Can confirm the Claw 8 AI+ is a massive improvement over the first-generation Meteor Lake Claws. Battery life is better than the ROG Ally X (they're both 80Wh) and with the newer Intel GPU drivers it performs better in newer games. Older DX9/DX11 games might suffer, but you have to test them to check. I can get 11 hours on Terraria and Core Keeper at 17W TDP. Tokyo Extreme Racer at a locked 60 FPS gets me under 4 hours at 1200p.

Best part, since these have the Lunar Lake 258Vs, the Thunderbolt 4 ports support PCI-E 4.0 x4 tunnelling, so pairing the Claws with a ASM2464PD/PDX-equipped SSD or eGPU (UT3G v1.6) will get you better bandwidth than older TB3 (JHL7440, ugh) solutions. AMD APUs still get a little bit more bandwidth since they seem to have better USB4v1 compatibility, but it is a marked improvement on Lunar Lake CPUs.

EDIT: I can lower the TDP to 8W if playing Terraria/Core Keeper, but apparently I don't need to as the 258V has better TDP management. So even if you have it set to 30W TDP, it will still use what it actually needs and not just turbo all the time. In this regard, this CPU respects limited frame rates in regard to its own TDP.

MSI listening to user input? This a good progress.

lexluthermiesterMSI listening to user input? This a good progress.

It's good, but not quite there yet. Remember they decided to sell the second gen Claw 7 and Claw 8 at $800 and $900, which really don't think they're worth it at these prices. If they were -$100 to -$150 each though then I believe that would be acceptable (compared to the features of the ROG Ally X and the Steam Deck). To be honest, if they had bundled a good hard case and other accessories with it then I would accept the MSRP above.

They were very late with releasing accessories (e.g. the screen protector and Claw 8 hard case). They also seem to have stock issues since the January 15 initial launch. It's almost as hard as getting an NVIDIA RTX 5000-series card.

They never implemented some sort of battery management to limit the max charge to around 80% or so. This was weird because their 2021+ laptops all have this. It would've been a good feature for those who play docked to a charging hub most of the time. Although the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch don't have this themselves, and their batteries generally seem to be doing well after 2+ years so it's probably just nitpicking from me.

The MSI Center M app is really f***ing s*** (even at version 2.0) and the Xbox Game Bar plugins need to be worked on a lot more. The plugins crashed a couple of times which was annoying to deal with, especially since they freeze the entire Xbox Game Bar service. This happened twice while playing Monster Hunter Wilds and Tokyo Xtreme Racer.

There are other good things:
- @unclewebb's awesome ThrottleStop works perfectly with the new Claws and even the old ones. Amazing utility for Intel users.
- Most of MSI's laptop BIOSes have a hidden advanced mode that makes it like their desktop motherboards. You have access to the the RAM timings and core settings. You can enable/disable cores!
- The speakers on the Claw 8 AI+ are the best I've heard on a handheld device. Like MacBook-level speakers.
- Thunderbolt 4 ports are on TOP of the device. And there are TWO of them, not some stupid USB4 + USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 combo like what they did on the Ally X. The Legion Go has two USB4 ports, sure, but one of them is on the bottom which messes with how it stands and risks cable strain.
- I got Diablo 4 and the expansion as a bonus when I bought this Claw. Take that as a positive or negative depending on if you like the game. :laugh:

That's it. It's 4 AM and I'm typing this reply out because I can't sleep.

lexluthermiesterMSI listening to user input? This a good progress.

Yea right....they are just saying that so they can raise prices even higher and have yet ANOTHER excuse to "CLAW" even more $$ from your wallet :(

I'm sooo glad I'm not into the whole gamin thingy :D

Meh, doesn't have SteamOS.