- Intel announced that there will be a handheld gaming platform with the Panther Lake series
- Partnerships with MSI, Acer, GPD and Microsoft mean a few handhelds could be on the way
- These devices won’t be here soon, but more details are expected later in 2026
Not much has happened with handheld gaming PCs at CES 2026, but Intel has hinted at the potential for a number of big new launches later in 2026.
As reported by Notebookcheck, Intel has promised that there will be handhelds built with their Panther Lake series of processors. This potentially includes partnerships with MSI, Acer, GPD, Microsoft and Onexplayer, with further updates to be revealed later this year.
With both Lenovo and Asus recently launching the Legion Go 2 and ROG Xbox Ally X respectively, this effectively leaves both of those manufacturers out of the picture for a handheld update powered by these new Intel chips – new devices certainly won’t be arriving for some time on those fronts.
Essentially, this leaves room for one of the big players, namely MSI, to become a successor to the Claw AI+ handhelds that use Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V processor.
Based on Intel’s performance claims for Panther Lake’s Arc B390 integrated GPU, which is said to be 73% faster than AMD’s Radeon 890M while running on lower power consumption, it’s safe to say that Team Blue could give Team Red a run for their money in the handheld space here.
If it was built around a Panther Lake CPU, we could see a new MSI Claw device with significantly better performance than most current-gen mainstream handhelds. As Intel claims, this is supposed to be the next generation of handheld gaming performance (see graph above).
It also helps that XeSS 3 (supported by Panther Lake and older Xe integrated graphics) comes with the benefits of multi-frame generation, a technology we’ve only seen Nvidia use for its RTX 5000 series GPUs (although it’s also possible via Lossless Scaling on Steam).
More importantly, in the grand scheme of things, the battle between AMD and Intel in the handheld market is on.
Analysis: Intel is making a stronger name for itself in the gaming market
While AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU essentially brings gaming laptop-tier performance to GPD Win 5 and other premium handhelds, Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V is still the most impressive chip overall for me.
It’s the processor used in the MSI Claw AI+ handhelds, and the MSI Claw 8 AI+ is the best handheld I’ve used to date. Yes, the Claw’s $899 price was a point of contention for me, but with the Max+ 395 handheld costing nearly $2,000, there’s a clear winner in terms of value.
If Intel’s claims of generational performance leaps are accurate, we’ll be able to get a much more powerful successor to the MSI Claw 8 AI+ powered by a Panther Lake chip. And Intel will further establish itself as a more present presence when it comes to gaming hardware – especially since its upcoming Arc B770 discrete GPU has been leaked, allegedly packed with 16GB of VRAM.
There’s plenty to look forward to from both AMD and Intel, not just in the desktop GPU department, but also for SoCs and their powerful integrated graphics for handhelds. I look forward to seeing what happens in 2026.
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