Best Buy Is Asking $750 for the Discontinued MSI Claw — Don't Bite
The MSI Claw A1M was never a price-justified product. Two years ago, it launched against the Steam Deck OLED and ROG Ally with an Intel chip that couldn’t match either machine’s performance, and the market responded accordingly: retailers eventually cleared stock for under $400. So seeing Best Buy slap a $749.99 price tag on a discontinued 2024 portable isn’t just opportunistic — it’s the clearest sign yet that component panic is being used as an excuse to unload hardware nobody wanted at its original MSRP.
That’s not a hypothetical annoyance. For handheld PC buyers right now, every dollar matters more than it did last year. RAM prices are climbing because AI data centers are hoarding fabrication capacity — the same AI boom pushing handheld gaming to the backseat at AMD — and manufacturers are passing that cost along to new devices. But that doesn’t retroactively make the A1M worth $750. The chipset and the performance ceiling are exactly what they were when reviewers called it a disappointment. The only thing that changed is the sticker.
Don’t Let the New Claw 8’s Price Make $750 Look Reasonable
Best Buy’s pricing strategy is doing something sneaky: using sticker shock from the next generation to make old stock look acceptable. The new MSI Claw 8 AI+ and its EX variant carry stacked price tags, and against those, $749.99 for a 16GB/1TB Claw A1M might almost pass as a bargain. It isn’t. The A1M is built around Intel’s Core Ultra 7-155H — the chip that made it one of the worst-received portables of 2024 — and it’s not in production anymore.
None of the RAMageddon logic applies here. Valve only started charging more for the Steam Deck after existing stock ran dry, because component-cost increases belong to new manufacturing. Best Buy’s listing carries that ‘sold by Best Buy’ badge, so it can’t hide behind a third-party marketplace. This is a retailer betting that desperate handheld buyers will confuse ‘expensive new stuff’ with ‘this old thing is now worth more.’
The ROG Ally Is the Sanity Ceiling at $599.99
If you’re shopping for a Windows handheld right now, the base ROG Ally is the reference point at $599.99 — and the open-box stock at $497.99 is the only deal I’d call genuinely reasonable — a price point the Xbox Ally just hit, too. The Claw A1M has a similar 1080p 120Hz screen and comparable controls, but the Ally has the performance pedigree the MSI machine lacks. Paying $150 more for less capable silicon is backwards.
That’s why the ROG Ally matters beyond its spec sheet: it’s keeping the entry-level handheld PC category honest. At $599.99 it’s not cheap, but it’s where price and performance still align. At $749.99, the A1M asks you to ignore every review and buy on vibes.
Under $400 Is the A1M’s Real Home
Here’s the number that should guide you: the Claw A1M previously dipped under $400. That wasn’t just a fire sale — it was the market correctly pricing a portable that couldn’t sustain its launch MSRP. Retailers that actually want to help handheld players through this component crunch should be pushing old stock toward that range, not using it as an anchor to make $750 feel reasonable.
So the recommendation is concrete. Don’t pay more than $500 for the MSI Claw A1M, and if Best Buy wants to do right by the handheld community, it’ll put its remaining stock below $400. In a season of inflated pricing, that’s the difference between a store that’s profiting from the mess and one that’s actually helping players get through it.