Customer Ratings & Reviews

Price is high, but so is the performance. Ergonomics are solid. The screen is alright, but it should be OLED at this price point. Runs pretty cool and has solid battery performance.

Absolutely loving the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+! I’ve used several gaming handhelds in the past couple of years, such as the Xbox Ally X and the Legion Go 2. All great devices in their own right but this Claw 8 EX feels like a generational leap. Performance is amazing, games that would struggle to run on another device would perform way better here for me. Games that already performed well on previous devices I could now up settings and still get great performance at higher fidelity. The screen while not a OLED is still stunning to look at, and the size is a good balance between previous devices I’ve used. Now for the very importants part for me, ergonomics & weight. I’d say the new more game controller-like design direction was definitely the way to go, it’s highly comfortable to use for long periods of play. The weight of the whole system is great too, I’ve had trouble in the past with heavy fatigue from the way handhelds are designed. Some extra positives, Xbox mode setup by default works great, the front firing speakers sound wonderfully immersive as well. Oh and I love the purple! If I had any negatives to say it’d be more preference really, I’d have loved an OLED screen, or detachable controllers/kickstand for a tablet mode. Just for versatility reasons. Overall very happy with the Claw 8 EX, I would definitely recommend it.

Performance‑wise, this thing blows every other handheld I own out of the water. The screen looks great, plenty bright, and overall the device has made all my other handhelds irrelevant. Battery life has also been surprisingly solid, which just adds to how capable it is. Ergonomics are good—not perfect—and the sticks feel a little loose. Software is definitely lacking compared to competing products, though I expect it’ll improve over time. My unit did arrive with a bad right thumbstick that constantly needed to be reseated. I honestly thought about taking off a star for that, but MSI’s RMA service was so fast and smooth that I decided to stay at 5 stars. They fixed and returned my unit within a week, so their support gets 5 stars from me, but QC seems like it could use some improvement. Overall, you’re getting great performance and solid battery life in a device that looks and feels good. It’s not perfect, but right now it’s the best balance of raw performance and true handheld capability I’ve used so far, and I don't think it's all that close.

I love the size of the device in its screen and controller feel. The chip provides great performance in games especially newer ones with xess upscaling and frame gen available. Older games can use tools to insert xess but not all games can. One downside with this panel is the vrr range doesn't behave correctly when I received it. Meaning the screen would look choppy when playing games in the lower vrr range. There is a tool to help with that that does correct it. Same with msi center. It can be a bit laggy and slow but there is a tool ClawTweaks that I like much better as it allows for all the tdp, fan control, and per game settings which is missing from the main msi software. The power button also feels mushy and hard to tell when it clicks. Stick tensions is a bit lite but feels fine to me after some stick caps are on it. Battery life is decent depending on games and wattage. If you're pushing 30watts it's about 2 hours.