"Progress lies not with the trusted brands but through innovators in the gaming sector"

In the land where everyone is in a bind, those with the smallest devices will be king - or, why mini systems make such great diagnostic devices

- STEVE CASSIDY

I like to think of us - readers, writers, suppliers - as all being jolly serious folk. No room for RGB bling, don't even whisper the word “gaming”. We all want to look like we're making impactful decisions that improve the bottom line in our businesses, and sober utilitarianism is what makes that happen. We like our high-quality brands, and walking the tightrope between build quality, longevity and price is what we think we are paid to do.

Just one small problem. History shows that progress lies not with the heavily trusted brands but through smaller innovators in the gaming sector. No gamers, no everlasting performance wars. No gamers, no CUDA, so no modern AI supercomputers either. While I don't think the switch to UTP networking is solely a gamer thing, we can keep up the “gamer innovation” thinking in networks by following the development of Wi-Fi.

What put me in this frame of mind was the usual pre-Christmas panic to find a suitable present for each of my excessive number of nephews, nieces, grandnieces and so on. You may gather that I don’t spend much time in the home computer marketplace: servers and networks are more my forte. This time, though, I paused for thought: how about a games console with an i7-grade CPU in it?

Google with me and look up the MSI Claw series of handheld gaming devices (msi.com/Handhelds if you can't be bothered to search). This isn’t just a one-off crazy idea leaking into our purview through some leakage from the streets of Akihabara: it’s one manufacturer's take on a rapidly growing market segment.

Take one glance at the spec and you'll instantly classify the Claw machines as PC-architecture games consoles.