Few products can launch to such negative feedback that they receive an almost immediate 25% price cut, but the MSI Claw is one such case. Retailer Currys has exclusivity on the console in the United Kingdom, a move that now looks like a very bad deal. The MSI Claw A1M with the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and 1TB SSD has already been reduced to £599, from £799, less than a month after release.
Unfortunately the MSI Claw won’t be featured on our list of the best handheld gaming PCs any time soon, with massive optimizations needed before it can even compete with the likes of the Steam Deck OLED and ROG Ally.
We were fortunate enough to preview the MSI Claw at CES earlier this year and held high hopes for the device, but naturally, our testing was done in an environment set by MSI to make the Claw look as good as possible.
Now that the handheld is out in the wild, with odd staggered release dates around the world, we can now see the Claw A1M for what it truly is, an unoptimized mess. Future updates could fix many of its issues, but Currys clearly doesn’t have much hope and wasn’t able to offload its stock as quickly as anticipated.
As we’ve already mentioned, the top model of the MSI Claw is reduced by £200 from £799 to £599, a price that still eclipses the Steam Deck LCD and OLED. Stranger still, though, the Intel Core Ultra 5, 512GB model has maintained its full MSRP and is stuck at £699, making it an impossible buy for anyone who is interested in the handheld.
Elsewhere on the site, the ROG Ally appears to have dropped to a new MSRP of £549 while the Lenovo Legion Go is currently on sale for £649, a £50 saving vs MSRP.
This means that even with the huge £200 saving, the MSI Claw remains largely unappealing in comparison to handhelds that are viewed as much more complete and outright better gaming devices.
The bigger implication of this price cut is that it could see North American retailers follow suit. They could look to start shifting units that they have on hand before the public image becomes so negative that demand dries up beyond repair.
Granted, MSI isn’t likely to leave the Claw out to dry, and updates will be worked on, but without a magic crystal ball to see into the future, it’s hard to say whether these updates will fix the major performance issues it currently suffers from.
If you already own a gaming handheld, it is worth checking our picks for the best Steam Deck games, all of which are well-optimized for playing on the go regardless of which device you own.