Introduction

The MSI Claw 8 AI+ had a rocky start, but after a series of updates that squashed bugs and introduced new features, it evolved into one of the best handheld PCs on the market. About a year and a half later, Intel and MSI are bringing its successor, dubbed the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, to market. Note that for the remainder of this review, we'll refer to it simply as the Claw 8 EX and its predecessor as the Claw 8.

The device is powered by the Intel G3 Extreme, a handheld-focused Panther Lake SoC consisting of a CPU with two Cougar Cove P-cores, four Darkmont LP E-cores, and eight Darkmont E-cores, alongside the Arc B390 GPU featuring 12 Xe cores based on the Xe3 architecture. The device also comes with 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory and a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. The G3 family consists of the G3 Extreme and the regular G3. Compared to the Extreme version, the regular G3 features two fewer Xe cores, 100 MHz lower P-core, E-core, and GPU clock speeds, and a maximum TDP of 30 W instead of the 35 W available on the G3 Extreme.

The G3 family also includes an NPU, making these chips technically Copilot+ PCs and compatible with Microsoft's Auto SR (Automatic Super Resolution) upscaler. Other notable specs include an 8-inch 120 Hz display with VRR support, an 80 Wh battery, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a pair of 2 W speakers with Dolby Atmos support, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, Hall effect thumbsticks and triggers, improved rumble motors, a 2280 M.2 SSD slot for easy upgrades, a microSD Express card slot, and much-improved ergonomics.

Before we continue with our review, we'd like to thank Intel for providing the review sample.