MSI’s Steam Deck rival gets a price and launch date

MSI has dropped the deets on just when its MSI Claw gaming handheld will be available in Australia, plus how much the handheld will cost.

Announced back at CES earlier this year, the MSI Claw is the company's first stab at a Steam Deck substitute. The handheld gaming PC is built around a 7-inch IPS touch display with FHD resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Under the hood, the machine is armed with 16GB of dual-channel RAM and a 53Wh battery.

Unlike other Steam Deck-style handheld gaming PCs like the Ayaneo, ROG Ally or Lenovo Legion Go, the MSI Claw runs on Intel’s new Core Ultra silicon instead of the AMD Ryzen mobile chips found elsewhere. That difference in parts might go some ways towards explaining the contrast in price between it and the competition.

In Australia, the MSI Claw starts at $1399. Locally, there are four versions of the device on offer. The cheapest of these runs on the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U and comes with 512GB of SSD storage. Its opposite ups the ante to an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and 1TB of RAM.

Check out the table below for a round-up of Australian pricing for the MSI Claw.

In Australia, the MSI Claw is available to preorder through JB Hi-Fi from this week ahead of a full launch on 28 March 2024.