 This is the MSI claw, this is the latest portable gaming handle from MSI and this is powered by Intel. Now I have to tell you that I'm really excited to see this come out because AMD has really controlled the space and was great to see something new from Intel and also from MSI in the portable PC gaming handheld space. Now we're going to see how well it handles on its own but also how well it stacks up against the ROG ally. So let's go ahead and jump in. So the MSI claw is one of the first Intel Core Ultra based portable PC gaming handhelds. This is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 7, 155H. We've seen that processor handle gaming on a lot of thinner lights like the Asus ZenBook Duo. So we've seen a lot of devices that can handle but never in something this small and this compact. Now the first thing you're going to say is well it looks very similar to the ROG ally and when we put both of them next to each other you can see the MSI claw is actually slightly bigger. It's got a bigger frame even though both of them do have seven inch displays 120 Hertz there. It does have a bigger frame and also feels more comfortable in terms of a grip while gaming while the ally feels a little bit on the smaller side but still comfortable as well. I have to say though I do like the grip on the MSI claw. Now when we look at the design of the MSI claw itself we've got larger D-pad which is really great for games like Street Fighter 6 which I play quite a bit and I have to say though this is probably one of the coolest aspects are the thumbsticks, the way they react and also just the bounce back on them really good. Probably one of the best thumbsticks I've seen on any portable gaming handle device doesn't matter whether it's a Steam Deck, the Legion Go this thing really is solid. Now you've got of course your possible thumbstick layout, you do have your X, Y, B, A buttons and then you've got your four buttons at the very top here so you've of course kind of got your in-game buttons and below that below each of the sides you do have different buttons here so on the left hand side that button brings up the MSI center. Now the MSI center M can launch immediately when you open up Windows and is the main hub for all your games and also all your game services which is pretty nice and you can do everything from here. On the other hand on the right hand side you do have your quick settings menu which gives you settings for things like your real-time monitoring, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth as well as the AI assistant and things like super battery which helps you of course manage the system properly. Speaking of the battery it's got a 5.3 watt hour battery which is pretty good and when you put it on the super battery settings it actually lasts probably one of the longest I've seen in terms of a device while gaming. Now we've flipped the device at the back we do see of course a nice layout where we have a lot of cooling in the back and this is really important because I found that the MSI claw was really solid in terms of cooling experience. Not saying the ROG ally is bad at it it's just that the claw did a really good job at that especially with the super cool settings and then you've got of course with Apple buttons below that. Now when we look at the back of both devices you can see where the differences also extend there the claw is wider and then we open it up this is where you see the expandability of the ROG ally. The ROG ally you can go ahead and swap out the SSD if you want to MSI claw it's not so easy I'm sure it's possible but just at first glance you really can't find where the SSD is located something different but they're all pretty easy to open in terms of just on screen the back and popping her up to make that access there. Now on the top side we do have of course our trigger buttons we do have volume rockers here on the MSI claw and then you can see says true gamer us one USB type c port micro SD expansion a power button that also doubles as a fingerprint sensor which is actually pretty cool so that's the layout there and again similar layout with the ROG ally except of course next to the USB type c is of course the external GPU port so you can extend it connect to an external GPU which is something issues really likes to showcase with the ally so you're going okay then the they are kind of similar but they are some differences with the hardware what about gaming performance because that's very very important and this is where we saw a couple of mixed results now we know what the ROG ally can do so you see that next to it as I talk about what the MSI claw does so in terms of benchmarks we of course have some benchmark results here from 3D mark again it's just kind of showing you what you can actually get from this device I don't really care about benchmarks I want to see what real world scenarios actually do in terms of gaming so let's start off with Street Fighter 6 now Street Fighter is a game I'd like to play quite a bit and you can see the benchmarks here it can go up to 60 frames a second but there are some state situations where you see some slowdowns and some stuttering and it kind of bounces back up and down and this is something you will find with a couple of games and I think this is where of course the driver updates and also just being able to fine tune this properly for this device is something that will come through I'm not saying this is going to happen to every game but you just have to wait and see in terms of this update to actually improve the experience but overall I was able to play Street Fighter 6 at 60 frames per second similar to what you have on the ROG Ally which is also roughly around 60 frames a second at the same settings then I moved over to Shadow of the Tomb Raider now Shadow of the Tomb Raider was where I probably saw the best performance from the MSI claw now the claw I was able to get some really high benchmark performance much higher than the ROG Ally which is around around 60 frames I was able to get closer to 70 and while playing the game on the MSI claw I got much better performance overall really smooth gameplay and I think it just worked better again this is something that the system handled quite well now another game I went ahead and played was Red Dead Redemption now Red Dead Redemption 2 actually handles pretty well on the MSI claw with some higher frame rates especially in the settings now somewhere you're going to say hey Thunder E you're not gaming in a crowded area look I know I'm just trying to just show you what it actually does and you see it peaked at like about 71 72 frames per second came down a bit higher than what you got off the ROG Ally so again some really solid performance there from the MSI claw now Cyberpunk 2077 is something that I just wanted to try and I did not get good results I got a lot of frame jumps left and right and I think that has to do with some driver updates that are needed for this specific system and this also was the case with a game like Doom Eternal which I play quite a bit and on the ROG Ally I could get 60 frames per second on Doom Eternal no issues on the MSI claw it just didn't want to load up it couldn't load up it didn't load up I just couldn't turn it on and I had that issue with you know a couple of games there so that is my only major beef with the MSI claw is the driver updates I know there are games that work well on the system but some of the games I like to play that was not the case and I know once the improvements hit you're going to see better improvement here now when it comes to temperatures you can see the temperatures on screen while gaming this system ran really cool I like the way the ventilation system on the MSI claw handled pretty good overall didn't feel like it was burning my hands or anything below I also say the battery life when putting in on our super battery you're going to get the best battle life I have seen on any and I repeat on any of the systems here now when you're putting performance mode it's really going to crank it up and you're going to get that the AI systems will help you I've seen it improve in terms of just balancing out but again I've only had this system for about three days so the longer you use it the AI of course the system will learn how you actually game and manage those settings for you I really like what MSI has brought to the table I like some of the functionality here and I think this is not an ROG ally clone now the system does start at 699 and goes all the way to 799 I did get the highest system with one terabyte of storage but we do know the ROG ally is running for a much cheaper price point starting at 399 and going all the way to 599 so the ROG ally comes off as a better price deal but the MSI claw is very capable very solid and I can't wait to see some of the improvements here with this device I think a lot of people like it I think a lot of people will see much better battery life and I think that's probably its biggest key here and once we get a lot of those driver updates that we're waiting to see I think we'll see some really huge improvements but right now I think the edge still goes to the ROG ally but let me know what you think guys do you like the MSI claw what it brings to the table with a bigger battery better battery life and also some of the performance it brings or are you going to stick with the ROG ally which now is cheaper remember it did start at a higher price but the price point has dropped I want to hear your thoughts leave them down below to forget to like share subscribe and always enjoy your entertainment