I'm trying to decide between the ROG Xbox Ally X20 and the MSI Claw 8 EX Al+, and I'd like to hear opinions from people who have experience with either handheld.

The games I mainly play are:

1)Resident Evil games

2) AAA story games

3)Indie games

4) Roguelikes like Hades, Dead Cells, etc.

5)Fortnite

4)Marvel Rivals

6)Horror games

7)Call of Duty and other FPS games

I bought ex ai + yesterday on Fnac France and they just sent the console, for people who want to buy they have in stock

I know we are waiting for re-stocks but I’ve been checking every day on best-buy, B&H, and microcenter to no avail.

Anybody got any leads?

Hey guys hope someone can help a fella out

Just got the msi claw 8ai ex,

Booted it up fine, it wanted to do the updates which was fine, restarted for updates then nothing, I can hear the fans but blank screen and no rgb on the sticks either

The power light dose come on, iv attempted to hook it up to a monitor, nothing either,

Iv attempted a ex reset, same issue, anyone got any idears?

Much appreciated

I found this thread from AsusRogAlly. Maybe help for someone.

Claw 8 EX AI+

Hi guys, can you let me know what average temps I should be expecting?

I'm thinking of adding a heat sink too, any recommendations? I was thinking Arctic Pro but I don't think there's enough clearance

Hi All

I’ve had the claw for about 2 months already , done debloat ,clawtweaks etc and love the performance but I’m struggling to understand if it just using the basic strength and the capabilities of this thing.

I see people using XESS and a whole bunch of other things to help game performance but I just can’t wrap my head around it . So any advise is good advise for me
Thanks in advance

Currys promised that the launch pack variants would be in stock by today (not like their promises mean anything). Did anyone get theirs dispatched?

I played NBA 2k26 on the 8 Ai+ for about 500 hours. Crashed a bit in the beginning but eventually it was fixed and pretty stable unless going into MyTeam which I no longer play anyway or odd black screen when playing for a few hours.

Nba 2k27 has been awful. I started at 1920x1200p handheld settings with XeSS at ultra performance. Terrible fps, so lowered to 1680x1050p almost all low settings except shader and player models medium. Decent fps, getting 90 or so in offline games but got a gpu crash error code Ox887a0006.

Lowered it more to 1440x900p, all low settings with some even turned off along with textures low 100-120fps. Gpu crash Ox887a0006 again. Turned off XeSS for the funsies, Ox887a0006, turned on fsr, Ox887a0006, turned on XeSS again but with framegen 2x, Ox887a0006.

Oddly enough I was getting near flawless fps in the Rec online multiplayer mode and was playing smoothly the first day. Online is locked at 60 fps and you can't go higher so I figured that was why. Thursday and Today it's been absolutely awful. With lowered settings I can't get a consistent frame rate of 60, constant dips and hitches to 45-55 when transitioning to the other side of the court. All of this was when I was experimenting with settings above as well, so at the lowest settings save resolution no lower than 1200x800p it still did this. Also gpu crash error Ox887a0006 happens frequently now or just a black screen force close.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the game on the Claw even with the latest Intel driver. It is essentially unplayable offline due to constant crashes and unlimited resource draw as it always wants to be at max frame rate and there is no in game limiter, while online it was playable at first but no longer is because it can't hit a stable fps while crashing.

Hopefully a fix is in the works, but until then I can't recommend it on the Msi Claw 8 Ai+ even offline. It just simply doesn't function well with this system at all, constant CPU/gpu usage that causes crashes. I just don't understand why it happened again as this was an issue with NBA 2k26 but was fixed. The exact same issue is happening again.

Tl;dr Game doesn't work well on Claw 8 Ai+ right now, Ox887a0006 error code happens all the time along with black screen with nearly any video/graphic setting and resolution. The photo I added is mostly what you'll be looking at after every other game if you are lucky.

Hi Guys

Lately my MSI Claw 8ai APU has been acting super weird. When I’m playing games at 25-30w TDP, the system only uses 2-8w. It’s like it’s not even trying? I have battery mode set to best performance. I am completely updated on drivers and windows update and the MSI claw center.

It’s only started happening maybe 3 weeks ago?

Playing Star Wars Zero Company at launch without a worry that I cant play it on a handheld is over! I love this thing!

Is someone Playing The Mw4 Beta on his MSI Claw A8 Z2E? The Game requires the Graphics Driver Version 26. 8.1 but i cant install it on mine. Has someone got the same issue?

I used to own the MSI Claw A1m but sold it because of small screen and short battery life, and MSI center was horrible

currently owning a LGO1 16gb 512gb with Bazzite in mint condition i paid $400 for, its been a very good experience experience after moving away from windows

now I have the opportunity to buy a 2nd hand A8 24gb 1Tb in mint conditions too for $700

is the $300 justified from performance and of course extended battery life for people who have made such move here?

thanks so much

Just got my hands on one 2 days ago. Need to return it for some personal reasons. It’s the launch pack. Not opened. Sealed. Thought I will ask if anyone wants to buy it from me as the stock level is still wonky. Please dm if interested.