The MSI Claw A8 has been one of the more sought-after handheld gaming PCs ever since MSI first revealed it and released it in China and a few other regions in 2025. However, as we previously reported, the device wasn’t available in the U.S. at the time. MSI later confirmed to us during CES 2026 that it would be coming stateside in early 2026 after shifting where certain parts were made and assembled, largely due to tariffs placed against China.
Now, it looks like the MSI Claw A8 may be arriving even sooner than expected. Electronic retailer Best Buy has the device listed with a shipping date as early as February 4, 2026, priced at $1150, that includes 24GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. You can head over to the Best Buy MSI Claw A8 listing to see it for yourself. Just keep in mind that only the white colored version will be available in the West, we won’t be getting that attractive lime green variant, sadly.
While the Claw A8 ships with Windows, the good news is that if you’re not a fan of Windows 11 on handhelds, the system should also be a solid candidate for alternative setups like Bazzite, since the Claw A8 is powered by AMD’s Ryzen Z2 Extreme SoC rather than Intel’s Lunar Lake (as seen in the MSI Claw 8 AI+). And for the more adventurous, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of community SteamOS-style installs could be possible as well.
It’s a bit of an interesting moment too, since Intel’s Panther Lake has a lot of people excited (me included), and there’s already talk that handhelds using that chipset could start showing up sometime in 2026. But there’s plenty of time before that happens, and this looks to be attractive, especially due to it being much cheaper than its competitor, the Lenovo Legion Go. Well, at least until the Lenovo Legion Go 2 SteamOS version, which will be released in June 2026, at a much cheaper price point.
Still, if you’ve been waiting to get your hands on the MSI Claw A8 in the U.S., it looks like you might not have to wait much longer. The device can already be ordered now through Best Buy.
