Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “MSI Claw – Unboxing & First Impressions!”.
What’S going on guys, it’s your average consumer and it is a good day for us Gamers here in the studio, because we just got our hands on the new MSI claw. So let’s crack this baby open and see what it’s about. So, let’s get into this thing, but shout out to MSI for sponsoring today’s video and letting us use this test unit. Now, when you pop open the box first thing, you’re going to see is a quick start guide and you quickly get to the claw right underneath, but we’re going to put it to the side to take a look at another quick start guide and some more paperwork Of course, but you also get a 65 WT charger alongside it, and I got to say this is a big charger like I know it’s a handheld PC and all, but this feels like a legit laptop charger with a really thick power, cable, big charger aside. This is my first look at the cloth and my first thought is: I, like the feel of this thing, but let me power it on and download some games, okay guys. So this is the MSI claw.
Now I unboxed this thing yesterday and basically, let it download all of the games that I typically play, so I finally get to see it with actual ual games on it, which is exciting, but first of all, let’s talk about the design here right most of the Handhelds that have been coming out recently pretty much follow this design pattern but, of course, with every company’s own take on it now MSI, I think, did a really nice job, especially here in the back uh. It’S got tons of ventilation here, but you can see these red lines that are inside of the vents kind of like a a SL like slash marks from a claw. But I, like the look I like the black and red. I think it looks really Sleek, but there’s some functionality added here right. So with there being so many holes here, uh it’s going to be able to take in a lot of air and all of that hot air comes out from the top and that’s nice, because it’ll keep your hands cool when you’re gaming – and I like it.
So what are we working with right so up front? We’Ve got a 7in full HD, 120 HZ touchscreen display. As of what I can see right now, the colors seem to pop, but we’ll get into that once with some actual games, and we’ve got the typical button layout over here, of course, with the MSI launcher key on this side, as well as a quick menu on The opposite side, buttons feel pretty clicky and up top we have our power button, which also is a fingerprint sensor. So you can use this for Windows, hello, if you want to just log in with your fingerprint. Next, to that, you got your SD card slot, which might raise a few eyebrows for some people, but MSI did factor in uh the placement and the heat dissipation with they decided to go with this now, there’s also a thunderbolt 4 Port here on the side, which Is awesome, Thunderbolt 4 means you’ll be able to connect this to displays hubs all kinds of stuff you can dock it in.
Of course you got a 3.5 mm Jack and your volume controls on the right side. Now we’ve also got our speakers on the bottom. One thing I will say, though, I’m liking the feel of the grip here. It’S not super flat, which is nice with it.
Curving like this, The Palms will be able to rest nicely so give some space to my fingers to grab onto. If I need to like press anything else or even just rest, it on the extra keys on the back and of course, we’ve got the analog sticks over here. I like that these are concave it’s smooth at the top, but of course it’s got like the ridges on the sides of it, so you can grip it when you need to. They also have thick RGB rings around it, which I’m personally a fan of the one thing I think everyone’s going to be a fan of are the hall effect. Analog sticks now with hall effect sticks. Basically, you don’t have to worry about, stick drift over time or getting dirt under here here, and it causing issues. These sticks should be a lot better for durability. So something that’s pretty different here is the face. Buttons are RGB lit as well, so you can go into the settings and customize this as well as the RGB rings around the sticks. Actually, let’s jump into the software side of things. This thing is running Windows, 11, so right now, you’re seeing the MSI Center, which is basically their game launcher, but underneath all of this is actually windows. So when you go into the quick settings you can just hit, show desktop everything that you would do with your PC or laptop you’re, going to be able to do here.
If you want to add a monitor or mouse and keyboard, you can pretty much treat this like a PC Tower, but jumping back into the MSI software here y. One thing I am liking is the fact that most of the game stores that you would typically use to download games are already listed right here within the software. So if you download your games from Steam, you have access access to them there or you can just use the MSI Center to access your entire gaming library. Now I like this because for the average person who doesn’t know PC gaming well and doesn’t know where to get the games, this is going to make it super simple for them to find the platforms that hold most of the games that we want to download. So you get access to all of the launchers, but you can also customize a bunch of stuff on the device as well just really quick settings, so Wi-Fi Bluetooth, uh. You can edit the Quick Settings that you have over here from this menu, your control mode, mod and the user scenario, which is basically your power settings, and you also get the ability to use the AI engine which basically relies on the AI to determine how much Power you need, depending on the task you’re doing, but, more importantly, you get access to Mystic light, which is your RGB settings, but yeah.
You do get some customization here in terms of how your RGB reacts with these sticks, as well as the face buttons. If I go steady, this is it. This is all that matters. Oh and S, look at that you can customize the rainbow wheel.
This is nice, radi, yeah, yeah, okay, I’m about to spend too much time on this. Okay, I’m not done, but I like it so far. So if you’re a crazy RGB lover like myself uh, you do get a little bit more flexibility here than I’ve seen on other systems. So that’s pretty dope. So I got all of my games over here and what’s nice is you can get up to one tbte of storage and if you need more space uh, you have that micro SD card expansion up top and while we’re on the storage? Let’S talk about the specs a little bit right so so this thing is running Intel’s Ultra processor mine in particular, is the core Ultra 7 and The Core Ultra 5 is also an option.
And, of course, these Intel chips do have npus, so you’re going to get access to those AI features kind of like what we talked about with the uh power settings. So that’s going to be an option here, uh, but I’m I’m interested in seeing how this is going to perform gaming wise cuz. This is new, like Intel hasn’t done.
Handhelds like this, so I mean we might as well jump into some games really quick just so we can get an idea now. Obviously, I’m not going to this isn’t a review I’m trying this out for the first time, but let’s see here Scarlet Nexus, I’m at the end of scarlet Nexus. I’Ve been playing this thing, for I don’t know if I’ll actually end it, though pleas, so we can stop talking about it, stop shooting all right, so got my Scarlet Nexus up and running feels I mean feels smooth and Bam all right. That’S all right! There are more enemies, all all that’s enough, but for the most part we were sticking around close to that 60 frames per second and that’s on the AI mode. I didn’t even have it on like full-blown performance, I’ll, probably keep it on performance, but I do want to check out some other games, I’m I’m digging the screen and I’m digging the feel of like actually holding this thing in hand. All right. I’M play some Guilty Gear: we’re going to get online speaking of online. This thing does come with Wi-Fi 7 built into it.
So if you got one of them crazy, new routers, this thing’s ready for it. What are we on? Like 6 6E, we’re on six 16? We got to update our studio, Wi-Fi all right. Let show you guys what uh, what your boy is made of hold on wait a minut hold on what you made up this AI who’s. That mpu is working for the computer.
Not me, you know what I need to do so check it out in the MSI software. You can actually make macros and pair them to these back keys and and that’s dope, because if I want to bust out some specials in fighting games, it could literally be a one button press. So I I kind of like that. No all of the games that I typically play typically play typically play anyway. It was smooth enough I’ll wait for like a full review to talk about like the performance side of things, but for the stuff that I usually play and and don’t usually play – I’m not mad at this so far.
But I do know that, with this Intel Core Ultra chip, there are some games that take advantage of the XE Graphics. There’S some games that support the XE super sampling. So I’m interested in seeing what long-term performance looks like with those games, since they have like an extra leg up in the performance side of things. Thanks to this new chip, but I got to say I like the feel of gaming on this battery. We still got what 45 % left and we’ve been keeping this thing on, for this whole shoot uh. So a lot of screen time, and this thing does have a 53w hour battery, which is the biggest on the handheld market right now, uh. So that’s surpris in considering the overall form factor. This isn’t like this crazy beef cake, but it’s got the biggest battery out now when it comes to pricing. This is pretty much in line with what we see with most of the handheld market. Right now starts at $ 6.99 for the core. Ultra 5 Core Ultra 7 goes up to 750 and if you get the core Ultra 7, with the 1 tbte option, it’ll cost you $ 7.99. Now, of course, I’ll have links to all of those down below. In the description for you guys to check out, but I’m ready to try this thing out, I’m ready to give it a go.
I let you guys know my thoughts. If you want to see a full review, definitely hit that Thumbs Up Button, I’m catch you guys in the next one peace. Why don’t they call it the dragon dragon? That’S a Pokemon move! .