MSI has announced the company’s first portable handheld gaming console — the Claw A1M — at CES 2024. The brand teased the device last week, and a leak revealed many details about the product a couple of days ago. The MSI Claw A1M competes directly with other handheld gaming consoles on the market, including the Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and Steam Deck. At the event in Las Vegas, MSI not only revealed all the specifications and the design of the product but also its availability details and prices.
Design and display
The Claw A1M has the same form factor and design language as its rival, and it closely resembles the Asus ROG Ally. The handheld gaming console has a 7-inch LCD with touch functionality, Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness, and 100% coverage of the sRGB color gamut. To the left-hand side of the screen, there’s a joystick and a D-pad. To the right-hand side of the display, there’s another joystick and ABXY buttons. The joysticks and action buttons have RGB lightning. There are plenty of other physical controls on the device, including trigger, macro, power, volume, and shortcut buttons.
Processor, RAM, storage, variants, and prices
While almost all handheld gaming consoles use AMD processors, the Claw A1M uses Intel chips, a first in the industry. MSI is offering the A1M in two variants. The base variant, which costs USD 699, has the Core Ultra 5 135H processor, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD storage. The other model, which costs USD 799, has the Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD storage. Both SKUs come from the Meteor Lake family and feature Intel Arc graphics with eight Xe cores. Intel’s GPUs are known to have driver issues in games. So, it’d be interesting to see how the Claw A1 performs in games. Of course, it runs on Windows 11 with MSI Center M on top.
Battery, connectivity, audio, and security
The Claw A1M also has the largest battery of all the popular handheld gaming consoles, a 53WHr unit, which MSI says offers two hours of battery backup under full load. As for connectivity, there’s a USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port onboard, a feature that none of its competitors are offering. Plus, you get 1x 3.5mm audio jack, 1x microSD card slot, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4. There’s also a fingerprint scanner embedded in the power button, which is a first among its rivals. As for audio, there are two 2W front-firing speakers. The product weighs 675 grams and comes in only one color option: Black. You get a 65W USB Type-C charging adapter in the box.
Availability
MSI says that it is trying to bring the Claw A1M to the market by the end of this quarter (March 2024). It has announced the prices in USD, which confirms that the handheld gaming console will be available in the United States. However, MSI hasn’t revealed the regions where it planning to launch the device. So, if you are in the US, it would be wise to wait for reviews of the Claw A1M before getting a new handheld gaming console. If you live in other regions, you’ll have to take a bet if you should to hold off the purchase or not.
