With the unveling of the Claw A8 at COMPUTEX 2025, MSI now has two gaming handhelds users can choose from. We’ve seen both the Claw A8 and Claw 8 AI+ Polar Tempest edition in person, and here are their differences.
Starting with the color, the Claw A8 has a loud lime green option on top of the white colorway that looks similar to the Claw 8 Polar Tempest edition. People may love or hate it, but having a gaming handheld in a bright colorway is a statement.
There are differences in ergonomics, with the Claw A8 having more angular edges at the bottom part for extra comfort for long gaming sessions. The speakers are repositioned on the Claw A8–this time being much closer to the D-Pad and right analog stick. Looking close at the analog sticks, MSI added extra details to them to make it look less boring. Of course, you have RGB lighting with the Claw A8. The Claw 8 AI+ Polar Tempest Edition’s white colorway has a “glittery UV coating” to make it slightly different from the white colorway of the Claw A8.
The biggest change with the MSI Claw A8 is it uses a Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor instead of an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V chip found on the Claw 8 AI+. It is one of the first gaming handheld to use this chip, and is said to be AMD’s most powerful chip for gaming handhelds. There are no benchmarks yet from the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, but we expect it to be more powerful than the Core Ultra 7 258V.
To make both gaming handhelds specced evenly, MSI decided to reduce the RAM on the Claw A8 to 24GB instead of 32GB on the Claw 8 AI+. The Claw 8 AI+ also has better connectivity with support for WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. Interestingly, the Claw A8 is slightly lighter than the Claw 8 AI+.
Save for those differences, both gaming handhelds have an 8-inch 120hz display, two USB-C ports, a MicroSD card reader, and an 80wHr battery. There’s no official pricing yet for the Claw A8 and Claw 8 AI+ Polar Tempest edition, but do note that the Claw 8 AI+ with 1TB of storage retails for Php 59,995 in the Philippines.
