Enter the Claw
Only three things in life are certain; birth, death, and Steam Deck knock-offs hitting the shelves every few months. This time it’s MSI’s turn at the bat, having announced the ‘Claw‘ (ooooooh!) at CES — another Windows-fied mini-PC that’ll give your games a new home. It joins the ranks of the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go, and G Cloud, but what sets it apart?
Not… much. If you’re looking at the broad strokes, at least. It’s retained the 7in 120Hz LCD display that’s become the standard amongst handheld PCs and a 53Wh battery that MSI will tell you is the largest in the field. When the Claw becomes available, supposedly arriving in the first half of 2024, MSI will sell three models, ranging from $700 (R13,000) to $800 (R15,000).
They’ll be specced with the recently announced Meteor Lake Core Ultra processor from Intel, with the higher specs going “up to” a Core Ultra 7 155H. The cheapest model available will show up with a Core Ultra 5 and 512GB of storage. That new processor is capable of supporting the company’s XeSS upscaling tech when supported by certain games, and, according to MSI, lets the Claw play “AAA titles effortlessly.” Well, it would say that, wouldn’t it?
The most expensive model will turn up rocking 16GB of RAM and 1TB of PCIe M.2 storage which can be expanded through the microSD slot found at the top — sat between a Thunderbolt 4 port, 3.5mm headphone jack, and a power button that’s got a fingerprint scanner baked in. And arguably more important is the Hall effect joysticks stuffed in there to alleviate any drift concerns.
Sennheiser keeps its Momentum going
Sennheiser is kicking off the year just right — announcing a slew of new products that’ll accentuate any audiophile’s love for the company. Those are the flagship Momentum True Wireless 4 earbuds, the Accentum Plus headphones, and a sports-centric earbud that’s supposedly got enough smarts to track your heart rate and body temperature on the run. That’s cool, sure, but we’re more interested in what the company calls “Sennheiser’s most capable earbud yet.”
That’s a title that can only befitting the new Momentum True Wireless 4 earbuds. They’re packing a Qualcomm S5 Sound Gen 2 platform and Snapdragon Sound which will net aptX lossless sound quality and low latency to boot. It’s brandishing Bluetooth 5.4 and Auracast, with an even better antenna that’s promising a stronger connection than most.
It’s also got Sennheiser’s latest innovations where adaptive active noise-cancelling is concerned, better tuning, and a battery life that’s touting 7.5 hours from the buds alone. The Qi charging case they’ll be residing in brings that figure up to 30 hours. There will be three colours to choose from — metallic silver, and graphite — all of which are at least somewhat nice to look at. The attached $300 (R5,600) price tag is anything but nice to look at. Expect these to begin turning up over the coming months, though South Africa might have to wait a smidge longer than the rest.
Afeela on your mind?
Remember the Afeela? The electric vehicle that caught our eye at 2023’s CES was born out of a collaboration between Sony — providing all the technical stuff — and Honda, who is responsible for building the bloody thing. We’re only a year nearer to the EV’s supposed 2026 release, but that didn’t stop Sony from bringing the latest iteration to the stage at CES 2024 in the oddest way imaginable: using a PlayStation DualSense controller.
Don’t get your hopes up too high for a fully DualSense-controllable EV. Sony’s stunt was just that: a stunt. One meant to lighten the mood before bringing the vehicle to centre stage and simultaneously promote the company’s racing sim, Gran Turismo. Yup, the Afeela is landing in GT 7 “later this year” according to a blog post. The actual reveal didn’t reveal much more than last year’s presentation, though we did catch a glimpse of the EV’s Unreal Engine capabilities that’ll power the car’s ultrawide infotainment dashboard.
Samsung is turning your TV into a controller for your house
Who said that CES only housed the coolest and wackiest innovations for the forthcoming year? Plenty of announcements tend to sneak under the radar each year. Samsung’s unveiling of a new TV interface fits that bill perfectly. Enter Now+, a service that’s about to make those who have bought into the Samsung/SmartThings ecosystem extremely happy.
Now+ is a new service the South Korean company announced at CES that’ll turn your TV into one giant controller for all those SmartThings-capable products lying around your house. Want to run the dishwasher, get the A/C going, or turn out the lights? Let your TV do it for you. It’ll run through the new SmartThings TV Quick Panel that’ll turn up on your TV to manage any “core functions” without “compromising content viewing.” That means displaying small tidbits like your home’s camera feed, temperature, and the remaining time in a wash cycle.
The company also announced Daily+, a new feature that’ll sense smartphones in the vicinity and turn them into remotes. Whether those need to be Samsung smartphones or not, the company hasn’t said. It’s kept most of the important details under wraps, such as when we can expect to see the services land, and which TVs they’ll support when that time comes.