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Lanterns episode 3 has been released on HBO Max — and, after two weeks of teasing, it finally pulls back the veil on the mysterious extraterrestrials known as the Guardians of the Universe.

Until now, the Guardians have been something of an enigma in the HBO TV Original. However, its latest chapter, titled 'OutKast', gives us a much clearer picture of these beings and why they want John Stewart to succeed Hal Jordan as Earth's Green Lantern.

So, who are they? Where did they come from? Do they have powers? What's their connection to the Green Lantern Corps? And why are they obsessed with Stewart replacing Jordan? Let's take a closer look at the Guardians' comic book history and role in this HBO Max sci-fi crime drama.

Created by DC icons Gil Kane and Jeff Broome during the Silver Age of Comic Books, the Guardians of the Universe are an immortal alien race depicted as blue-skinned humanoids originally from the planet Maltus. However, after a time-bending experiment — one that leads to the birth of the DC Multiverse and the anti-matter universe — goes awry, the Maltusians relocated to a new world named Oa and rebranded themselves as the Guardians of the Universe.

The Guardians gave themselves a new objective following the aforementioned and ill-fated time-based test: combat evil and create an orderly universe.

With this goal in mind, they created sentient androids known as the Manhunters to patrol the universe and combat any threats they encounter. However, the Manhunters soon came to resent their creators, committed mass genocide in a harrowing event known as the Massacre of Sector-666, and later attempted a coup, which the Guardians quelled. For more on the Manhunters and their role in this show, read my Manhunters in Lanterns explained piece.

In the wake of the Manhunters' uprising, the Guardians started afresh and created the Green Lantern Corps. A new interstellar police agency, its members carry out the Manhunters' former duties of watching over the universe and tackling anyone who threatens the peace. Two Green Lanterns guard each of the 3,600 sectors that make up the known universe, meaning there are 7,200 space cops in total.

Abilities-wise, the Guardians are some of the most powerful beings in DC Comics. Their powerset includes — but isn't limited to — the ability to fly, time travel, and phase through objects; telepathy; astral projection; invulnerability to conventional weapons; energy manipulation; reality warping; size manipulation; omniscience; and force field projection.

Now that we've learned about the Guardians' comic book history, let's see how they factor into the DC Universe (DCU) TV show's story.

For starters, when Stewart is interviewed by a Guardian named Lianna (played by Laura Linney) for the chance to become Jordan's successor, we quickly learn that there are only 11 Guardians left. There were 12, but as episode 2 revealed, the former Green Lantern known as Sinestro killed one of them. You can learn more about him via my Sinestro in Lanterns explained article.

Anyway, by way of Lanterns' flashback-heavy third episode, the Guardians had originally tried to recruit Stewart's father — aka John Stewart Sr — as Earth's first Green Lantern when Stewart Jr was a baby. However, Stewart Sr failed the Guardians' 'Are you afraid?' test, so he wasn't chosen.

Traumatized by that cosmic event, Stewart Sr becomes a danger to his loved ones, so he's kicked out of the family home by his wife Bernadette. She doesn't believe her husband's claims surrounding the aforementioned event, either — until Lianna unexpectedly shows up to apologize for the trouble that the Guardians caused the Stewart family.

To keep things brief, Lianna indicates — over a late-night cup of coffee — that Stewart Jr has the makings of being a future Green Lantern. The reason? His parents are formidable individuals, so it stands to reason that, based on his genetic make-up alone, Stewart Jr would be cut from the same cloth.

After Bernadette tells all of this to Stewart Sr, they decide to raise Stewart Jr to not only be fearless, but also groom him so he will become a Green Lantern when he's older. So begins a years-long mission that sees them treat their youngest son differently from his older siblings. They train him to be undaunted and brainwash him into thinking it's his destiny to be a Green Lantern.

A couple of decades later, Stewart Jr is — the emotional detachment issues born from his unique upbringing notwithstanding — well on his way to becoming the so-called 'chosen one', too.

As the saying goes, though, the best-laid plans often go awry. Now a decorated US Marine sniper, Stewart Jr is sent on a months-long mission to assassinate a prominent money launderer known as 'Gray Wolf' in the Kamchatka Peninsula. Long story short, he fails said assignment when Hal Jordan, who was eventually chosen as Earth's first Green Lantern, surprisingly arrives and arrests the highly sought-after criminal. Forced to take the blame as part of a government cover-up, Stewart Jr is dishonorably discharged by the military.

Dejected after seeing his chances of becoming a Green Lantern ruined, Stewart Jr receives an unlikely pep talk from his mom, who also tells him that he's going to art school. Remember, his real passion has always been drawing, so to somewhat make up for her terrible parenting, Bernadette applied to a nearby university on his behalf. After being accepted by said university, Stewart Jr moves on from his Green Lantern dream.

Or so he thinks. Again, to keep things short, Stewart Jr is selected for what appears to be a special university project. However, the man he's trying to impress with his art skills is actually a male Guardian who, after Stewart Jr demonstrates his ability to construct his father's watch using a Green Lantern ring, is sent to be interviewed by Lianna.

For myriad reasons; but two specific reasons stand out among all others.

First — and perhaps most importantly — the Guardians are concerned about Jordan's relationship with Sinestro. Sure, Jordan was the one who defeated Sinestro after the latter killed one of the Guardians, but they know Jordan still harbors affection for his former mentor.

I wouldn't be shocked if they knew Jordan had visited Sinestro for information about the Manhunters in Lanterns episode 2, either. If they do, they'll be even more worried because there's no telling what Sinestro could do or say to Jordan to win him over to Sinestro's cause.

The other reason is Jordan's reckless nature. During their chat, Lianna tells Stewart that, despite regularly being told not to interfere in terrestrial matters, Jordan continues to do so. Replacing Jordan with Stewart would mean that these impulsive interventions would stop because Stewart wouldn't defy his bosses' wishes.

After successfully passing his Green Lantern interview, all eyes are now on how and when Stewart will succeed Jordan as Earth's primary Green Lantern in the DCU Chapter One TV series. Based on what Jordan tells Stewart at the end of this episode, though, he won't go quietly into that good night. Well, until Lanterns' 2026 storyline, when Jordan is murdered by someone, anyway...

I’ve tested numerous electric brushes with far too many settings and features, from 12+ brushing modes to apps that provide real-time guidance. Yet I inevitably end up using them in the same way: pick up the brush, press the button once, brush my teeth, then put it back in the cupboard until the next time. I’ve never used an app outside of a review period, and I rarely bother with any extra settings either. Battery life is also important to me, as I don’t have a compatible plug socket in my bathroom. And I’d also rather not throw out too many plastic brush-heads that will ultimately end up in landfill.

Suri brushes are designed to be no-fuss, no-frills sonic toothbrushes with minimal settings to avoid a simple tool from becoming unnecessarily complicated, alongside recyclable elements. The Suri Core 1.0 sticks closely to this brief, offering a more affordable alternative to its successful, pricier Pro range.

Naturally, Suri has cut some corners with the Core 1.0 to keep the price down, notably replacing the metal body with a "bio-plastic" one made from renewable sources and recycled material, while the motor is slightly weaker, offering 28,000 movements a minute instead of the Pro 2.0’s 30,000. It doesn’t come with a clean-and-charge case as the Pro does, either. Instead, you simply get a brush cap for travel. It lasts six days fewer than the Pro on a full charge, with a battery that lasts 28 days compared to the Pro's 34 days.

These efficiency savings are minor, and do nothing to impact the toothbrush’s overall quality. The simple design makes it eminently easy to use, while the built-in timer uses haptic feedback every 30 seconds to help you keep track of brushing time. It looks great, too, especially when stuck to the wall using the provided magnetic mirror-mount attachment. It doesn't feel quite as pleasing in the hand as the metal model, but the pastel-coloured body has a stylish look that will happily fit the aesthetics of a variety of bathrooms. Whichever colour you choose, the brush head is white.

Speaking of brush heads, in the US and UK, Suri operates prepaid mailing programs that enable you to send used heads back to the company, which it then recycles and makes into new products such as soap dishes. The toothbrush is also covered by a warranty, during which Suri will repair and return it at no cost. In addition, across the brush's construction, Suri has introduced measures to reduce the environmental impact of the plastics it uses, from recycled to recyclable materials to more responsible production and disposal .

I tested this toothbrush for 21 days straight, and in that time didn't have to charge it. The two-minute timer is automatic, with no option to adjust it manually: the brush pulses every 30 seconds to signal that you move to the next quadrant of your mouth then shuts off automatically when the two minutes are up.

There are a couple of niggles. The first is that the brush is almost too simple: alongside its Clean and Polish settings, I’d like to see a gentler mode "sensitive" setting for more delicate teeth and gums. The pressure sensor requires some force to activate it, which could result in over-brushing, and it’s quite loud in operation, registering 69db in my noise measuring app.

But I’m nitpicking. Overall, the Suri Core 1.0 is a simple, high-quality sonic toothbrush for a reasonable price, with some sustainability credentials to boot. It would certainly be my pick over some of the more expensive, feature-stuffed brushes that spring to mind.

Component

Suri Core 1.0

Battery life

28 days

Sonic vibrations

28,000/m

Charging stand

USB-C

Timer

30 seconds, haptic

Noise

69db

Settings

Two

• $75 in the US
• £65 in the UK
• Not yet in the AU

The Suri Core 1.0 is priced at $75 / £65, cheaper than other brushes in the Suri range, which come in at $99 / £85, and offers good value. It’s more expensive than budget electric toothbrushes such as the Ordo Sonic Lite, which is similarly basic in terms of features, but the Core 1.0 feels like a worthwhile step up.

It’s reliable, looks great on your bathroom counter-top, and with Suri's free brush-head recycling scheme, you can feel good about doing your bit for the environment, too.

Category

Comment

Score

Value

Pricier than some budget toothbrushes, but good value overall.

4/5

Design

Great look, simple to use, recyclable and sustainable design elements.

5/5

Performance

Strong motor, great battery, simple to use.

4.5/5

You’re after something simple

The Suri Core 1.0 does one job, at two intensities, and does it well.

You want a toothbrush that looks good

The Suri Core 1.0's pleasant design will look great on a bathroom shelf.

You want value

Suri made this toothbrush specifically to appeal to budget buyers.

You want an oscillating toothbrush

The sonic toothbrush is just a simple vibration model, whereas Oral-B models come with rotating heads.

You’ve got very sensitive teeth

You may prefer a brush with more settings and a lighter pressure sensor.

Ordo Sonic Lite

One of the best budget toothbrushes on the market.

Read our full Ordo Sonic Lite review

Suri 2.0 electric toothbrush

Suri's excellent full-price electric toothbrush model.

Read our full Suri 2.0 review

I used the Suri Core 1.0 sonic toothbrush for three weeks, brushing morning and night. I measured the decibel levels of the toothbrush using an app, and compared the specs to its contemporaries in the space.

First reviewed: August 2026

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is a high-octane handheld games console that can run PC and Xbox games from a wide range of game stores. With the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chipset — featuring the Intel Arc B390 GPU and 32GB RAM — it’s easily the most powerful portable console I’ve ever (quite literally) gotten my hands on. But there’s a pretty huge catch to that performance: a price tag that would buy you two Steam Deck OLEDs or a mid-price gaming laptop.

Let’s start with the superficial stuff: the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ looks gorgeous. Its screen is an extensive eight inches across, offers wonderfully rich colors and a silky-smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Combined with its discreet RGB lighting around the asymmetrically placed thumbsticks and Void Purple colorway, it has a unique look that definitely helps it stand out from the crowd.

But its design goes far beyond aesthetics. Its Hall effect thumbsticks and triggers should not only offer greater longevity, but they felt really responsive, even if they’re not quite as sensitive as the TMR versions now offered by some controllers. Meanwhile, it felt perfectly ergonomic in my hands — I was genuinely surprised how light it felt for a 1.73 lb / 786g console — although its laser-etched grips sure made my hands feel sweaty, for some reason.

What cements the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ as one of the best handheld games consoles out there, though, is its performance. It’s the first gaming handheld on the market with the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chipset and, boy, does that have a pronounced effect on how it plays. While benchmarks showed it offered similar CPU performance to the recent Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, thanks to its Intel Arc B390 GPU and 32GB RAM, it managed to smash its 3D Mark benchmarks by between 35% and 76% — that’s a significant performance upgrade.

Numbers only tell part of the story, though: what was the Claw actually like in action? Well, Baldur’s Gate 3 looked truly gorgeous on Ultra graphics settings and yet it hovered around a decent 38fps. Meanwhile, despite only being released in 2025, both Doom: The Dark Ages and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 played at a rock-solid 60fps — whether I was punching demons to death or countering devastating attacks, there wasn’t a hint of latency or lag. Even the boss-level challenge of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered hit 60fps at points… before plunging to a stuttery mess in busier areas. Still that’s impressive stuff for a handheld console.

But the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ has a pretty huge barrier to Fosbury flop over: its price. In return for its premium components, you’ll pay a seriously premium price tag of $1,799.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,849. Not only is that significantly higher than any other gaming handheld to date, it’s also as expensive as some mid-range gaming laptops.

And that presents an enormous problem for the Claw. Despite the fact that some of the best gaming laptops come in at a similar price, many of them offer superior performance in our benchmark tests. Now don’t get me wrong: no gaming laptop offers the kind of ergonomics or compact form factor you get here, but I do have doubts that the pro gamers that can afford this kind of device will be willing to trade performance simply for the sake of increased maneuverability.

That’s a real shame because in almost every respect, the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is a fantastic gaming handheld that has really stretched my expectations of what this kind of device is capable of. I want one. And you should too. But I’m not convinced either of us will be able to justify the spend.

Having launched on June 23, 2026, the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is available now. As you can see from the specs — or if you took sneaky peak at the benchmarks in the performance section — it’s seriously mighty for a gaming handheld.

It’s the first handheld console on the market that rocks the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chipset, which includes the 12-core Intel Arc B390 GPU and a hefty 32GB RAM. That puts it considerably ahead of most of its competitors, even if it can’t quite rival any of the best gaming laptops for sheer processing punch.

Unfortunately, like the hero in a Greek tragedy — or Oddyseus, apparently — it has a fatal flaw. The price. At $1,799.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,849, its cost is possibly the most eye-watering thing I’ve come across in a while and that includes all the people on social media that bragged about raw-dogging the solar eclipse in August. While the price tag here might not literally melt your retinas, it’s likely to give you second thoughts.

By comparison, we threw some shade on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X for its price on its release — and that only retailed for $999.99 / £799.99 / AU$1,599. The Claw 8 EX AI+’s sticker price outstrips every other handheld console by quite some margin, sitting more up the gaming laptop end of the spectrum. For example, a mid-spec Alienware 16X Aurora, with Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 and 32GB DDR5, goes for $1,999.99 / £1,799 (around AU$2,800). Ultimately, I think there aren’t going to be that many mainstream gamers able to pay this price and those that do are going to expect stellar performance in return.

Category

Specification

Price

$1,799.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,849

Display

8-inch FHD+ (1920 x 1200), 16:10, 500 nits, 120Hz IPS touchscreen

CPU

Intel Arc G3 Extreme

Graphics

Intel Arc B390

RAM

32GB LPDDR5X-8533

Storage

1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD

Port selection

2x USB-C / Thunderbolt 4, 1x microSD Express card reader, 1x 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack

Weight

1.73 lbs / 786g

Dimensions

11.7 x 4.9 x 0.94 inches / 297 x 124 x 24mm

I’ll be honest: when I first picked up the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, I was pretty shocked by how light and manageable it felt. Fundamentally, this is not a small console — it’s as broad-shouldered as the Steam Deck OLED or the Lenovo Legion Go S and weighs in at 1.73 lbs / 786g, which is the heaviest gaming portable I’ve gotten my hands on to date. But despite this, it never felt at all bloated, sitting comfortably in my grasp.

I’d chalk this up to its ergonomic design. On top of feeling well balanced, it offers flared grips, unlike previous iterations of the MSI Claw. These sat really comfortably in my hands, although they aren’t quite as easy to wrap your hands around as the controller-mimicking forked grips of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.

This was also helped by the laser-etched texture of its grips, which enabled me to keep a decent grasp on the Claw. But I will say they aren’t quite as comfortable as those on some of the best Xbox controllers I’ve tested, feeling a little on the rough side and quickly getting sweaty as I tried to splat sakapatates in Clair Obscure: Expedition 33.

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ also left a pretty good impression on some of my other senses too. No, I didn’t lick it — I’m talking visual appeal here, rather than gustatory. Subtle RGB lighting around each of the thumbsticks is my personal highlight, although I’ll also give its gentle curves and Void Purple colorway honorable mentions as well. Honestly, I’m a little less jazzed about the way the screen juts out past the bottom of the device, but this does seem to be a more common look these days, with the jutting grips of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X creating a similar effect.

Speaking of screens, despite it not quite rocking the richness of the Steam Deck’s OLED display, the Claw 8 EX AI+ has a beautiful looking screen. As a result of its expansive eight-inch breadth and 16:10 aspect ratio, it rocks a 1920 x 1200 resolution, not to mention a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Every game I played always felt detailed and smoother than whipped cream under a heat lamp. Meanwhile, its 500 nit typical brightness felt plenty bright enough in most settings — on max brightness, I even found I was able to play it outside, although when I faced it directly toward the blazing August sun, it was quickly overpowered by the fiery onslaught.

Anyone familiar with previous incarnations of the MSI Claw will be pretty familiar with the layout here. The Claw 8 EX AI+ has the same combo of asymmetrical thumbsticks, Xbox-style face buttons and vertically aligned Menu, MSI Center M, View and Quick Setting buttons that you’ll have seen on previous iterations. There’s only two macro buttons on its rear, which honestly feels a bit stingy compared to the four offered by the Steam Deck and many Xbox controllers.

On the plus side, the Claw 8 EX AI+ is packing both Hall effect thumbsticks and triggers — as well as preventing the inexorable drift issues that plague potentiometer thumbsticks, Hall effect sticks and triggers also offer smaller deadzones and increased sensitivity. They’re not quite as sensitive as the marginally fancier TMR thumbsticks and triggers you see in a lot of premium controllers these days but I’m not aware of any portable consoles that offer those currently.

So for the most part, its control scheme is suitably versatile. The only area it falls a little short is the lack of built-in mouse control for games that require a cursor. Unlike the Steam Deck’s super flexible trackpads or the quirky hybrid mouse-cons offered by the Nintendo Switch 2 and Lenovo Legion Go 2, the only way I could mimic a mouse input on the Claw 8 EX AI+ was by jabbing its touchscreen with my greasy hand-sausages. That ain’t gonna cut it for some Steam and Windows games. Now, in MSI’s defense, it has never pitched the Claw as a substitute for PC gaming, but it is a shame that some sections of my Steam library will lay tantalizingly just out of reach. Of course, I could connect a mouse via USB or Bluetooth, but that then prevents the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ from being as portable.

Another criticism I have is the fingerprint scanner. While I appreciate that these narrow scanners are space-efficient, they’re not efficient in any other sense of the word. Every single time I tried to log in to the MSI Claw, I found I had to pop my pinky on the scanner three or four times just to access the home screen. Given my MacBooks’ Touch ID readers require just a single tap to unlock, I honestly wish MSI found a way to squeeze in a circular scanner here.

Here is how the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

3DMark Port Royal: 3,544; Fire Strike: 12,358; Time Spy: 6,534

GeekBench 6.5: 2,492 (single-core); 12,550 (multi-core)

Total War Warhammer 3 1080p (Ultra) 81.3fps (Low) 142.5fps

Cyberpunk 2077: 1080p (Ultra) 43fps (Low) 75fps

Dirt 5: 1200p (Ultra) 48.3fps (Low) 95.7fps

PCMark 10 Battery Life (Gaming): 1:40 hours

While the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+’s looks are impressive, what makes it exceptional is what’s going on underneath the surface. While gaming handhelds have previously involved some performance tradeoffs in return for their diminutive size, that’s not the case here, thanks to the Herculean Intel Arc G3 Extreme chipset it’s packing. MSI claims that the Arc G3 Extreme should unlock 42% faster performance on average compared to the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme that the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is rocking, although this requires a little unpacking.

Certainly, performance benchmarks alone don’t suggest the Arc G3 Extreme is leading the field. The Claw 8 EX AI+ hit 2,492 single-core performance and 12,550 multi-core performance in our GeekBench tests, compared to the 2,788 and 12,883 scores nabbed respectively by the ROG Xbox Ally X. So for raw processing power, there’s not a huge amount of light between the two chipsets, with the Ryzen Z2 Extreme taking a narrow lead.

But factor in graphical performance and Intel’s SoC absolutely spanks AMD’s. With the help of the Intel Arc GPU B390, the Claw 8 EX AI+ gets some seriously punchy 3D performance — in our 3DMark benchmarks, it scored 3,544 in Port Royal, 12,358 in Fire Strike and 6,534 in Time Spy, compared to the 2,006, 9,141 and 4,033 the ROG Xbox Ally X hit. Those are 76%, 35% and 62% increases respectively, gains which show the Claw’s graphics are seriously swole.

And that translates to some staggeringly smooth performance in-game. On Ultra settings, Total War: Warhammer 3 comfortably averaged out at 81.3fps, while on Low settings Dirt 5 ran smoother than a nitro cold brew at 95.7fps and still managed a very creditable 48.3fps on Ultra. But what blew me away most is how well it ran Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra settings with ray-tracing disabled, netting a reasonably polished 43fps — that’s downright playable and throws some serious shade on the ROG Xbox Ally X, which only managed 8fps.

Unfortunately, while these benchmarks are impressive compared to other gaming handhelds, at this price those aren’t the Claw’s biggest competition. Several of our picks for the best gaming laptops have costs in the same region and yet offer significantly better performance.

For example, the Alienware 16X Aurora with Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 and 32GB DDR5 we tested costs only a few hundred dollars / pounds more at $1,999.99 / £1,799. And yet its performance is leagues ahead of the Claw, hitting a 3DMark Time Spy score of 13,594 and Fire Strike score of 31,480 — that’s double and nearly triple the Claw’s scores respectively. Naturally, you’re not getting the same compact form factor but I wonder how much that truly matters for the kinds of gamers that are willing to drop almost one and a half grand on a pro gaming device.

Okay, enough nerding out over numbers. Time to focus on the thing you actually care about: how the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ actually feels to play.

Honestly, what the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is capable of kinda blew me away. As those benchmarks would suggest, it can offer ludicrously smooth frame rates. Playing a 2D game like Hollow Knight: Silksong, it remained rock solid at 120Hz, with all the action as Hornet zipped around the rich, mysterious landscapes of Pharloom as slick as ice on a spring day.

Granted, that might not feel like much of a challenge, but this unflappable stability carried over when I transitioned to modern 3D games. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ran at a wonderfully smooth 60fps. Rather than having to strip it down to the basic visuals required to get it running on the Steam Deck, it actually looked pretty great and ran so stably I was able to crack out counter after counter on chromatic bosses. Being able to enjoy the game on the go felt like such a novelty that I’d honestly be happy to mop up the game’s remaining optional bosses purely on handheld.

Keen to push the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ to breaking point, I even tried playing a bit of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered on Xbox. I’ll admit my expectations were pretty low here, as I’ve heard plenty of people complaining about performance issues on their 5000 series Nvidia GPUs. And yet, amazingly, it was playable.

Well, kinda. With the graphics settings on Low while in the depths of Xedilian, performance plowed along steadily at 60fps, which is truly wild for a AAA Bethesda game. However, it didn’t take long for it to start exhibiting some pretty hinky behavior — sporadically I encountered some audio stuttering and, once I entered a more densely populated open area, the frame rate dropped so far it was more 19th century zoetrope than an RPG from 2025. But I feel like most gaming handhelds would spontaneously combust if you even had the cheek to try this, so Imma still put this one in the win column for MSI.

On top of this, the Claw 8 EX AI+ seems to be able to keep a cool head during all of this. In comparison to its predecessor, the Claw 8 AI+, MSI promises the EX AI+ can achieve an extra 5W cooling capacity, 25% higher static pressure for fans, and 9% higher airflow, thanks to fans that are 0.5mm taller. I can’t speak to how accurate such granular figures are but certainly even slamming out epic boss fights or pushing the CPU to its limit, I rarely noticed the EX AI+ getting unbearably warm, which speaks to the strength of its cooling.

What the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is capable of is honestly pretty staggering. The only criticisms I have come down to software and input issues.

The Claw’s MSI Center M launcher felt a little unreliable. Occasionally, I got locked out from being able to access it — hitting the MSI button did nothing, and switching between windows just returned me to the Xbox app. On top of this, sometimes switching out to this menu then returning to a game would lock the input, meaning I could no longer use controller settings till I’d switched out and back again. That’s not a total deal-breaker, but it is a shame, given how stable the Steam and Xbox OSes feel by comparison, and shows that even the mighty MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ isn't immune to Windows 11's unsuitability for gaming handhelds.

Given its huge 80Whr battery capacity, I was expecting the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ to have some serious endurance. Unlike the ephemeral life I get out of my 40Whr Steam Deck — where I’m lucky if I get 90 minutes out of many 3D games — the whopping battery in the Claw had me anticipating some pretty epic gaming sessions. Which is why I was a bit bemused by the actual results I eked out during our benchmarks.

Running our standard PC Mark 10 Gaming Battery benchmark with all the settings switched to balanced in both MSI Center M and Windows 11, I was shocked to see the battery discharged from 100% to 0% in just 1 hour 36 minutes. So sure was I that I must have made a mistake, I recalibrated the battery using the Claw’s built-in software, revisited all the settings and ran the benchmark two more times. Despite this, I was only able to squeeze out 1 hour 40 minutes and 2 hours 31 minutes on subsequent tests.

Certainly that’s not completely incompatible with my objective experience — on the console’s default AI Mode, I comfortably drained its full battery in a two-hour play session of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, for example. But that’s an incredibly demanding game, even for the MSI’s specs, and 2D games didn’t seem quite as thirsty in comparison.

So what’s going on here? Ruling out a fault with my review unit, I suspect that the capacious 80Whr battery the unit ships with is only part of the picture when it comes to the life you’ll squeeze out of it. The more important part? Its AI performance mode.

While our standard benchmarks set consoles and gaming laptops to balanced mode, the default performance mode for the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ automatically adjusts its power consumption on the fly for the best efficiency in any given moment. That means the mode you’re most likely to play it on will stretch out the battery life without causing a noticeable dip in performance.

Even when the battery has run dry, it doesn’t take long to top it up again. With its 65W charging, you’d expect it to take about 90 minutes to juice up that 80Whr battery — and that’s bang in line with my experiences. When plugged into a cable capable of at least 65W, charging up the Claw only ever took around an hour and a half. However, I did occasionally experience some glitchy behavior here, with progress freezing at 98% or 99% full even when left for 20 minutes, suggesting the console’s battery monitoring software can occasionally be a touch off.

You want amazing performance
Thanks to its high-octane Intel Arc G3 Extreme chipset, the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ achieves genuinely wild performance for its petite, portable size.

You want to access to all your PC and Xbox games libraries on the go
Installing extra storefronts on a console like the Steam Deck is honestly a bit of a hassle. On the MSI Claw, you have access to the Steam, Xbox, Epic, GOG, EA, Ubisoft Connect games stores.

You’re not loaded
The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is one pricy meatball — at $1,799.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,849, it comes closer to the cost of a gaming laptop than a handheld console. And while it’s more compact than a laptop, it’s not as powerful.

You need a mouse input
One of the things that makes consoles like the Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go so versatile is their mouse inputs. Lacking an equivalent means the Claw 8 EX AI+ isn’t compatible with some mouse-based titles unless you plug in a mouse.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

Lenovo Legion Go S (SteamOS)

Price

$1,799.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$2,849

$999.99 / £799

Starting at $649.99 / £699

Display

8-inch FHD+ (1920 x 1200), 16:10, 500 nits, 120Hz IPS touchscreen

7-inch FHD (1920 x 1080), 16:9, 500 nits, 120Hz IPS touchscreen

8-inch WQXGA (1920 x 1200), 16:10, 500 nits, 120Hz IPS touchscreen

CPU

Intel Core Ultra 7 258V

AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme

AMD Ryzen Z2 Go (up to AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme)

Graphics

Intel Arc 140V GPU

AMD Radeon RDNA 3.5 Graphics

Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics

RAM

32GB LPDDR5X-8533

24GB LPDDR5X-8000

16GB / 32GB LPDDR5X-6400

Storage

1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD

1TB M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 SSD

512GB / 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD

Port selection

2x Thunderbolt 4, 1x microSD Express card reader, 1x 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack

1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-C, 1x microSD card reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack

2x USB4, 1x microSD card reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack

Weight

1.75 lbs / 794g

1.58 lbs / 715g

1.63 lbs / 740g

Dimensions

299 x 126 x 24mm / 11.77 x 4.96 x 0.94 inches

290.8 x 121.5 x 50.7mm / 11.45 x 4.78 x 2 inches

299 x 127.55 x 22.6mm / 11.77 x 5.02 x 0.88 inches

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X
The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X packs the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chipset, which includes the slightly less impressive AMD Radeon RDNA 3.5 GPU, and hasn’t managed to squeeze as much RAM on-board, clocking in at 24GB rather than the Claw’s 32GB. On the plus side though, it’s significantly cheaper, coming in for $700 / £600 / AU$1,250 less, making it more manageable for a wider range of people. Read our full Asus ROG Xbox Ally X review.

Lenovo Legion Go S (SteamOS)
With integrated AMD Radeon Graphics, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, the Lenovo Legion Go S (SteamOS) is more cruiser motorcycle to the MSI Claw’s superbike. But it’s still able to deliver steady performance, offering rock-solid performance during Baldur’s Gate 3 on max settings or a steady 40fps on Black Myth: Wukong on its lowest settings. And it’s cheaper than either of its rivals here, with a list price that starts from $649.99 / £699 / $1,329. Read our full Lenovo Legion Go S (SteamOS) review.

• Tested it over two weeks
• Tried playing a wide range of titles at different graphics settings
• Conducted TechRadar’s full suite of testing benchmarks

I tested the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ over the course of two weeks. I made sure to play a wide variety of games from multiple game stores, whether they were from TechRadar’s Steam library or Xbox Games Pass Ultimate. On top of this, I tried out a wide variety of games at different graphics settings, from relatively undemanding 2D games to AAA 3D titles.

When it comes to more detailed assessments of its performance, I conducted our usual suite of benchmarks. Not only did that entail getting detailed performance scores from 3DMark and GeekBench 6.5, but I also conducted a range of in-game fps benchmarks at both ultra and low graphics settings. To test the console’s battery life, I ran multiple PC Mark 10 Gaming Battery tests to see how rapidly it drained the battery from 100% and I also timed how long it took to charge the console from 0% to 100% using a cable that was rated more than its 65W max charging rate.

During my career, I’ve tested a wide variety of gaming gadgets and accessories, from wireless controllers to gaming handhelds. I’ve also invested a truly ludicrous amount of my four decades on this Earth playing computer games, whether they be RPGs, action adventure games or creative sandboxes. And while I’m a little hazy on the details, I’m told this investment will pay dividends any day now.

• First reviewed: August 2026
• Read more about how we test

The most damaging AI-related security incident your organization faces this year probably won't originate from external attackers using sophisticated new models. It's far more likely to begin with an employee pasting a client contract, a financial forecast, or a set of HR records into an AI tool because it makes their job easier and nobody has told them why it matters.

Shadow AI is a growing problem, and our research found that nearly half of employees at larger enterprises regularly feed corporate data into AI tools that nobody in IT has approved or governs.

More striking still, 85% of employees continue doing so even when company-sanctioned tools are available, pointing to a governance failure that runs all the way to the executive suite. With shadow AI, sensitive data can move silently outward through channels most security stacks were never designed to intercept.

Adding to the security risk of this unmonitored data flow, the advent of the EU AI Act also means organizations now face specific legal demands on managing AI use. The ability to have full governance over how AI is deployed, governed and monitored, is becoming a regulatory, as well as a security, imperative.

Shadow AI represents a serious security issue, with IBM's 2026 Cost of a Data Breach report estimating that unauthorized tools contributed to 43% of breaches over the last year Now, the EU AI Act is adding significant regulatory requirements on top of these risks.

The Act's obligations have rolled out in phases; most recently, organizations classified as general deployers of AI have new inventory, data governance, audit logging and transparency obligations as of 2nd August 2026.

Other deadlines have shifted further ahead, with controls over high-risk AI usage, covering areas like recruitment, credit scoring and biometric categorization, set to come into force from 2nd December 2027. AI embedded in regulated products will be covered from 2nd August 2028.

Any organization whose employees use AI systems now has compliance obligations as a deployer, regardless of whether those systems were formally sanctioned.

All organizations using AI should be aware that the AI literacy obligation under Article 4 has been enforceable since February 2025, meaning organizations are on the hook for ensuring their employees are aware of safe and sanctioned AI use.

Rules around high-risk AI usage will also apply to more operations than it may seem at first, including an employee using an unapproved consumer tool for tasks like screening CVs, assessing creditworthiness, and evaluating performance.

These are common tasks that could trigger the full weight of the Act's oversight against a system that the IT department didn’t even know had been deployed.

With penalties reaching up to €15 million or 3% of global annual turnover for high-risk breaches, many organizations are carrying more exposure than they realize.

The challenge with shadow AI is that it exploits the blind spots between conventional security layers, slipping through gaps that most tools were never designed to close.

CASBs and secure web gateways cannot decrypt conversational data flowing to legitimate LLM domains over HTTPS, for example. From the network's perspective, a prompt containing a full customer database is indistinguishable from any other encrypted web session. Browser extensions are limited to managed endpoints, blind to personal devices and AI embedded within approved SaaS.

Likewise, API gateways are usually built around authorized enterprise deployments, which means they capture the AI activity organizations have already approved while missing the consumer-grade AI tools driving most risk.

These blind spots compound with each other, so an organization running all three layers may still have no visibility into AI activity across a significant portion of its estate, and no means of generating the interaction logs or policy enforcement evidence the Act requires.

Controlling AI data flows is usually managed by workers performing their duties without malicious intent. However, it’s remarkably similar to defending against an external threat actor covertly accessing your data.

The detection logic needs to match that reality. Endpoint-native detection intercepts sensitive data at the point of movement before it reaches an external AI system, enforcing policy at the prompt level across managed and unmanaged browsers, personal devices, and AI functionality embedded within SaaS tools. It operates where the activity occurs, rather than attempting to catch it downstream.

Given the scale of the potential fines, the ability to prove compliance matters almost as much as preventing security breaches.

Continuous discovery across the estate, including any unsanctioned tools gives organizations the AI system inventory the Act requires.

Granular interaction logs - who used what, when, and what data was involved - satisfy the documentation requirements under Articles 12 and 13, without teams needing to scramble to reconstruct activity after the fact. The same data pinpoints exactly where AI literacy gaps exist, making Article 4 compliance something demonstrable rather than simply asserted.

Security and compliance teams aiming to comply with the EU AI Act have a clear path to follow.

The starting point is mapping the full AI estate. Discovery needs to extend beyond IT-approved tools to unmanaged endpoints, personal devices on corporate networks, and AI embedded within SaaS.

Data governance must move to the endpoint. Policies prohibiting sensitive data sharing with unapproved tools are not technical controls and, by the time enforcement happens at the network edge, the data has already left.

It’s important to remember that information shared with an external AI system may be retained in prompt logs, incorporated into model training data, or held on servers in jurisdictions the organization has no visibility into. The moment data crosses that boundary, the organization loses control of it entirely, and no policy document will retrieve it.

And since Article 12 requires interaction records that can be handed to regulators on demand, organizations will need to have continuous, automatic auditing of both activity and security measures.

Finally, AI literacy programs aimed at improving user awareness should be driven by behavioral data rather than generic training programs. Activity logs showing where governance failures are occurring - at senior leadership level as much as anywhere else - provide both the diagnosis of the issue and the evidence regulators will want to see.

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For years, enterprise Software as a Service (Saas) has enjoyed a comfortable position at the center of organizational processes. Users who wanted to raise a ticket, process an invoice or manage a workflow would log into their employer’s cloud application. The user interface was the gateway to the work, and the provider’s business model followed naturally: charge for seats, expand adoption, and grow revenue as more users spend more time inside the platform.

Agentic AI is beginning to change that. As users increasingly deploy AI agents, either to carry out tasks within SaaS platforms or to deliver functionality outside them, organizations require fewer seats – hitting providers’ subscription revenues.

At the same time, AI is making bespoke software faster and cheaper to build, giving organizations a credible alternative to buying another SaaS platform. Why accept subscription costs and vendor lock-in, when cheaper alternatives may achieve the same outcome?

None of this means SaaS is about to disappear, but its position at the center of enterprise software is under threat. SaaS vendors are facing three structural challenges that will reshape the economics of enterprise software.

The first threat is simple: users may have AI agents carry out tasks within the SaaS platform, reducing the need for human users, or build agentic capabilities outside those platforms altogether.

That is a serious problem for any SaaS vendor whose business depends on people living in the interface. If an agent can resolve a support query, update a record or complete a routine transaction, the user never has to touch the application.

We’re already seeing this in practice. In some IT service management projects, agents now resolve such a high proportion of tickets that organizations need far fewer users interacting with the SaaS platform. As buyers begin questioning whether they still need premium software for the shrinking proportion of manual work, the economics start to shift.

The second threat is the one SaaS vendors dislike most: buyers may once again be willing to build new capabilities from scratch.

For the last decade or so, ‘build versus buy’ was often a non-debate. Custom software was too slow, too expensive and too risky, so SaaS usually won.

AI is starting to shift those calculations. As software development becomes faster, cheaper and more adaptive, some solutions that previously defaulted to SaaS start to look buildable – especially when the organization needs a narrow set of capabilities wrapped around its own processes and data. The more customization a SaaS platform requires, the weaker its cost-efficiency and automated-upgrade advantages become.

This does not mean large enterprises will abandon mature SaaS platforms overnight. Their resilience, integrations and compliance capabilities remain valuable. But once customers believe they have a credible alternative, vendors lose pricing power and the assumption that renewal is the obvious decision

The third threat is that even when the product survives, the commercial model may not.

Traditional SaaS pricing was built for a world in which value correlated reasonably well with the number of people sitting in the application. That logic gets shaky when agents perform work that would once have required more licensed users, and more operational dependency on the interface.

Vendors can see this. Many are shifting towards consumption-based pricing, exposing services directly to agents or redesigning products for an agentic world. The common thread is clear: once software starts working for people rather than being operated by them, seat-based economics begin to look outdated.

From the customer’s perspective, that could be a good thing. Paying for usage is often cheaper than buying licenses. The challenge for vendors will be proving they’re genuinely adapting to an agentic future, rather than simply repackaging existing products to protect margins.

To be clear, this is not a “SaaS is over” argument. Many enterprise platforms will remain valuable, providing governance, resilience, compliance, and years of accumulated functionality that are difficult and expensive to recreate.

What will change is where value sits. In an agentic world, SaaS will be less the primary interface through which work gets done; more a component in a broader ecosystem of agents, orchestration and systems of record. Some platforms will adapt and become stronger; others will discover that the value they once captured has shifted elsewhere.

As for the corporate users of SaaS, the best advice we can give is not to wait for perfect conditions before acting. No business ever reaches a point where its data, processes or architecture are “finished”, and SaaS providers will continue to adapt their offers.

Meanwhile, experiment, learn and adapt in your delivery of administrative and corporate functions: in some functions you may find that agents drive down SaaS costs; in others, greenfield development may now be viable. In still other cases, adding new functionality using agents that leverage SaaS solutions but sit outside those ecosystems keep future options open.

So do something that works for you now – but keep the option of moving again in a year or two.

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For anyone working in IT and familiar with SaaS sprawl, the idea we’ll soon end up with agent sprawl may set off alarm bells. Agent sprawl refers to the rapid, uncoordinated deployment of AI agents across departments, each built on different models, governed by different rules, and often disconnected from core business workflows.

But while SaaS sprawl caught enterprises off guard, this time organizations have no excuse, and need to put measures in place now to avoid repeating the same mistakes. However, right now, most organizations are building agents in isolation and optimizing for local productivity rather than enterprise value.

Thankfully, with the right control layer funneling every agent through the same governance and security standards within an organization, the agent-powered future can be far safer, scalable and simple. 

Just like SaaS before it, agent sprawl is already happening. Each department within organizations is experimenting with different agent technologies to address specific challenges or work more efficiently.

A sales team may deploy a CRM-based AI assistant to qualify leads, while developers build their own coding agents, and marketing adopts a separate content generation tool. Each delivers local value, but none are aligned or connected to the other, creating a familiar-looking sprawl.

This fragmentation introduces a range of challenges that will only increase over time. With no single owner responsible for how agents are deployed or monitored, there’s a lack of governance and oversight. Security risks increase as agents gain access to sensitive systems without consistent controls.

Teams may unknowingly duplicate efforts, solving the same problems in parallel with different tools. At the same time, many agents are deployed without clear links to business outcomes or understanding the wider context, making it difficult to measure return on investment and distinguish meaningful innovation from experimentation. Lots of AI tools may be exciting, but deliver far more style than substance.

Is sprawl inevitable? Yes, probably. So the question now becomes, how do we control it?

Having an orchestration layer can bring order to this complexity by creating consistency in how agents are governed, secured and deployed across the business. For SaaS applications, orchestration provides visibility into what tools already exist and gives a clear view of enterprise workflows.

With agents, it outlines what agents are already available and how they operate, while also controlling how they access data, tools and existing technology. Orchestration is the critical element that turns agents from experiments into scalable business infrastructure, for example, assigning agents to business workflows and measuring their performance against real outcomes.

Too often, we see enterprises experimenting with different agents that have no connection to the core business processes and goals, meaning they fail to deliver any ROI. For example, some portions of a business simply do not require AI technology and will unlikely see benefits in the same way as another department. Orchestration can unearth and filter out agents that are unnecessary, saving businesses money. 

Rather than trusting individual agents, organizations should focus on trusting the system that governs them.

This is where orchestration becomes a trust layer, ensuring every agent operates within clearly defined boundaries with consistent oversight and accountability. Instead of individual teams managing risk in siloes, organizations can centralize control while still enabling innovation across different departments and business functions.

In the same way orchestration brought order to SaaS sprawl, it can do the same for the next wave of enterprise AI. It brings the same ease, security and integration with existing SaaS tools, while ensuring only high-value agents make it into production, supporting innovation and keeping within the business goals and purpose.

As agents become embedded across every function, orchestration will shift from a technical layer to a core enterprise capability. The winners will be those who can control, connect and trust their agents at scale.

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