The MSI Claw is a Mess: Gaming Handheld Can't Compete | Review & Benchmarks

[@GamersNexus]

Maybe time to make a playlist for handheld reviews to make them easier to navigate. In the meantime, check out our other recent ones below! These benchmarks are a huge effort and we often buy the hardware tested and invest weeks of testing time to bring you independent reviews. Help support us by buying one of our PC component wireframe mouse mats! store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-wireframe-mouse-mat (or shirts, glassware, and PC build mats on the store!) Lenovo Legion Go review & in-depth testing: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f2SanquiedZ_qM0 Steam Deck OLED review: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m5jHh2OEgdR_Y8U

[@BaBaNaNaBa]

Maybe next time don't take the Intel funding deal, MSI!

[@DanteRatto]

Hope you do the Orange Pi Neo when it comes out.

[@jzilla1234]

I genuinely believe msi only made this because Intel was willing to subsidise them chips for half price. Or Intel approached .si with the idea to get some market share

[@kerbalkerman6827]

Any reason you don't include display details such as colour accuracy and peak brightness in these reviews?

[@henrythegreatamerican8136]

Waiting for the Switch 2. I figure by the time it releases, they'll be tons of good first party games because it's been delayed so long. Not to mention, I seem to have more fun playing a "kiddie" Mario type of game than ARPGs, Survival games, etc.....

[@j_ferguson]

"No, no need to delay and give us a golden sample; I'll buy one in Taiwan and use it personally on the 14 hour flight back" "Oh my god"

[@javaguru7141]

This is hysterical😄

[@Emmbedd]

What a boss

[@JaredJanhsen]

When the vendor forgets Steve travels.

[@tayizfire]

Gold 😂😂😂😂

[@personman5156]

LMAO yeah this exact thing was setting off alarm bells in my head. They definitely don't have a lot of confidence in their own product, at least the ones the general public is getting.

[@Sunlight91]

Store Clerk: Why would you buy one? Steve: My job is to become disappointed.

[@GamersNexus]

Hahahahaha

[@nanobreaker]

LMAO. Likely what went unsaid.

[@nimoy007]

Thinking the claw makes it on this year's Disappointment shirt!

[@nereushixon]

TLDR - "There's no reason to settle for good enough when better is cheaper" - Steve, GamersNexus

[@Slamgod]

Totally agree!! This channel has put so many good decisions under my desk its not even funny. Solid thanks and appreciation to Steve and team. You guys ROCK!!

[@1samm1]

The sentence is good, but really, nothing about the Claw seems "good enough" - it's unreliable, stuttery, has power issues, doesn't feel well in terms of being a handheld. To me, that spells "bad", not "good enough".

[@davesprivatelounge]

This is my dating strategy

[@scarecrow5848]

@@1samm1 yeah, most of these problems being from it using a intel processor to be honest. intel shouldn't have entered this market, nobody else is going to use their processors for this. slow, hot, takes too much wattage to get the same performance as AMD cpu's, which is why as mentioned, it runs hot. and I doubt they'll give software tweaks of any kind to improve efficiency at lower wattages.

[@milesfarber]

Funny, when i made that same exact quote in 2017 everyone called me an AMD shill

[@SirRoundPotato]

Steve, I just want to commend you and give upmost respect. I've been following your work since way back when you released blog posts about RAM timings/frequency. And to this day, you are doing unbiased reviews and keeping your integrity, in an era where everyone else sold out. That doesn't have a price tag, it's priceless.

[@GamersNexus]

Wow! That's a long time. Thanks for sticking with us for so long! I like to think our style hasn't changed much.

[@Wittygoose9341]

👏

[@_Yeeted_]

I see MSI trying to claw back out of the grave that Steve put them in before.

[@GamersNexus]

oooooooof

[@goldenhate6649]

A company I will never, ever make the mistake of buying from again with their borderline, if not flat out, malware of a rgb control software

[@_Yeeted_]

​@@GamersNexus do you think they will ask you to take the video down again?

[@rd-um4sp]

tbf, they dug that grave themselves. Steve just helped with the burying

[@kay1229]

@@_Yeeted_ at this point with the platform Gamers Nexus has NOW and the fact that GN will absolutely take it public and call them out, I think it's a no lol

[@mitsync]

Chart suggestion: a scatterplot FPS vs battery life. That should show efficiency outliers well, as they would stick out to the top right of the chart, and it would remove the need to put FPS data in the line labels at 15:47

[@VRavTech]

Thanks, Steve

[@charlesfuzak]

Back to you, Steve.

[@Zapdos0145]

You can literally see it!

[@nosirrahx]

Boring, back to you Steve.

[@GamersNexus]

Back to you all!

[@austinporterfield1363]

Thanks Steve.

[@vasheroo]

I'm so glad you guys have done all this handheld testing. I picked up both versions of the deck over time and I've really enjoyed them both.

[@AyaWetts]

I remember when the Steam Deck came out everyone was yelling and screaming how it would flop with its horrible battery life... then the competition came out, and all those same people don't seem to care about battery life any more.

[@gamingguru2k6]

I have played on a lot of handhelds. 8 hour battery life is a good sweet spot. 1-3 hours is awful for a handheld. For a gaming laptop, it's not bad.

[@ryanabarca8616]

@@gamingguru2k6 I mean it depends on what youre playing but yeah 1-3 hours is terrible, but playing in bed and not my desk is a good trade off

[@xomm]

It's kinda just a fundamental thing with needing to use x86 architecture. ARM translation layers are getting better and better though. Hope one day they'll get that critical mass of compatibility like Proton did recently where it's easily usable for most people.

[@Robbie-mw5uu]

literally no one said the steam deck was going to flop

[@NZZN_]

People complained about the Switch's unacceptable battery life and unwieldy form factor in 2017 and now its praised as the gold standard for size and battery life... I miss handhelds like the PSVita which can actually fit in your pocket and last at least 8 hours. What we have now would be considered 'luggables'

[@Vehemently7535]

I like the icons for showing how you acquired it. Love this channel!

[@GamersNexus]

Thank you! Working on a small update for those soon too to improve readability on that text. Needs a drop shadow or something!

[@50shadesofmycow]

@@GamersNexusyou are just a treasure ❤

[@Lolwutfordawin]

What icons? I missed them and am curious now

[@emanueleborghini3186]

​@@Lolwutfordawin 0:25 bottom left

[@PrograError]

@@GamersNexus TBH, I would have just simplified it to a flat icon with just the text in it, then add some win 7-ese BG/ drop shadow. And to show which kind it was chosen a different colour from the rest. Fit in a lot better than a Skeuomorphic-ish design out of a budget radio replacement with screen/ Android Auto/ CarPlay, IMO

[@Yellowredstone]

"We won't send you one." "Okay, then we'll buy one." "I was not expecting that."

[@babyfacedkayos]

Having to buy a separate $80 dock and then recommend a 100w charger too to update the bios is WILD.

[@RandommBoyo]

Actually maniac

[@p5eudo883]

Reminds me of an Acer laptop I bought that advertised dual drive bays. The second one didn't come with the required metal mounting bracket. They wanted you to pay another $40+ for that tiny scrap of metal to use that second bay. I never bought an Acer product again.

[@xXRealXx]

Plus chargers usually don't come with cables, so you have to buy a 100W Type C-Type C cable too... smh

[@Lascax]

@@p5eudo883 Oh yeah! I had a model with that too, it was a 17" model! Also when I really evaluated to buy it, it was nowhere to be found like one year after release. That and other multiple warranty issues made me avoiding Acer like plague.

[@Yasokuhl35]

I mean, you could probably get away with a $10 USB-C dongle if it has power pass through? Have one here for my laptop, it handle 60w (even if I never used it for long, it gets pretty hot)

[@BingsBuddery]

Lol, the MSI naming convention section was gold.

[@Secret_Takodachi]

Thanks Steve, this video helped motivate me to sell my 256Gb LCD Steam Deck on FB marketplace so I can upgrade to the most expensive OLED Steam Deck for less than $400. When I consider how much use I got out of my OG Steam Deck + how good the condition was when I sold it (w/ case & original charging cable) I think you helped one person upgrade their handheld hobby for "cheap" & helped someone else get into the market for less with a high quality pre-owned handheld.

[@GamersNexus]

That's awesome that these videos are helping with buying decisions! Hope the new owner knows they're getting a deal with a used device!

[@50shadesofmycow]

This is awesome to read. I’ve also found that Valve generally puts in a lot more effort and polish. Their customer support is also honestly excellent. Got a hardware problem even out of warranty? No problem, they’ll sent you a new unit (thanks Gabe ❤)

[@wheeledion]

​@@GamersNexusThey always do! I switched to arc recently due to your followups

[@Tossphate]

Last week I bought my mint condition 1tb LCD deck for £200. This thing is amazing. I only realised my expectations were unrealistic (forgetting about the whole windows/Linux thing) after exploring using non-steam launchers, and even then, the deck exceeds my expectations up via proton.

[@VSMOKE1]

How much did you get for it I want to sell mine as well that OLED been teasing me

[@PixelShade]

I don't know how the Steam Deck OLED perform compared to the LCD version. But my experience on the LCD version is that you gain A LOT of battery with minimal performance loss when going from 15W to somewhere around 8-12W. (where the APU is most efficient). This is the main reason why I feel the Steam Deck is leagues ahead of the competition as it succeeds in its mission of being a portable device.

[@IMZ44]

It shows Valve did some strange magic in creating the Steam Deck. The device isn't perfect, but the Deck is still ahead of the game.

[@aruce9]

The approach is similar to apples. They have control over the hardware and the software so they can optimize for the steam decks specific hardware and get the best performance for it

[@IMZ44]

@aruce9 I respect that approach. Plus, the OS for the Steam Deck was optimized well. Windows 11 is another story.

[@DaleonM4]

@aruce9 I mean msi, lenovo and asus have their own software to make windows usable. Even tho they can't teak windows they can make it usuable with good software so at some extend the approach is similar enough to Apple's.

[@MM.MischiefManaged]

@@DaleonM4 Yeah but that doesnt optimize the garbage windows is. If anything tht software is more overhead.

[@bryo4321]

It’s a great approach for this type of device and I think the incredibly consistent performance and frame times is a testament to that. God battery life, stable performance, slick UI. Deck rocks

[@blar2112]

How the fuck did Valve do it?? Like every single handheld release is a steam Deck advertisement. Crazy.

[@maverickvgc4220]

Not using Windows, that's most of it

[@datguy8296]

Not butchering battery life to keep chasing bigger numbers.

[@cat-.-]

@@datguy8296 Absolutely, I think the most high impact decision is to make a balanced spec sheet, components that make sense for each other is more important than one of them being the best

[@Slateproc]

Absolute consistency at any cost. By being inoffensively average so well that it may as well be a slab of marble when looking at the variarion in performance

[@Teddy_Bear312]

Valve didn't give it the "laptop" treatment. The Steam Deck is a literal handheld gaming device that CAN be more if you want it to be and are willing to tinker a little bit. It even has it's own operating system (modified linux). But all these other handhelds are basically laptops/pc's in a handheld shell with a shitty interface tacked onto a desktop Windows version. You can change Windows around all you want and add all sorts of stuff to it. But at the end of the day it still is Windows, and will act like Windows, which on a actual laptop/pc isn't too bad. But when you don't have easy acces to a keyboard/mouse it's such a hassle when something doesn't wanna cooperate.

[@RichardPhillips1066]

Lol i love that ...the store assistant was honest, here he would avoid answering the question to avoid embarrassing you / put you off buying

[@krknife]

As if employees get paid enough here to lie. If you are friendly, a lot of times they will talk to you just like this.

[@RichardPhillips1066]

@@krknife yes a minimum wage person could probably get fired for being honset

[@awepizza]

Valve: Does nothing, competition keeps shooting themselves in the foot. What's that called?

[@cybercifrado]

Hmm. I vote for, "schadenfreude".

[@TheUltimegaMan]

The funny thing about Valve, is that they are exceedingly competent. They’re not always the best at everything, but they’re good at everything and excel in a few areas.

[@reinbeers5322]

Just Valve doing what it does best lol.

[@ItWasSaucerShaped]

own goal

[@GL-ms9ek]

The US Democratic Party

[@romanbellic810]

Now I don't wanna get my claws on it anymore. :(

[@GamersNexus]

That :( actually feels sad...

[@harryshuman9637]

bazinga!

[@dex6316]

@@harryshuman9637r/foundtheredditor

[@SenileOtaku]

It's from MSI, I wouldn't have anyway.

[@romanbellic810]

@@GamersNexus Of course, I wanted a Claw in my claws. :(

[@Pbenter]

Thanks for including the Z1 in these tests! It is much more relevant after the recent price cut at Best Buy.

[@alexanderdiogenes8067]

the surprise on Steve's face when Anthropometry turned out to be a real thing lol

[@LancerIKA]

Microelectronics giants still cannot beat the digital shop.

[@HunterTracks]

Hey, look at the bright side -- with that fan noise, you can play Metro with maximum immersion.

[@antonkirilenko3116]

Unless of course the thing's nuclear and at higher power modes the internal geiger counter kicks in to warn you.

[@robertlefeaux]

Ugh. Sometimes I miss being able to do stuff easily outside of steam but I always appreciate the simplicity of the steam deck. It's been a great companion since going full mobile.

[@DuvJones]

You know, that initial interaction with MSI.... that screams alarm. 29:20 I have been following you for a bit.... I didn't think that I would EVER hear you say something like that in a review. Your right, but it is unexpected.

[@sean8102]

Yeah the fact they basically panicked when Steve told them "no problem I'm buying one now". And the fact the one they sent was altered and not the same as a out of the box one would be just isn't a good look.

[@eccentricthinker142]

@@sean8102 That's just sad at this point. They should know that GN has both the means and willingness to go out of their own ways to get their hands on retail hardware. Don't they have a way to actually disguise the golden sample properly?

[@greasebob]

Did you timestamp that right? Not caring about the specifics of framerate is what you are talking about?

[@DuvJones]

@@greasebob Yeah.

[@m3rcynside458]

Most honest tech channel on the web. Integrity at its finest!

[@lunaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

Steve whipping out Mandarin like its NOTHING

[@tim3172]

Over a billion people whip out Mandarin like it's* NOTHING. (it's = it is. Its is possessive.)

[@em.dot.2]

​@tim3172 someone learning a second language as an adult should always be commended. It ain't easy. Especially going from a Germanic language to an Eastern one. Very difficult.

[@tringuyen7519]

@@tim3172Only bc the CCP is made speaking Cantonese illegal.

[@Avendesora]

@@tim3172 You're going to be a lot happier and a lot less publicly mocked and ridiculed when you figure out the difference between KZbin comments and the essays you have to write for your middle school English class, boo.

[@Avendesora]

@@snarkywombat155 Everyone reading and replying to this thread is literate. If you're going to slobber yourself over everything being perfect, use better language. you're failing to communicate your point otherwise, right? Nobody can understand it unless they have a very high IQ to figure it out.

[@osirisgolad]

Overall, it's clear to me that Valve decided to take the time to focus on the fundamentals because they are hoping to create a broader interest for handheld devices in the long term; they are in the business of selling games and increasing play time per user, after all. The other manufacturers may be more adventurous in some respects, but you first need a solid product that performs its basic functions without frustrating the user before you spend too much time adding all sorts of functionality.

[@toufusoup]

When the promotional material focused on the hardware like core count and stuff 100% they’re trying to cover up bigger issues. Thanks for being the sacrificial lamb, Steve.

[@LanceThumping]

It's pretty funny how so many of the handhelds show off their beefed up CPUs but the reason the Steam Deck is giving such stable performance is because they specifically went with a device that cut back the CPU a bit to give the GPU more headroom. It's given them super consistent performance and far better battery life (since the CPU isn't eating extra power for no reason).

[@utarefson9]

@@LanceThumping Yeah, anyone who's already into pc gaming knows how much more important the GPU is. Marketing is trying to fool people who don't know better.

[@FantomMisfit]

16:50 Basically Steam Deck stomps in this test. It straight up beats everyone else aside from the Legion but unlike the others its still holding its fps above 60

[@Riboshom]

I must have missed it in a previous episode because nobody seems to be commenting about it, but Steve apparently speaks chineese well enough to have a conversation with the store clerk and that's kind of impressive.

[@sbdnsngdsnsns31312]

He learned it years ago for trips to Taiwan and greater Taiwan.

[@PrograError]

I believe he used it during the Li Lian factory tour vid

[@SateLight]

you know it's so bad when after 1 month sitting on the shelf, the first one to buy your product is a reviewer from overseas

[@Vigilence]

Nothing beats the accuracy the steam deck track pad offers. Surprised to see no one implement something similar.

[@cameronbosch1213]

The Legion Go and upcoming Orange Pi Neo both have touchpads. But yeah, the touchpads on the Steam Deck are great.

[@utfigyii5987]

A pc should definetely have a way to properly emulate a mouse. The ROG Ally missing the touchpads is a major dealbreaker.

[@uglybad4]

@@cameronbosch1213 I've only seen the Legion in videos so my opinion is unfounded but it just *looks* like the right hand trackpad is way too far out of the way to be comfy to use casually or on a moment's notice. Also it's just the one pad right? I've actually gotten a lot of mileage out of having two

[@cameronbosch1213]

@@uglybad4 Same here, which is why I really like the Steam Deck.

[@callawolf531]

Yeah, the track pads on the Steam Deck are a must for sure, and I use the right one for when I play a first person game. It's kinda weird that the other systems haven't implemented them yet

[@splitklickety]

Man I dunno. Kinda new to Gamer Nexus and Im laughing way to much at these reviews than I should. Keep the banter/bits up. I love it, haha.

[@cardboardsnail]

The battery life on these handhelds is nostalgic. It reminds me of the Game Gear.

[@thierryfaquet7405]

Ha yes the good old day. I remember getting my gear on christmas and the dread asking for batteries after a few hours 😂 Still what a machine, I still remember how amazed me and my brother were by the backlit color screen. Wish I still had it even if it would certainly not run anymore.

[@Zaque-TV]

​@thierryfaquet7405 its so insane that that thing took SIX batteries! And not rechargeable!

[@xXYannuschXx]

Thats what happens when you feel like you NEED the most powerfull APU avaible in these things. The SteamDeck so far is the only one with good battery life.

[@thierryfaquet7405]

@@Zaque-TV yeah my mother was quite smart and got us the little power supply. We played sitting on the ground near a socket 😂 cause the cable wasn’t that long (wtf sega)

[@secret5.]

@@Zaque-TVBut there were rechargeable packs that worked great.

[@supervisedchaos]

12:00 nice job having the G.O.A.T for games in this clip

[@luminance69]

I would love to see a comparison between the Taiwan and MSI review unit

[@AtariZeroTV]

I had no idea you speak Chinese! I also speak, though I'm a few years out of practice at this point. I got by BA in Mandarin and lived deep in central China for a year a while ago, which was a wild and eye-opening experience.

[@cppctek]

Yoo let’s gooo! I myself hated the claw and had so many games fail to launch or crash. The 1% lows were terrible and the idle ram usage was insane. I had so many issues with the devices buttons being to hard to press like the d-pad and shoulder buttons. The backplate appeared to be very vented but ended up not being fully vented like the pictures appear. I’m very disappointed with msi. They should have consulted handheld experts and done more testing in the background in the hands of real gamers. We could have easily helped them. Also the temp monitor … why didn’t it have one the price to performance is insulting also. Lol. 😂 thanks Steve thank you so much for being honest!!! So many people seemed scared and hesitant to speak the truth on the claw and kept misleading people into thinking it was hopeful or useful. I saw some people cherry pick benchmarks and games and not show 1% lows or mention any issues at all.

[@BeefLettuceAndPotato]

I get that it isn't a "profile" but why not include the TDP slider that the Steam Deck's performance overlay allows you to use? You could surely squeeze out more than 2.3 hours for example in the F1 23 @ 720p test by lowering the TDP to a frame rate equivalent to the Z1X devices in their power saving modes...?

[@CR0SSJ]

the more and more times I see any review of the MSI Claw it just seems like Intel wanted a "handheld gaming device" to please some one at the board and MSI was the only idiot that agreed to build one. Then both parties just shrugged and said "I mean we did the minimum viable product and left it in the dust day -1 on release.

[@MitchellWinning]

Really appreciate the honesty for the community. You guys are incredible.

[@Shard113]

I am amazed to see how well the steamdeck holds up. The weakest of them all by a decent margin, but the over all design, the software special sauce is keeping it more than viable.

[@XVa-uj8m]

I definitely want to buy a Steam Deck OLED. If ASUS Ally had OLED I might consider it as I plan to run my games from GOG on it and would love that extra oomph on the emulation end. Even for the sound setup the Non-Z Extreme might be worth buying and adding a OLED screen mod if one comes.

[@OmniUni]

​@@XVa-uj8mOn the Deck, Heroic Launcher has GOG integration, and most emulators are both easily available and there are also utilities for directly integrating your emulated games (and GOG games) directly into the Deck's launcher. Even with third-party systems like that, it's amazing how nicely the Deck is integrated.

[@XVa-uj8m]

@@OmniUni If it requires Galaxy I don't use that and never will.

[@B_Don99]

@@XVa-uj8mit doesn’t require galaxy. You can install and run any GOG game using proton.

[@NoTraceOfSense]

@AbhishekG2000never bothered me

[@XPISigmaArt]

Unrelated but Steve continues to be one of the best tech voices on KZbin. They always feel so casual, yet informative, and very easy to listen to!

[@christaylor86]

He*

[@XPISigmaArt]

@@christaylor86 They. Them. Ooooh spooky 👻

[@christaylor86]

@@XPISigmaArt He

[@VamosGamingSys]

"I've seen it, heard of it, but never saw anyone buying it, you are the first!" Wow thanks Steve!!!

[@PXAbstraction]

Why? As someone who once had a brand new MSI X570 motherboard catch fire on first power on, MSI, that's why. Everything about this screams that it's a product MSI wasn't planning to make, but then saw the success of ASUS and some executive said "Get one of these done! You have 6 months!"

[@JMR0303]

And now ASUS has crapped the bed with its borderline scam after-sales support, so they’re *both* bad, but for different reasons.

[@123Suffering456]

Honestly looks like every major manufacturer is bad for their own reasons. I have my issues with Gigabyte, Asrock seems alright but has issues too, don't think I need to comment much on Asus after what went down, and MSI seems not great either, even if I have a X570 MB from them as well which is doing its job very well. But it looks like they're all sh't in their own ways and one just needs to choose a product that looks good, read/watch reviews to figure out if it has any design flaws/issues (like the Claw) and then pray that nothing goes wrong with it once the purchase is made. Kind of sucks. I'm going to upgrade my PC soon and it feels bad to be in this position.

[@stobe187]

The styling of the Claw reminds me of bootleg handhelds you see as props in mid-tier games..

[@VSMOKE1]

The D-Pad Just Looks so ugly that's exactly where my eyes focus when I look at that

[@stobe187]

@@VSMOKE1 To me it's the whole thing, just looks so generic and cheap.

[@A1BASE]

Hang on. 'We recommend users update their bios to keep it current' (said every hardware manufacturer ever) and 'you need an $80 peripheral to update your bios.... (says MSI) Did I hear that right?

[@olivur_1459]

I didn't know Steve spoke Mandarin. Nice

[@MegaCm123456]

crazy, right!?

[@Artiom97es]

i didnt know too, that is amazing

[@DorothyWayneright5]

Soon enough, he'll be elected next president of Taiwan. Guys a legend.

[@user-hh5pj5jv8p]

Yeah he's spoken it for years now. You can see it in a few vids

[@markwmcnaughton]

He’s commented on Chinese language and culture KZbin channels before, it’s weird seeing Steve out in the wild

[@miss_inputs]

"It's not like an NES game, where…" Shows Earthbound, a SNES game. You had one job, Steve. To be fair that's better than MSI having several jobs and doing a dogshit job at all of them. Especially marketing. MSI's marketing department scares me. How do these people function on a daily basis? _Are_ they people?

[@Bryan-T]

The steam deck's 1% is so much better than the rest. I'm not interested in a handheld but if I was I would get the OLED deck for sure.

[@red0death1]

Right seems like a no brainer, some of those 1s are awful.

[@catch82]

It's Windows. Throw Bazzite (SteamOS) onto the Legion Go, which I did last month, or the Ally and the 1%'s are the same.

[@Bolt451]

It's just some of the gam compatibility

[@meneldal]

Likely to be a OS thing.

[@joshjlmgproductions3313]

​@@meneldalIt's also a RAM thing. The Steam Deck has over twice the memory bandwidth of the Ally.

[@MoonlitWood]

Wasn't expecting to see The Brew Barons show up at 29:17, but I'm certainly happy I did!

[@LampDoesVideogame]

Damn, Steve, new respect for you knowing Mandarin tf!

[@ClappOnUpp]

Yep, let's all wait for that 70% off sticker on the claw. Then I'd buy one.

[@shoelesshobo7744]

Thank you Steve as someone who was in the market for one of these handheld gaming I relied heavily on Gamernexus videos as a way to compare the ROG ally and the SteamDeck. to make a decision on which one I wanted to go with. Keep putting out your informative and unbiased content.

[@GamersNexus]

Thank you! What'd you end up choosing?

[@trekintosh]

I’m now so desperate to know what handheld shoelesshobo7744 decided to buy it’s unreal.

[@shoelesshobo7744]

@@GamersNexus I ended up chosing the SteamDeck OLED over the Ally. While I did notice the Ally had much better performance when in its performance mode I am mainly buying the thing for being able to play smaller titles on the go so for the extra cost it seemed like wasted potential I was also worried that to be getting those FPS I am sacrificing battery longevity. The wait time however is probably going to be a killer now though as I could have had a ROG Ally in hand today versus having to put in an order for the SteamDeck OLED which may have swayed my decision had I considered it prior to ordering. 😆

[@tlefevre2918]

@@shoelesshobo7744 deck oled is a great choice, i bought mine on release day and it has not let me down.

[@Kallan007]

This just illustrates what a fantastic job Valve did with the SD, I never had to worry about what Valve was going to deliver.

[@whatsforsupa]

I almost waited for this, and I'm SO happy I went with the SD-OLED instead.

[@Simte]

Steve: *pain* is a great summary of the experience with the Claw.

[@Surururu]

Would love to see how the MSI sent one performed

[@dead-claudia]

same like there's a cat clawing at the bag's door rn

[@honeybadger6275]

He doesn't do a comparison? That's disappointing.

[@Surururu]

@@honeybadger6275 yea would love if they just added the “msi sample model” lol

[@LordZordid]

I would also like to know how the golden sample compared.

[@Vtorious123]

Needs to be done. The people need the truth.

[@TheCastorPlays]

One important note to add to the charge rate testing: Faster charging generally degrades the battery faster. So I would expect the Claw's battery to die quicker than on other devices. Normalizing by battery capacity and plotting C-rate would be great for these plots!

[@juhanimertanen3452]

Rog Ally has been a delight so far, minus few "unable to update" win11 issues. It's going to replace my wife's old laptop soon, but finding a good dock (in my country) is difficult and Asus eGPU prices are out of the line.

[@fuentesjuanjose90]

That's why they went with a proprietary cable so you won't use any egpu of your choice. Very scummy that's why I went with the legion go and it works like a charm.

[@jackykwan2580]

Legion go is very expensive outside the US, the price makes it very unattractive. At my side the go costs $200 more.

[@jxxxxx44]

​@@fuentesjuanjose90 how much did xi Jinping pay you?

[@robertwendal5894]

All of a sudden a $299 open box Z1 ROG Ally looks like the best handheld deal. Personally for me legion go is the best most versatile handheld. But I'm 6'4" with large hands so I fit that niche market where my hands aren't dwarfed by the go.

[@cromefire_]

Especially on efficiency, the Steam Deck is still impressive. It really shows what's possible if you optimize the OS for the hardware **and** dumping all the windows overhead. It's all just so well balanced, the low resolution screen is of course kinda a bummer in some ways, but you'd probably not get that great efficiency otherwise and it's still enough at the formfactor.

[@SnakebitSTI]

Hardware compatibility is usually a big issue for Linux laptops. It's common for Windows to best much lighter Linux distributions on battery life. Pairing the Steam Deck's OS and hardware is probably a big part of why it performs so well.

[@Shotblur]

Honestly, the screen (especially the OLED) looks absolutely amazing and I don't need 1080p out of my five inch screen.

[@crestofhonor2349]

It's the chip and less on the OS. Switching to Bazzite still has the Deck winning by quite a margin because the chip is more efficient. There's a reason valve had AMD make a custom chip and didn't use a modified laptop chip like the Z1 and Z1X

[@Rroff2]

Windows 10/11 doesn't do handhelds any favours, but a lot of the problem is the hardware - the Ryzen Z1 (Extreme) SoC could be a lot more optimised than it is for handheld use - though AMD market it for this use it is spun off a general purpose mobile design and not the most power efficient, the GPU especially has relatively high idle wattage.

[@cromefire_]

@@crestofhonor2349 Well, the Z1X and Z1 are also custom chips, it's not like the Steam Deck's chip is mich more custom than that. In fact it's likely a repurposed VR chip, so it's not like Valve had "AMD make it", it's that AMD had a lot of chips and Valve could get them for cheap. Most of its advantages are down to Zen 2, everything else stems from good hardware choices, the firmware and the OS. And yes that includes the 800p panel, no RGB lighting and more, which makes soo much more sense for something that needs to be efficient. There's a reason Valve didn't go for the more powerful Z1X, they explicitly said that they want more efficiency from the processor before they upgrade anything and they won't trade performance for battery life. All the other handhelds try to market themselves with higher performance, higher resolution screens, more Features and RGB, but Valve has understood the game and the went full on efficiency and UI/UX and the users seems to agree with them.

[@maverickvgc4220]

Are there any plans to test Chimera OS or some other Steam OS based distros on the Ally? I'd love to see how much of those frametime problems is just Windows.

[@miguelangelramos7709]

Thats weird about your ally mine has none of those Defects, bought it at best buy on sep 2023 and still kicking amazingly good, especially with all the updates

[@serioserkanalname499]

I see the top models of the go, ally and claw usually have higher average fps (they should given their price) than the deck but the 1% and 0.1% lows on the deck are so much better. Just a smoother experience. Never thought linux gaming could get this far.

[@mightylink65]

$800 is too much for something that doesn't perform as well as the Legion Go. I don't think the Claw is going to sell very well because it's neither as good as a Legion Go or as cheap as a Steam deck which makes it really undesirable for both sides of the market. I would steer clear from this handheld, it's going to get phased out and become unsupported.

[@XVa-uj8m]

And the ASUS Ally and Steamdeck are cheaper if you don't want a handheld that is Chinese owned and likely put a backdoor in the UEFI for the CCP.

[@PrograError]

@@XVa-uj8m dude MSI is Taiwanese... just like ASUS... And Taiwan ain't China. Plus the info is literal google away

[@XVa-uj8m]

@@PrograError Huh? I was talking about Lenovo.

[@carlosdgutierrez6570]

​@@XVa-uj8myeah, because Windows doesn't have an inbuilt NSA Backdoor right in its kernel…

[@KaminKevCrew]

I bought the Deck OLED. In my opinion, it’s the only good, finished product out of these. The touchpads were a great idea and I love using them for interfacing with the keyboard, and various games. Also, something that I haven’t seen anyone talk about - the tops of the Deck OLED sticks are capacitive. I’d suggest trying portal to anyone that has one. If you put your thumb on the top of the right thumb stick, the gyro in the Deck can be used for aiming. If you don’t want to use that, you can use the edge of the thumb stick, and the gyro is instantly deactivated. IMO this provides the *very best* input system out there for precision aiming. And because you can deactivate the gyro by moving your thumb position, you can ‘reset’ it for infinite gyro aiming. Also, my favorite part of this is that I discovered that feature organically. I didn’t see anything about it in any of the videos I watched, but just by playing the game I realized that was happening.

[@daviddesrosiers1946]

I'm just happy as a clam with my OG Steam Deck, thank you very much.

[@cameronbosch1213]

At high tide or low tide? 🤔

[@TaschenMulch]

I love the new PC handheld market. Stoked to see the upcoming 2. gen devices

[@fixitman2174]

I've owned one MSI product ever, about 4 years ago. I only owned it about a week, then returned it due to several defects. The primary defect was in their support department. Thanks for reassuring me they still deserve a spot on my blacklist.

[@TheTastefulThickness]

I really like their motherboards. I think they have a good record

[@coochie8670]

I've never had an issue with their GPU's.

[@LucasHolt]

In fairness, Asus support is also terrible. I haven't had to get support from lenovo so I'm not sure about them. Looking at this review, I think the only valid answer is a valve steam deck. It has battery life and the screen actually makes sense for a device like this. 120hz to 144hz refresh is silly when the devices are in the 20-60 fps range.

[@SyncF]

@@coochie8670 In europe their GPUs have been good to me, i'm on a first gen 3090 gaming X, no issues. Haven't tried any of their monitors or handhelds because I know it's different HQs/teams here same as the reason they're unreliable in the US for GPUs apparently.

[@coochie8670]

@SyncF I live in the US, and have had an MSI branded 1080, and now a 4070, no issues. Maybe i just got lucky with the silicone lottery.

[@Skyztamer]

9:30 - 9:45 For some context, that's comparing the MSI Claw official subreddit with an unofficial community Legion Go subreddit. I don't think Lenovo has an official subreddit specifically for the Legion Go to properly compare, however the unofficial MSI Claw community subreddit is currently looking at about 1,100 members. All things considered, that does still pale in comparison to the unofficial Legion Go subreddit; so the point of MSI Claw being less popular by far still stands.

[@Dan-Simms]

Even though I had low expectations, I had high hopes that it would be competitive with the other handhelds. Too bad it seems to just be about 2x more expensive than it should be.

[@petervisi5369]

Thank you GN team for spending the money, time and effort on a product that worthy of none to inform us about and help to avoid such product. Thanks Steve.

[@the_beefy1986]

Seeing the bars so close together for the Deck and knowing how consistent that makes it's experience is shocking. It's the oldest but still one of the best. Glad I took the plunge.

[@dgwdgw]

MSI Center M seems like the same base code as Dragon Center or whatever they're calling it now. Used it on my GS76 notebook. The power profile (sorry, "user scenario") names are identical.

[@D4ll4s69]

I almost bought a Legion Go. After all these reviews I wait for the next generation. Thank you for the excellent content Steve & Team!!!!!

[@MorkaiAU]

Rumours suggest there will be an Ally 2 either late in 2024 or early in 2025, which is what I'm currently waiting for. AMD has their new Strix Point APUs coming soon too, I'm not sure when they're supposed to launch exactly, but Computex is not far off, so I would not be surprised if we get more news on them then.

[@kylenyce8198]

got the deck, rog ally and legion go. legion is my fav. not as weird with its windows jank like the rog ally is. and larger screen than it and the deck.

[@GeneralFuct]

Love my Legion, use it docked as a desktop at my girlfriends place. Using the screen combined with either Moonlight or GeForce Now makes it an easy choice out of the 3.

[@anro_gaming]

I'll wait for the next gen leap too, still stick with my ol switch

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

​@@MorkaiAUHopefully ASUS adds touchpads, currently the only handheld with a current gen chip and dual touchpads I'm aware of is the Ayaneo Kun, which obviously has its own issues

[@imnotdavidxnsx]

You should've also tested the unit they sent you so you could prove if in fact they did ship you an improved unit to try to skew the review in their favor. Would've been great to call them out on it.

[@YurttheSilentChief1]

If not MSI or Asus's incompetency is shown here, then Windows 11's shortcomings in the handheld space sure is another spectacle to behold...

[@antonkirilenko3116]

Yeah, Windows is the main user experience drawback of all of these handhelds. Steam OS on the Steam Deck is like next generation in user experience compared to Windows.

[@Jokerasmaw]

Got the Asus ROG Ally yesterday. I love it, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a handheld gaming console. The MSI claw was on display there and I couldn’t believe how similar it was to the ASUS for an extra 400$

[@Demigirlboss]

It's interesting to see how hampered the Claw is by its tighter power envelope, given how comparatively strong the Arc iGPs' performance was in larger, less restricted mobile devices. Still, as a first gen adopter of Arc, I can be humble and acknowledge that Alchemist had and still has a lot of rough edges that need ironing out, and while it's interesting to see Intel making a showing in this market, MSI needed to go a lot more aggressive with the pricing on this to justify its existence. Edit: Wow this doesn't even seem to be a power envelope thing. What did you do MSI??? How do you mess it up this bad?

[@jamv2122]

msi mess up alot both in build quality and code see toms hardware forums for how many msi boards you can see with issues lol.

[@Demigirlboss]

@@jamv2122 Asus motherboards blow up, Gigabyte motherboards are a security risk, ASRock has absolute dogshit warranty, the list goes on. There's not really any good manufacturers, so I try not to have brand loyalty _or_ disloyalty, but just judge things on a case by case basis. AND OH BOY THIS THING'S ONE HELL OF A CASE. It's got the bones of a solid handheld, but it drops the ball in so many easily avoidable ways. The pricing needed to be far more aggressive than it is, as the most important thing, and I'd be surprised if these aren't on extreme fire sale in under two years.

[@radugrigoras]

Dude it has 8CUs…Intel stuck an ultra book cpu in a handheld. If they wanted an actual gaming chip they would of only had the 6 pcores and more GPU, don’t waste die space on e cores and super e cores and BS AI

[@Magnosummit]

​@@jamv2122 when it finally happens to me, I guess I won't be surprised, but two PC builds using MSI mobos and GPUs and I've had no issues at all. My 3080 has handled everything really well with a moderate undervolt, is quiet, etc. I'll keep buying from them until I have an issue that customer service can't or won't remedy.

[@dex6316]

⁠​⁠@@radugrigorasactually some e cores are good for gaming. Not for actually running the game per say, but running background tasks like the screen they end up being more efficient which is good for battery life. Super e cores are also not even used except when idling which increases battery life.

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

2:00 some employee must be playing with those lol

[@ErrorMessageNotFound]

I'm curious if there would have been any performance difference between the one you bought and the one they sent you. If they changed something and what the effect of those changes was.

[@menaceiwill1]

G.N trying too keep a straight face while doing this review...i salute you.

[@NeoDaOne]

I think we are mature now and have more info showing that having high frame rate is only one part of the overall experience when playing vgs. A stable framerate is the absolute key to great experiences. I have noticed stutters in games before but never really stopped to know why. Didnt think anything of it, unaware because that seemed to be part of the deal with gameplay. Now I have a better understanding of what this stuff means. Especially when playing certain games on the switch and how terrible those experiences are. I am glad frametime and other new terms of info explaining what is happening with hardware/software are being added to your overall breakdowns when it comes to devices and gameplay. Huge fan of it. Very informative. Your one of the best. Keep it up.

[@iXenox]

I know You compared the Claw to the ROG Ally, but did you also compare the Claw with the ROG Ally? In one of the previous videos people seemingly agreed that the ROG Ally is better than the ROG Ally, so that is also an important comparison to make.

[@HuaYunlan8]

You know it's bad when a Chinese salesman tells you "no one has bought one"

[@herbertwalter8693]

Taiwanese, different values and culture

[@HuaYunlan8]

@@herbertwalter8693 the only difference between Taiwanese and Mainlanders is the government that runs them. Thanks for Westplaining though

[@HuaYunlan8]

Also "different culture and value" is rich considering the Asus drama lately and the fact that MSI are the one that manufactured this garbage

[@herbertwalter8693]

@@HuaYunlan8 it's no revelation that big corporations tend to not have any values no matter where you are. i'm just saying that centuries of communist dictatorship and despotism certainly have an effect on the average person's degree of cynicism

[@azimalif266]

The fact that they sent you an already set up device tells me all that I needed to know.

[@HermSezPlayToWin]

Thanks Steve!

[@gyinxye4888]

the video ive been hunting for JEEZ thank you so much

[@mrwannabe00]

Looks like I'll wait for the Steam Deck 2

[@Sebbz]

Enjoy waiting 2 years then 😅

[@mrwannabe00]

@@Sebbz eh time flies my friend

[@denniia]

​@@Sebbz 2 years? Thats hella generous, considering the Index is near 5 years old. I'd say maybe 4 to 6 years before Steam Deck 2 tbh, the tech needs to be there for a big leap in performence to make it worth it and we arent quite there yet.

[@Patrick-tw7nr]

I would say 2026 earliest as they just refreshed the OG steam deck with the OLED model and seems to be selling well and just enough of an upgrade to not rush out another model. There should be a more powerful AMD APU with 18 Cu’s that Valve can use and probably use only 16 of those along with a Zen 4 or 5 cpu and get it to 15 watts

[@Patrick-y4d1z]

@@denniia There are rumours of a new Valve VR set. But I think the Deck 2 would be something different because it needs the performance to make a notabel improvement. I think the 4 to 6 years was accurate for when the Deck first launched, but time has since passed. I think we're looking at about another 2-3 years in reality because it'll need to compete with other handhelds and it is already losing in terms of performance, give it another 3 years and it'll be a laughing stock. The Ally is able to push 30W and in some games hit double the performance. If Valve gets an APU in 3 years, they could easily have a 100% performance increase at the same TDP. Put in USB4 or 5 for an eGPU support and 32GB RAM and it'd be a PC killer for many.

[@pingwong117]

Love the annual/biannual MSI special from GN, massive entertainment

[@Strellock]

Seeing how clumsy and unresponsive even something as basic as menu navigation is, I'm glad I'm stuck with a steam deck, lol!

[@ilovemonkeyos]

"The CLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW! The claw is our master! The claw chooses who will go and who will stay."

[@raffiefoxmew3691]

I really hope you can revisit the MSI Claw Steve, since I've picked one up on discount and i'm seeing *much* improved software and performance all around, some big improvements have been made to the UEFI/BIOS and related firmware, Arc drivers have matures for these 5nm Alchemist+ Arc GPUs since April also. I'm not experiencing any issues with frametimes now. I'd love to see a comparison!

[@benjamintruter7718]

Same experience, I kinda love my claw.... Works really well.

[@Randy28CR]

ROG Ally left the bar reslly high when it comes to softwware for devices of this nature. I use the ROG Ally every day and even though the software is not perfect, it works as intended.

[@JosiahBradley]

It has rgb! Poor dragon. Nice attention to detail with the background monitors showing other handhelds.

[@Journeyandpixels]

I thought about buying the ROG Ally initially because it's readily available in India. However, whenever I compared the Steam Deck and ROG Ally side by side, I always got the impression that the Ally might break within a few days or months. It wasn't just me; I showed both to my friends, and they all preferred the Deck, saying that the Ally looked cheap and not sturdy enough. Consequently, I ordered a Deck, even though it hasn't launched here yet. I've ordered an imported one. and still need to wait a month before I can get my hands on it. Fingers crossed, I hope it lasts long and helps me pass the time in my cozy tent during my treks."