Intel Lunar Lake in Portable Devices Market, First Impressions of Performance and Efficiency

It’s been a few months since Intel’s latest venture into the high-end thin-and-light laptop market was released. We have been testing out a few models: the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360, the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo, and the MSI Claw 8 AI+ handheld. They’ve shared their long-term impressions in the latest PCWorld video.

Adam tested the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360, a large, thin, 2-in-1 laptop with a touchscreen and pen support. Despite being premium and featuring a Core Ultra 7 256V processor, it’s surprisingly light on RAM.

While most tasks ran smoothly, Adam noticed the laptop struggled when he ran Adobe Bridge and Photoshop alongside multiple Chrome tabs. The shared on-chip memory between the CPU and GPU means it can’t compete with systems that have discrete graphics.

On the positive side, the laptop boasts a large, beautiful screen in a slim body, offering a spacious trackpad as well. With a 76-watt-hour battery and a highly efficient setup, it provides a solid workday’s worth of battery life on a single charge.

MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo

Although smaller, the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo that Will tested is actually more powerful, featuring a slightly upgraded Core Ultra 7 258V processor and double the RAM at 32GB.

This allows the Arc GPU to perform better, making the laptop suitable for light gaming, though users will need to dial down settings to achieve native resolution on its OLED display.

Will mentioned that using this laptop made him finally stop envying his wife’s MacBook Air for its battery life—thanks to aggressive settings and presence detection, the MSI can last multiple days on a charge.

Both laptops get a bit warm and occasionally need the fan for heat management, but overall, they perform as expected for premium thin-and-light devices.

Adam liked the touchscreen on the Samsung, even though he didn’t use the pen, while Will appreciated the lack of touchscreen on the MSI. Both were cautious about Intel’s graphics driver updates, which can override the OEM settings provided by the manufacturer.

MSI Claw 8 AI+

As for the Claw 8 AI+? MSI’s gaming handheld stands out in its segment, as it uses an Intel processor and integrated graphics rather than an AMD APU, similar to the original Claw.

The Claw 8 AI+ is slightly larger and bulkier than some competitors with its 8-inch screen, but Adam found it surprisingly comfortable, though a bit tall. It’s powered by the more powerful 258V chip with 32GB of RAM and remains surprisingly quiet for a handheld that features an active fan.

While Adam didn’t stress test the battery extensively, he doesn’t expect it to last very long. It’s also worth noting that despite generally positive feedback for the revised Lunar Lake handheld, MSI seems to be facing production issues, making the Claw 8 extremely hard to find at the moment.