Actually a number of days in the past, there have been heavy rumors and leaks suggesting MSI was about to unveil its personal Steam Deck rival. Low and behold, it turned out to be true. Say hey to “The Claw,” a gaming gadget from the laptop computer producer that’s gunning for a slice of the hand-held PC pie.

MSI introduced the merchandise at CES 2024, with an anticipated launch date across the first quarter of this 12 months. We’ve already seen that firms resembling ASUS and Lenovo can tackle the Steam Deck, so maybe there’s extra room for one more competitor.

As for what The Claw shall be packing, particulars on the MSI web site present it’ll function an Intel Core Extremely 7 processor, together with an Intel Arc graphics chip. That is one thing of a departure, because the aforementioned options (in addition to the Deck) have opted for AMD structure as an alternative.

Get a grip!

So how does it stack up in opposition to the Steam Deck? With a brand-new Intel processor in comparison with the Zen 2 – which launched in 2019 – we will count on The Claw to supply one thing a bit nipper with its extra up-to-date guts.

It additionally boasts a 1920×1080 touchscreen and a 52Whr battery life. In comparison with the Deck’s 1200×800 display and 50Whr battery, the previous might have a little bit of an edge over the latter.

Nevertheless, with it operating Home windows 11, it might have a much less intuitive cell gaming working system than SteamOS, which is particularly constructed to play video games from a person’s Steam library.

Solely time will inform the way it’ll fare in opposition to Valve’s OG providing, however it undoubtedly seems to be like issues are starting to get crowded within the moveable PC sphere.