- Intel announced that there will be a portable 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 available anytime soon, but more details are expected later in 2026.
Not much has happened with portable gaming PCs at CES 2026, but Intel has hinted at the potential for a number of major new launches later in 2026.
As reported by Notebookcheck, Intel has promised that laptop devices built with its Panther Lake series of processors will be coming. This potentially includes partnerships with companies like MSI, Acer, GPD, Microsoft, and Oneexplayer, with more updates to be revealed later this year.
With Lenovo and Asus recently launching the Legion Go 2 and ROG Xbox Ally X respectively, this leaves both manufacturers effectively out of the picture for a portable upgrade powered by these new Intel chips; New devices on those fronts surely won’t arrive for some time.
This basically leaves room open for one of the big players, namely MSI, to make a successor to the Claw AI+ handhelds that use the Intel 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 with lower power usage, it’s safe to say that Team Blue could give Team Red a run for their money in the laptop space here.
If it were built around a Panther Lake CPU, we could see a new MSI Claw device with significantly better performance than most current-generation laptops. As Intel claims, this is supposed to be next-gen portable gaming performance (see chart above).
It also helps that XeSS 3 (compatible with Panther Lake and older
More importantly, in the grand scheme of things, the battle between AMD and Intel in the wearable market is underway.
Analysis: Intel is making a stronger name for itself in the gaming market
While AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU essentially provides gaming laptop-level performance for GPD Win 5 and other premium handhelds, Intel’s Core Ultra 7 258V is still the more impressive chip overall for me.
It’s the processor used in 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 tag was a point of contention for me, but with the Max+ 395 wearables costing nearly $2,000, there’s a clear winner in terms of value.
If Intel’s generational leap in performance claims are accurate, we’re in for 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 larger presence when it comes to gaming hardware, especially since its upcoming Arc B770 discrete GPU, reportedly equipped with 16GB of VRAM, was leaked.
There is a lot to expect from both AMD and Intel, not only in the desktop GPU department, but also in SoCs and their powerful integrated graphics for portable devices. I’m excited to see what happens in 2026.
TechRadar will cover this year’s edition extensively CESand will bring you all the important announcements as they happen. Go to our CES 2026 Live News page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything we’ve seen.
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