Say it with me, „The Crow.“ What does that name remind you of? Saturday morning cartoons? A timeless Pixar classic? PC maker MSI wants you to start thinking about games instead, as it's the latest company to offer a version of Steam Deck. This deck actually shares quite a few similarities with Valve's original handheld console, at least at first glance.
if leak MSI hadn't spoiled the surprise yet, though. Explosive handheld console market The design is very reminiscent of the previous ones. However, there are a few things going on under the plastic that make it unique compared to its competitors. First, the Claw goes in the opposite direction from other AMD-powered devices and uses an Intel Core Ultra processor instead.compare it Lenovo Legion Go and ASUS ROG Allyboth offer top-notch power with AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APUs.
There's a lot of speculation about whether the Meteor Lake CPUs will match the Ryzen 7 series, but we'll have to wait for full testing to determine if the performance will match other large handhelds. There are some signs that Intel's Meteor Lake chips, specifically the Core Ultra 7 155H, have improved iGPU performance. edge out Ryzen 7 7840HS in synthetic benchmarks.
Again, optimizing the game for the small form factor may be more important. Claw uses Intel's Arc graphics and the chipmaker's XeSS AI upscaling technology to increase his FPS without taxing the GPU. XeSS is not supported all titles But depending on the games you want, a handheld game console might be a little easier.
MSI also touts the Stick as having one of the largest batteries of any gaming handheld device. The Claw comes with a 53Whr battery, which is more than the battery in the Legion Go. steam deck OLEDNew 50Whr Cell. Only time will tell if the battery life matches the size of the battery itself.
The 7-inch screen is no slouch with a 120Hz refresh rate, but it's smaller than the Legion Go's 8.8-inch 144Hz. The Baseline features 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a microSD slot, a headphone jack, and Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connectivity. All together, the Claw weighs just under 1.5 pounds, making it essentially the same as a Steam Deck and slightly heavier than a ROG Ally.
This is also a Windows 11-based handheld device, but with a twist. MSI touts the system's native App Player, which offers games on Windows and Android. This is the company's UI running on Windows. If you still need to open another app, such as Steam or Epic Games Store, it defeats the whole purpose of the additional UI and may prove to be of little use. Still, it makes it easy to access Android games and apps without changing system settings or downloading additional apps.
Well, the first thing that comes to mind from the name is an image of a cute crane machine alien. toy story or supervillain Inspector Gadget. Still, it's a much more exciting title than slapping „Go“ or „Ally“ on the existing Legion or ROG game series. And the rainbow-colored LEDs around the joystick look flashy. Let's see if MSI's gaming console can survive the cutthroat competition and how it compares.
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