claw A8 comes with Windows 11 with the MSI Center M pre-installed. It’s MSI’s in-house companion app for handheld devices like this. In my opinion, MSI still has a lot to work on the software since it has some quirky behaviour. For example, swiping up at the bottom while in the MSI Center M should bring up the taskbar, however, it kept auto hide the taskbar.
Most of those bugs are minor annoyance, ultimately they don’t directly interfere with the gaming experience. In fact we are really happy with how the MSI Claw perform in games.
Should you buy the MSI Claw A8 BZ2EM?
So, should you buy the MSI Claw A8 BZ2EM? I think this is a pretty good handheld gaming device, all things considered. Yes, there are some tradeoffs here and there, but the only issue I have is the whiny fans and the M1 and M2 keys position.
While I do think the MSI Center M software is still lacking, it’s not that big of a deal for me personally as I just need it to play games reliably. If I’m feeling adventurous, I can just install Linux on it for a whole different experience. For example, this ROG Xbox Ally X, I installed CachyOS on it and it works flawlessly. The M1 and M2 keys are actually taking screenshots and videos the instant I press on them, and the same can be done on this MSI Claw as well.
Considering all of that, I actually think that the MSI Claw A8 is quite a good deal. It has the same battery life and nearly identical performance with the ROG Xbox Ally X, but RM500 lower – at only RM4,199. I’m not sure about the US pricing as that is not available as of now.
