MSI Reveals Claw Handheld Pricing As It Aims To Battle ROG Ally And Legion Go
MSI is joining a growing number PC gaming handheld combatants with its Claw, though up until now we only had official confirmation on some of the specs, and not how the pricing would shake out. That just changed with MSI listing three SKUs on its webstore. None of the configurations are available to purchase just yet, but at least now we know how much these handhelds will cost, and importantly, how the MSRPs compare to the competition.
Every Claw features a 7-inch display with a 1920x1080 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness, and variable refresh rate (VRR) support. All three models also boast 16GB of LPDDR5-4800 memory, Killer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity, a 6-cell/53Whr battery, 1x Type-C port (USB, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 4) with power delivery, 1x microSD card reader, and 1x 3.5mm mic-in/headphone-out combo jack. Where the models differ is in the core configuration.
The least expensive SKU is priced at $699.99. That gets you a Claw configured with an Intel Core Ultra 5 135H processor (14C/18T, up to 4.6GHz, 18MB L3 cache) based on Meteor Lake with integrated Arc graphics (8 Xe cores, up to 2.2GHz) and a 512GB M.2 2230 SSD (PCIe 4.0, DRAM-less).
MSI's middle SKU runs $749.99 and includes an upgraded Core Ultra 7 155H processor (16C/22T, up to 4.8GHz, 24MB L3 cache) with more cores, faster clocks, and more cache. The integrated Arc graphics is slightly better too—it still features 8 Xe cores, but runs at up to 2.25GHz.
Finally, the top SKU carries a $799.99 MSRP, with the extra $50 (versus the middle SKU) netting twice the storage at 1TB. Like the 512GB SSD on the two other configs, this is a DRAM-less PCIe 4.0 SSD in the M.2 2230 form factor, which is shorter than a standard M.2 2280 drive.
The Claw's main competition consists of the ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go, both of which feature custom AMD hardware based on Zen 4. You can throw Valve's Steam Deck into the mix as well, though in terms of specs, the Claw is more closely aligned with the other two.
Here's how pricing looks on the competition...
- ASUS ROG Ally w/ Z1 Extreme: $599.99 (on sale from $699.99)
- ASUS ROG Ally w/ Z1: $399.99 (on sale from $599.99)
- Lenovo Legion Go: $649.99 (on sale from $699.99)
So the baseline Claw is priced in the same vicinity of all three of those when looking at the MSRPs, though it's a different story if comparing to the sale prices. That's fair to do so, in the sense that these handhelds have consistently sold for less than MSRP. However, it remains to be seen how the Claw's street pricing will compare, as we don't yet know if or when MSI's three SKUs will sell for less than the sticker price.
Regardless, MSI is at least in the neighborhood. What it boils down to is more competition in the handheld gaming space, which typically benefits consumers.
