MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus: More Powerful, but Not a Compelling Steam Deck OLED Replacement

First Hands-On Impressions

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus is the first handheld gaming PC to feature Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme chip. While colleague Sean Hollister will provide a full review later, this is a quick take from a regular Steam Deck OLED user.

Performance: Graphics and Frame Rates

Testing three demanding games – "007 First Light", "Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade", and "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33" – the Claw showed notably better graphics and frame rates than the Steam Deck. For example, in FFVII, both devices defaulted to 30 fps, but after tuning, the Claw hit 70–100 fps while the Deck struggled to maintain 60 fps. In First Light, the Claw ran at 80–90 fps compared to the Deck’s 35 fps. However, Expedition 33 exhibited graphical artifacts – glowing or black outlines around characters and objects.

Battery and Power Consumption

Although the Claw consumes more power (around 35W vs. Deck’s 22–23W), it has a larger 80 Wh battery (Deck 50 Wh), so both theoretically last about two hours. In the lighter game Balatro, both handhelds ran over six hours, showing no significant difference.

Software and Ergonomics

The Claw’s software experience is notably worse: Windows setup, downloads, and updates took an hour and a half before Steam could be launched, whereas SteamOS is straightforward. Physically, the Claw is heavier (785g vs. 640g), has an IPS LCD display that isn’t as vibrant as the Deck’s OLED, lacks touchpads, and has poorly placed Menu/View buttons. The RGB lighting around the joysticks can be turned off.

Conclusion

The author acknowledges the Claw is more powerful, but not as comfortable or user-friendly as the Steam Deck OLED. Windows handhelds have the advantage of supporting games like Fortnite that don’t run on Linux due to anti-cheat software, but at $1,799 (versus $789 for the Steam Deck OLED), the software issues are not worth it. “I’m not giving up my Deck,” concludes the journalist.