The MSI Claw A8 was the first handheld to run AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip, and now it’s £150 cheaper too.
The MSI Claw A8 is currently listed at Currys for £749, down from £899, a £150 saving that brings AMD’s most powerful handheld chip within reach of buyers who baulked at its original price tag when it launched.
Save £150 on the MSI claw 8 handheld gaming console of your dreams
Powered by AMD’s most powerful handheld chip, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, with a 120Hz screen, the MSI Claw A8 is down to £749, a £150 saving.
That chip is a 16-thread Ryzen Z2 Extreme paired with a 16-core RDNA 3.5 GPU, and in games like Forza Horizon 5 it managed a smooth 59fps at native resolution without needing any upscaling to get there.
It’s paired with an 8-inch, 1920×1200 IPS screen running at 120Hz, hitting a genuinely bright 514.9 nits in testing, so fast-paced titles look sharp and punchy rather than washed out on a smaller, dimmer panel.
The Hall effect thumbsticks and triggers are a genuine upgrade over cheaper mechanisms, staying accurate and drift-free over time, while the blockier grips make the 765g body comfortable to hold even during longer gaming sessions away from a desk.
Connectivity is well catered for too, with a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports up top that let you dock the Claw A8 to an external monitor or a fast SSD without needing extra adapters at your desk.
There’s 24GB of fast LPDDR5X memory and a full 1TB SSD onboard, plenty of room for a handful of modern AAA titles alongside the smaller indie games most people actually play, though a couple of bigger installs will eat into that fast.
MSI’s 80Whr battery is one of the largest in this category, lasting close to ten hours in general use and around two hours and forty five minutes of sustained gaming, with the bundled 65W charger getting it back to half power in just 31 minutes.
At £749 instead of £899, the Claw A8 becomes a far easier sell against pricier Windows rivals, and anyone chasing the strongest chip currently available in a handheld gets it without paying full flagship money for the privilege.
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