On January 12, 2024, I got a Steam Deck (the OLED version). I love it overall, although it's heavily reliant upon Steam. Ever since it got popular over a year ago, there's been an interest in handheld gaming PCs lately thanks to similar competitors like the ASUS ROG Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go, the MSI Claw, the AYANEO NEXT, the GPD Win, and many others. I'll admit that I prefer playing my games on my 4K 144Hz monitor, so the Steam Deck will not replace my gaming computer. I also want all of my games to just work, and while SteamOS has a lot of great work done, I begrudgingly have to accept Windows as the primary OS for gaming. There is a market for portable gaming computers, and I found out by surprise when one of my relatives decided to replace his desktop gaming PC with a Steam Deck OLED. He told me that he loves how comfy it is to hold, the game compatibility support is incredible for him (although he mostly plays Sonic games), and he bragged about how he doesn't need a Nintendo Switch anymore to play Mario or Zelda via emulation (plus he hated Nintendo in general). A younger relative of mine tried it out and also liked it, although he prefers his prebuilt gaming tower. As for me, I'm keeping it for sure. I often use it in bed, and my favorite feature from the Steam Deck is the button layout. It has just enough buttons and placed so that my thumbs easily reach most of the buttons. I wish that this layout's applied to a gamepad, but I doubt Valve will make a new Steam Controller.
After about a year of using this handheld, I think it's safe to say that the main part of the whole handheld PC trend growing is the OS running it, and SteamOS today seems to be another great marketing campaign for ditching Windows (a lot better than its very first release based on Debian, which was over a decade ago). However, there's still certain games that refuse to run on anything except Windows (thanks, anti-cheat), so most of those PC handhelds will have Windows 11 installed, sadly. Microsoft has recently jumped on this bandwagon via the ROG Xbox Ally & Ally X (it's just an ASUS ROG Ally but with Xbox software inside), but I doubt that will make much of an impact on better handhelds, or even a better Windows gaming experience. There's also another incentive for game optimization now that too many new releases are requiring far too expensive graphics cards for visuals that may age badly in a few years, although that might not change if development trouble behind the scenes worsens than before.
So far, I think the biggest hurdle that keeps people from getting a handheld PC (including from my own experience) may still be the huge and heavy size being uncomfortable to hold after a few hours. The eventual mass production of a smaller, lighter handheld PC could attract a lot more people (especially if their hands are as light and frail as those in East Asia), although that trend did not work well for the laptops since a lot of repairability and maintenance is worse. That might explain why there's a lot of Switch gamers (and even Game Boy/Game Boy Advance players) today, console peasantry aside. For comparison, the Steam Deck OLED that I have is over 600 grams (and that's without a protective case), while a Switch OLED with the Joy-Cons attached weighs 420 g (15 oz). Even the recent Switch 2 is lighter than the Deck at around 535 grams (in handheld mode). The other hurdle might be SteamOS itself, whether it's some software bugs, anti-cheat not working, the UI itself, or just Steam itself having problems like some games that aren't available (or censored) in certain countries.
There's a notable aspect about handheld gaming PCs that I think deserves mentioning: local multiplayer. All technical requirements aside, having a fun time with friends/family is possible with at least two (or maybe one) PC handhelds under a stable enough connection, wireless or not (and at almost no cost, too). I had a fun time once with a relative that has an ROG Ally X. We played Soulcalibur VI, and aside from me losing terribly, I didn't have much issues with playing on my Steam Deck OLED. Imagine the LAN parties, or local hangouts, or even a church meetup!
As for the internal components needed to run it all, that's becoming slightly cheaper than I thought. There's been some recent work done within SteamOS (that OS just keeps getting updates and fixes) to make it run well on competitors like the ASUS ROG Ally and the Lenovo Legion Go, and those could double as lightweight home PCs with the right docks, cables, and peripherals. But that leads me to some questions: would it be cheaper to just get a laptop, or a typical tower gaming PC, or even both? How difficult is maintenance and repairing? How about peripherals like a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and more? I would like to see more research on this as it's already possible to turn a small office PC into a basic gaming computer (depending on the system specs). There's also just the classic option of getting or building a gaming tower computer out of used or refurbished parts. I recall seeing a MINISFORUM computer from the Steamworks documentation a while before developer kits were made (it's already deleted, and the computer itself is not a 1-to-1 Steam Deck due to the weaker CPU).
I recall seeing the Steam Deck being unavailable to buy until later in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea (around December 2022), along with Australia (in November 2024), and pricing wildly varied, even before tariffs. It could apply to several other gaming handhelds, although I can't confirm this. If you're interested in getting a gaming handheld, check your nearest gaming stores, or check what's on sale at a discount online. Don't forget to check the shipping costs. I should also mind console gaming prices worldwide since previous-gen stuff from PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo might seem affordable to some dude living in Asia or Europe compared to a Steam Deck or even a gaming desktop or laptop PC with similar specs.
Handhelds that can also become desktop PCs via docks and dongles is nice to have (especially if you haven't built a computer yet), but that has its own problems. The dock firmware might need some kind of update or else it won't work properly; the Steam Deck's own docking station has its firmware updated often to fix bugs and/or improve performance. Any third-party accessories may not work well, although it's great to see some stuff like 8BitDo's peripherals just working out of the box. If you want to use Ethernet for whatever reason, a docking station or dongle is required. The same goes for a mouse and keyboard. At least two USB-C ports seem to be the standard for the PC handheld competitors since one of them may be used for power only. Meanwhile, the Steam Deck only has one though, and I personally think it's a drawback, even with a docking station. Regardless of handheld and dock/dongle, there's also the messy amount of cables that look ugly to lot of people, which explains why wireless is being pushed (latency aside). Regardless of its problems, it's not stopping the hardware modding like mounts, Hall Effect sticks, clear shells, soldered RAM upgrades, and a "Steam Brick" that's just a stripped down mini PC with a power button and a USB-C port.
Something else to add about using a laptop for gaming, SteamOS or otherwise: anything with NVIDIA is not going to "just werk" in general (except maybe the Turing and newer chips), especially when compared to just about every gaming handheld running SteamOS. There's also a lot of handhelds with ARM processors that function very differently, so full SteamOS support is not going to just work. It might be a similar problem with AMD laptops that are not Ryzen at all, nor RDNA, either (although some GCN and Vega GPUs seem to work alright with the right drivers). As for Intel, I don't know, but it could work well if those ARC iGPUs are as stable enough as those from AMD. As for me, I simply do not like having to maintain any gaming laptops in general; hardware maintenance is a mixed bag, and getting aftermarket parts is way too troublesome for a slightly better gaming performance than a Steam Deck. That's likely why I'm still keeping my Steam Deck OLED, even though I mostly use my desktop computer. There's already plenty of hardware/software mods and upgrades that look like fun, too. I expect hardware and software to improve and slowly become less expensive as the years go by, so I'm glad to see this trend persist since the first release of the Steam Deck in 2022.
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