Does Intel’s Lunar Lake hold up? Our impressions, six months later
Image: Foundry
It’s been a few months since Intel’s latest play for high-end thin-and-light laptops came out. PCWorld’s Adam and Will have been trying a few: the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360, the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo, and the MSI Claw 8 AI+ handheld. The guys break down their long-term impressions in the latest PCWorld video.
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360
Adam had the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360—a big, thin, 2-in-1 laptop with a touchscreen and pen support. It’s also surprisingly light on RAM for being so premium and packing a Core Ultra 7 256V processor. Most tasks were fine, but Adam could really see the laptop chugging when he threw some Adobe Bridge and Photoshop work on top of regular Chrome tabs. The on-chip memory shared between the CPU and GPU means it’s going to struggle versus anything with discrete graphics.
On the plus side, it’s rocking a big, beautiful screen in a thin body, which also means a roomy trackpad. And with 76 watt-hours of battery and an aggressively efficient setup, it can go for a solid workday on a charge.
MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo
Despite being smaller, the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo that Will tried out is actually more powerful, with a slightly-juiced Core Ultra 7 258V processor and double the RAM at 32GB. That gives the Arc GPU a lot more room to breathe, making it suitable for some basic gaming, even if it needs to turn the settings way down to hit native resolution on that OLED display. Will says that using this laptop made him finally stop envying his wife’s MacBook Air for its battery life—it can go for multiple days thanks to aggressive settings and presence detection.
Both laptops get a little warm and occasionally need to hit the fan for some heat management, but otherwise perform like you’d expect for premium thin-and-lights. Adam liked the touchscreen on the Samsung even if he never used the pen, Will liked the lack of touchscreen on the MSI, and both of them are wary of Intel’s graphics driver updates that can override the OEM settings that came from the factory.
MSI Claw 8 AI+
What about the Claaaaaaw? MSI’s gaming handheld is an oddball in the segment, as like the original Claw, it’s running an Intel processor and integrated graphics instead of an AMD APU. The Claw 8 AI+ is also a little larger and beefier than some alternatives with its 8-inch screen, but Adam says it’s surprisingly comfy, if a little tall. It’s also running that more powerful 258V chip with 32GB of RAM, and it’s surprisingly quiet for a handheld with an active fan.
Adam didn’t do much stress testing on the battery, but I wouldn’t expect it to last long. And I should mention that, even with a generally positive response to the revised Lunar Lake handheld, MSI seems to be having production issues. The Claw 8 is incredibly hard to find at the moment.
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Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he’s the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop “battlestation” in his off hours. Michael’s previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he’s covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he’s always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.
