The MSI Claw A8 is now available to pre-order in Europe — when is it coming to North America?

The MSI Claw A8 is now available to pre-order in Europe. That’s significant since this is the first time that the new gaming handheld is available to markets outside of China. Although we don’t yet have a North American release date, this news gives us hope in the States that we’ll see MSI’s machine arrive on our shores soon.

Per VideoCardz reports, European vendors like Alza and Smarty.sk currently have the MSI Claw A8 priced at €975 and €978 (respectively). This is slightly less than the current MSI Claw 8 AI+, which retails for $999. Austria, Germany and Slovakia are the first European countries that can pre-order MSI’s new handheld, though none of the aforementioned retailers say when the Claw A8 will start shipping.

As we’ve reported, the MSI Claw A8 will be the first gaming handheld to utilize an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor. This could make it one of the most powerful Windows 11 handhelds yet. On top of that, the Claw A8 features a more ergonomic design and even comes in a bold new Neon Green color. It has all of that with the same 80Wh battery, up to 24GB of RAM and an 8-inch 1080p 120Hz display.

In his MSI Claw A8 hands-on preview, Jason England said he was floored by the handheld’s gaming performance. When playing Lies of P on his Asus ROG Ally, he sets the game to medium graphical settings and turns on resolution scaling to achieve 60 frames per second. With these same settings, Lies of P ran at an astonishing 100 fps. We’d need to get the handheld into our lab for formal testing, but Jason’s experience bodes well for the handheld.

I was disappointed with the original MSI Claw 7, but the company made a big improvement with the MSI Claw 8+ AI. Now that MSI is using an AMD chip for the Claw A8, we could see the strongest Steam Deck competitor yet.

As for North American pricing, I wouldn’t be surprised if the MSI Claw 8 costs $999 like the Claw 8 AI+. A lower price would be better, but given its updated specs and the ongoing uncertainty with US tariffs, I’m not sure MSI can drop the price much lower. I hope I’m wrong about that, but we’ll hopefully hear about a North American release soon.

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