I like handheld gaming PCs. Note that I've carefully used the word "like," rather than love. In all honesty, I wish they were faster. Or more portable. Concessions need to be made if you want to play demanding games on the go, it's true. But, in recent months, it's the price that's really put the tin lid on the whole handheld gaming affair for me.

The Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS, a handheld we fell in love with last year at its $830 MSRP, is now listed for $1,332. Or how about the MSI Claw 8 AI+, a mega handheld I personally gave a 90% score to (while admitting it was rather expensive) at $900? Now you'll be lucky to find one for under $1,200. Its recently-announced, Panther Lake-powered successor? That'll rack you up $1,799 at pre-order prices.

I know, I know. It's another article from me complaining about pricing, and I realise I probably sound like a stuck record. But I cannot think of a PC gaming hardware category more screwed by the memory crisis than the handheld market right now. I update our handheld gaming PC deals every week, and recently I had to make an admission:

The Asus ROG Ally Xbox X, a machine we rightly criticised for having a "super-high price tag" on its release just eight months ago, is now what I'd call the best value proposition on the market. For one thousand smackeroonies. A cool grand. Serious cash.

That's the price of a budget, yet soul-affirming, weeklong beachside holiday for two. And yet, if I were to recommend you buy any gaming handheld under today's ridiculous pricing conditions, it'd be this one.

It's properly fast, for a start. With an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme APU furnished with RDNA 3.5 graphics tech and 24 GB of LPDDR5x-8000, it's got a specs sheet that allows it to monster pretty much every other handheld we've ever tested.

You get a 1 TB SSD as well, which should allow room for plenty of modern games. There's also the ROG Xbox Ally (non-X) to consider at $600, but the Ryzen Z2 A chip at its core feels a little underpowered—although it's still worth some thought at that price.

Compare and contrast either with the Steam Deck OLED, which now runs you $949 for the 1 TB model. Sure, it's got a nicer screen. But the now-aging internals simply don't make any sense for this sort of money. A bit like the Steam Machine, now I come to think of it—although I digress.

Plus, the ROG Xbox Ally X's Windows Xbox full screen experience (what a horrible mash-up of terms) is pretty darn good. It's no SteamOS, but it's nevertheless a pretty seamless way of interacting with the system via the medium of thumbsticks. And Steam's Big Picture Mode is still an option for sorting through your games library, of course.

It's quiet, comfortable, and—again I can't believe I'm saying this—reasonably priced given what you receive compared to the competition. Somehow, the Xbox handheld has managed to place itself within the market at the right price, at almost the right time.

Which makes me wonder how much longer it'll be before that MSRP jumps. Given the state of *gestures wildly* everything else in the consumer electronics industry right now, I'd imagine that within the next few months, this column will become defunct.

I'm kind of astonished that the ROG Xbox Ally X is still sitting at its $1,000 MSRP as we speak, and something deep in my bones tells me that won't be the case for much longer.

This isn't a call to action, I should stress. Honestly, if I was curious about buying a gaming handheld right now and already owned a PC, I would probably save my money instead.

But if you're dead set on buying a portable gaming machine to shove in your shoulder bag for your next flight, this is the one that makes the most sense in the current market.

And that's a wild state of affairs. With reports indicating that the memory crisis, and the associated tech price increases will continue (and likely worsen) throughout 2027, and possibly 2028 as well, I genuinely can't fathom what sort of price/performance metrics I'll be using to write handheld reviews over the next couple of years.

How do I score what are essentially hobbyist devices, pleasurable adult frivolities, when they all command such eye-popping amounts of cash? How do I square any real concept of "value" with devices that I know damn well would cost much, much less, if it wasn't for AI holding us all over a barrel?

Gaming is already an expensive hobby. Even more so when you want handheld convenience combined with high performance. But pricing seems to be rising at such a rapid rate, I wonder whether handhelds will survive as anything other than boutique devices for the very well-heeled.

They're very difficult to wholeheartedly recommend in 2026, I'll tell you that much for free.

SteamOS, once the purview of the Steam Deck alone, eventually opened itself to other handhelds. Officially that extends only to the the Legion Go S, but beta versions of the operating system have since supported the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and "Other AMD powered handhelds."

The key term there being 'AMD', because until very recently, SteamOS had only supported handhelds running an AMD processor. Now, though, a new SteamOS beta seems to have added support for Intel and one YouTuber has got it up and running on an MSI Claw (via VideoCardz).

The 3.8.7 beta lists "Improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms" and, more conspicuously, controller support for MSI Claw devices and "SD card readability improvements" for the same. Excluding a recent deviation, the MSI Claw is of course an Intel-based handheld.

This, on its own, doesn't imply that Intel-based handhelds will actually run SteamOS well and have games playable on the platform. But thankfully ETA Prime on YouTube has actually tested it out using a Claw 8 AI+ with a Lunar Lake CPU, the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V.

They struggle to bring up the menu with the left-side button, meaning they have to go into desktop/mouse mode to do so, and they also note an inability to adjust TDP, meaning a third-party plugin is required to do so.

Apart from this, everything seems to work just fine, although games will need some optimisation, as ETA PRIME says Cyberpunk, for instance, does run better on Windows on the handheld.

We should remember this is only a beta, but it's a promising look at what's to come. I doubt Valve would be working on it if it didn't plan on getting the release out there officially for Intel handhelds.

It's certainly a good time for Valve to be working on adding Intel support to SteamOS, not least because of MSI's upcoming Panther Lake-powered Claw 8 EX AI+. That handheld certainly impressed our Dave when he tried it, and in the beta notes Valve does mention new "initial firmware for upcoming Intel handhelds", so it's exciting news on that front, too.

Well, assuming anyone will be able to afford the new Claw in the first place, that is—pricing isn't looking pretty.

I'm very intrigued by the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. For one, I enjoyed my time with the previous iteration, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ A2VM. For a second, it's got Intel's new Arc G3 Extreme processor nestled inside. And for a third, our Dave got his hands on one at Computex, and said it "feels like the standard all new handheld gaming PCs will be judged by."

Exciting stuff. Except MSI has now listed its new mega handheld for pre-order, at the low low price of... $1,799? Holy moly, that's an expensive slice of portable gaming hardware (via Wccftech).

To be quite honest, it's not an entirely surprising figure. Earlier leaks indicated the MSRP would be well north of $1,500, and a 32 GB/1 TB handheld with a brand spanking new (and presumably very performant, given my testing of the Arc B390) Panther Lake-based chip was always going to make for a pricey machine.

Still, it didn't stop me from sucking air through my teeth when I spotted the listing earlier today. However, if you're really desperate for one, you could potentially save some cash at other retailers.

Best Buy also has a listing for the new handheld at $1,700, although as it's currently unavailable, that could well go up by the time it's actually in stock and ready to ship.

But honestly, this seems to be the pricing world we live in now when it comes to high-powered handhelds. Our best handheld gaming PC, the Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS, used to be a regular feature on our deals pages for around $750 to $800. Now you'll find it listed for north of $1,500 at most retailers that still stock it.

As our Jacob Fox recently opined, handhelds have quickly reached a point where the average gamer will struggle to afford one, and the new Panther Lake offerings are expected to be very expensive across the board. At least looking in comparison to the pre-memory/everything else crisis pricing models.

It seems like only yesterday we were complaining that the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X had a ludicrous price tag at $1,000. As that MSRP is currently holding, it's actually starting to look like a genuine value proposition less than a year after its launch. Especially when a Steam Deck OLED 1 TB with an ageing APU now costs a mere $50 less.

As convenient as handheld gaming PCs are, I'm really struggling to come to terms with these prices in regards to buying advice. While true portability and the option of playing your PC games comfortably in bed is a wonderful thing, it sure does come with a hefty premium these days.

Still, here's hoping the new Claw is as good as our early impressions suggest. It'll have to work pretty hard to justify this sort of cash, I can tell you that much for free.

To showcase the introduction of neural rendering technologies in its next-gen mobile GPU architecture, Arm has teamed up with game studio Sumo Digital and recently dropped a short video of it in action. With ray-traced graphics, AI-denoising, and frame generation, the demo suggests that there's a better home for the tech than a humble phone: handheld gaming PCs.

Using Unreal Engine 5.6, along with its Megalights feature, Neural Dawn will eventually be released as a complete, albeit very short, game later this year. But 120 minutes of gameplay is fine when you consider that it's really just an interactive tech demo, showing what Arm's neural rendering is capable of more than anything else.

Specifically, it's highlighting two things: Neural Super Sampling and Denoising (NSSD), and Neural Frame Rate Upscaling (NFRU). The former is Arm's equivalent to Nvidia's DLSS Ray Reconstruction, and the latter is akin to DLSS Frame Generation.

Of course, we've had this tech on gaming PCs for a few years now, with frame gen first appearing with DLSS 3 in 2022, and ray reconstruction following it in 2023's DLSS 3.5 update. Getting all this onto a phone is certainly impressive and should help such devices run even more complex graphics in the future.

But I wonder if this isn't the best platform for it all, given the increased attention that Windows on Arm has been receiving of late. It could be argued that handheld gaming PCs would actually be better served by switching to mobile phone hardware, rather than using laptop-based APUs.

After all, high-end phones sport displays that make those in the best handheld PC's look basic in comparison, so it's not like mobile GPUs aren't capable of handling the resolutions that the ROG Xbox Ally X or Legion Go S use. In a larger form factor, phone processors can run at higher frequencies for longer, as demonstrated by the Apple MacBook Neo, which is essentially an iPhone 16 Pro in a laptop shell.

Nvidia might not be interested in stepping into the handheld market just yet, but Intel certainly is, so perhaps there is scope for an enterprising portable PC vendor to try something different and go 100% Arm, rather than sticking to one of AMD's much-favoured APUs or Intel's new chip.

However, I suspect hardware isn't the barrier to this transition ever happening, but rather having game developers fully onboard with coding for yet another set of rendering technologies. After all, AMD's FSR 4 isn't supported anywhere near as much as Nvidia's DLSS 4 is, and when it comes to Intel's XeSS, it's almost like developers have never even heard of it.

It would be great to have a handheld gaming PC that's not just super-powerful, but also highly power-efficient, using hardware that's truly designed to be mobile. Unfortunately, for as long as the RAMpocalypse continues to rage, the economy of such a venture wouldn't make sense, and until it's all over and things go back to normal (assuming they ever will), it'll be a long time before we see a 100% Arm handheld PC throwing ray-traced graphics all over the place.

With the RAMpocalypse doing its very best to ruin PC gaming, with memory and storage now ludicrously expensive, the handheld market has struggled to keep things affordable. Acer's solution to all this is simple: bin everything needed to play games locally, and just make a streaming device instead.

Officially called the Nitro Blaze Link, Acer's newest handheld joins the rest of the Blaze lineup. But where they're all packed with a punchy little AMD Ryzen 8000-series APU, lots of NVMe storage and fast DRAM, the Blaze Link is essentially a 'dead' box. You won't be playing any games locally, because it only has 1 GB of memory and 8 GB of eMMC storage for its Linux operating system, according to PC Mag.

Naturally, with such little gubbins in the Link, there's not much to say about specifications. The display is a 7-inch touchscreen with a 1920 x 1200 resolution, though there's no word on its refresh rate. I can see no word as to what chip is powering the device, but that doesn't really matter, and at least it has Wi-Fi 6E support.

Since there's no APU with lots of fast DRAM, nor a speedy SSD, power demands are pretty low, hence why it only has an 18 Wh battery. This also explains its 464 grams (16 ounces) weight, but it should also hopefully mean the fans are near-silent for the most part.

So far, so good, but there is one major caveat with the Blaze Link: It will only work with a compatible Acer laptop and the company's own streaming ecosystem. Apparently, it will use Sunshine and Moonlight to handle the streaming. It might work with other streaming systems, but Acer is unlikely to help you out in that respect.

Since you can only use the Blaze Link on the same wireless network that your main Acer gaming PC is connected to, you won't be using the new handheld on your travels. However, for a sneaky bit of gaming in bed, or on the couch away from your den, it could actually be quite nice to use.

After all, the fact that Sony's PlayStation Portal is streaming-only didn't exactly hurt its sales, and it's obvious that Acer is hoping for the same kind of success. Naturally, it will all come down to what Acer sets the price tag at, and we won't know that until we're nearer the device's launch window towards the end of the year.

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X is undeniably a great device, but it's an expensive one. So when I saw Asus had unveiled an upgraded anniversary edition, bundled with a pair of AR glasses, I felt a little pain for my bank account.

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 bundle includes an Xbox ROG Ally X with a snazzy black and gold theming (including a 'custom gold internal structure'), TMR thumbsticks, and even the addition of a 7.4-inch OLED screen.

For context, the standard ROG Xbox Ally X comes with a 7-inch IPS LCD screen, so this is already a major upgrade. Both screens have a 120 Hz refresh rate. The TMR thumbsticks are a welcome addition, meaning you're less likely to have to take the thing apart due to stick drift. TMR sticks should also make for a slightly better battery life, too.

Finally, it comes with a new D-Pad that can be swapped between four-way and eight-way input.

In the new models, you can expect almost the same processor (the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme in the X20 has an NPU, but other than that, it's exactly the same as the Ryzen Z2 Extreme), which means pretty much identical game performance, as well as 24 GB of LPDDR5X memory, a 1 TB SSD, and an 80 Wh battery. The X20 is around 40 g heavier, but everything else remains the same.

Unfortunately, we don't know the answer to the biggest questions here. We don't have a confirmed price point or a release date. There are some random numbers on the side of the page when you get to the 20th anniversary section, so they could correlate, or they could… not.

As for price, I'm expecting a very heavy hit here. Not only are you getting some meaningful upgrades on the original $1,000 Xbox Ally X, but you're also adding in a pair of ROG XReal R1 AR glasses, which fetch around $1,000 by themselves. This is all before mentioning that the ongoing memory crisis has been a major pain when it comes to reasonably priced hardware, and 24 GB of memory is quite a lot.

The sell for this X20 bundle is the pairing of the glasses and the handheld. You can plug the 240 Hz glasses into the top and get what appears to be a 171-inch screen right in front of you. It is tethered to the device, though, so you likely won't be whipping out that bad boy on the train. Given what I expect its cost to be, I wouldn't want to bring it out of the house anyway.

Computex has not even really started yet and already I've seen the two most exciting gaming developments I'll see this week. One is the new Nvidia RTX Spark Arm-based hardware, and the other is Intel's G3 family of handheld processors. It's a game-changing bit of hardware that is delivering on the twin pillars of gaming performance and far longer battery life than we've seen in a handheld PC up to now.

And all with an x86 CPU at its heart.

But as Intel's Tom Petersen tells me in downtown Taipei this morning, "you need frame gen to get a good experience" on handheld gaming PCs. But the added latency that's inevitable with frame generation is still the thing that's pushing people away from enabling and embracing the feature. Personally, I will happily enable frame gen in games where I'm not going to notice a latency hit (where I've already got a high enough input frame rate) and where it's going to noticeably smooth things out. But it is still an issue when you don't have a high input frame rate… such as in handhelds.

But is that added latency inevitable with frame gen? "We're actually going to be reducing that latency," states Petersen going off script for a moment. "There are two techniques that people like to think about. One is extrapolation.

"Latency is primarily derived from the time it takes to get the second frame. Just because of turning on XeSS MFG, you're picking up about eight milliseconds of latency. Now that is a big problem, right? That's why a lot of people don't like frame gen. In this handheld environment, you actually have more latency in the controllers than that eight milliseconds that we're talking about, but it's still not good enough."

So Intel is planning on doing something about that latency and that means shifting away from the now traditional interpolation method to extrapolation instead. In the current implementation of frame gen it's the waiting around that introduces the latency problems.

"We got the first frame, and then we waited this whole time until we got a second frame," says Petersen. "And when we got the second frame, we did all of our magic and generated three frames, and when we got that all done, guess what we did. We showed you the first frame.

"So the first frame has just been sitting around waiting for this entire process to happen, and now we're ready to show you four frames. So that's where the latency you feel is coming from.

"With extrapolation, we don't do that. With extrapolation, we get the first frame and we show it to you, and then instead of waiting for the second frame, we're using AI to predict where we think you're going to be. So, thinking about where you've been, the direction you're going, you're probably going to keep going that way. So, we're going to predict the frames, we're going to generate them.

"Now, we're going to mispredict sometimes—and that's why extrapolation is hard—but that's definitely the technology that will change the experience. There's one more that will make it better, which we're not ready to talk about yet, but you can do the same projection, the same prediction, without doing extrapolation."

So, how far away are we from getting extrapolation in our frame gen feature set? I'm expecting the answer to be years off, but Petersen explains that actually, he was hoping to have a demo of the extrapolation technique ready to show off today. But sadly it didn't make the show alongside the G3 Extreme.

Though if there was even a chance that an extrapolation demo was going to make Computex then maybe it's not too far off from becoming a reality.

From my time playing around with the new Panther Lake-powered MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ I've found some seriously extreme things about this handheld gaming PC. Mostly that's a good thing, but it being 2026—and the fact I'm talking about a new gaming handheld mere days after the Steam Deck price hike—you can probably already guess what the not-so-good extreme thing is…

• It's powered by the new Intel G3 Extreme processor
• It's extremely quiet
• It's battery life is extreme
• It feels extremely good in the hands
• And the price is obviously extreme

Yeah, that. There isn't yet a final price for the handheld yet, and there is likely only going to be one model at launch towards the end of June, but we've been told today at a pre-Computex hands-on event with the Claw that we're looking at $1500. So long as MSI can maintain production costs and keep it at that price point. Which is maybe a tiny bit concerning.

It is worth re-iterating that the Steam Deck has just had a hoofing great price hike itself, and has still somehow sold out of its entire stock for North America. Not that I'm making excuses for that eye-watering price, but if Valve's ageing handheld—and a far weaker setup at that—is going to set you back around $1,000 maybe we shouldn't be surprised that a system that looks to be the benchmark by which all other handheld gaming PCs are rated is going to cost a chunk more.

Now I've got that one negative out of the way let's get onto the more positive stuff… and there's a lot of it.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ specs

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is using the top chip in the new G3 range of dedicated handheld Intel chips, the G3 Extreme. That means you're getting the full 14-core processing array, along with the 12 Xe core Arc B390 iGPU. While there is a more affordable 10 Xe core version in the straight G3 chip, MSI is not looking at using that just yet.

I asked the question and was told: "So far we're starting with the G3 Extreme and we're going to be sticking with this one in our first wave."

Those 14 cores breakdown into just a single pair of Cougar Cove Performance cores, with eight Darmont Efficient cores, and a further four low power E-cores capable of operating on their own while leaving the rest of the more power-hungry cores turned off.

Which is the right way to structure it, if you ask me. I don't need a ton of high-performance CPU cores in my handheld. I get that it's fun to do the whole 'I used my handheld as a full desktop computer' thing, but if I've got a handheld I want it to be doing mobile stuff with a great battery life, and power budget saved by not spooling up some beefy cores will be my personal preference.

Along with that you're getting 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 and a 1 TB SSD. That SSD is of the standard 2280 variety, which means users have a greater number of options to choose from if they wish to upgrade the storage down the line. Though it bears saying that, owing to the limitations of the chassis, you're only able to use single-sided SSDs in there.

In terms of the I/O, there's a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports on the top, with a MicroSD card reader, fingerprint reading powerbutton, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. You're also getting new "HD haptic" linear resonant actuator (LRA) modules to deliver a new, more accurate, quieter, and lower powered vibration motor in the handles.

There are some things that notably haven't changed from the previous version of the MSI Claw, namely the screen, the Hall effect triggers and sticks, and the 80 Whr battery. So, you're still getting a 1200p IPS-level panel, with a peak luminance of 500 nits and support for VRR, from 48 Hz to 120 Hz.

MSI is also sticking with Windows, too. It's obviously going to have the Xbox mode of the Xbox Ally X, with MSI creating a lightweight quick settings screen that mimics what Asus has done with its Armoury Crate software. So, it will be a more tailored handheld experience, but SteamOS it is not.

Though MSI has tested SteamOS after Intel recommended giving the Claw a whirl with alternative operating systems, but I'm told "with SteamOS, there are still technical barriers." With my own experience of trying Valve's Linux OS out on various non-Asus, non-Lenovo, non-Valve handhelds, I would have to agree. MSI has tested other Linux operating systems in the labs, but when I ask if they're working okay I'm told they're "workable, but just for engineers".

MSI is also testing out TMR sticks in the labs, but the results of those experiments have come too late to get into this version of the Claw at least.

Even though it is using the same big ol' battery, the new Claw is a little lighter than the old one, coming in at 785 g versus 795 g for the old version. Which actually surprised me. Having picked it up and played around with it, it feels so much lighter than that in the hand. It's well balanced, and the flared grips, closer to that of the ROG Xbox Ally X and the Xbox Controller it's based on, make it feel far more comfortable than the previous device when you're actually holding it.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ battery life

"I promise you battery life that should be more impressive than the current Lunar Lake one we have right now," the MSI product manager for the new Claw tells us. "Thanks to Intel technology support for that."

Given the previous version was pretty impressive in that regard I cannot wait to see what the battery life is when we actually get one in our hands for proper testing outside of the MSI HQ in Taipei where I'm currently pawing at the device. MSI isn't giving out a specific battery life figure itself, but the Lunar Lake version just about topped two hours in the PC Mark gaming battery life test.

And one Intel rep I spoke to had been playing 007 First Light on his flight over to Taipei and hadn't thought about plugging it in until around four hours into the game.

There is a new Endurance mode, which drops the CPU cores down to just 8 W, leaving the whole thing with around a 17 W TDP. Of course, if you want to push it you can get the G3 Extreme up to 45 W if you want to run it in console mode plugged into the wall.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ performance

It's quick. That's something which should surprise no-one given how well the Arc B390 Panther Lake iGPU has performed in 12 Xe core laptops. I wasn't allowed to benchmark it per se, but was able to mess around with Hogwarts, F1 25, and Battlefield 6. At its native 1200p resolution—especially with XeSS frame generation doing its thing—you're going to be able to match its 120 Hz refresh rate in those first two at least.

BF 6 is a bit tougher on the GPU, but you'll still be able to top 60 fps at 1080p with some judicious use of XeSS, though without frame gen as yet.

I did have the Claw 8 EX AI+ running at 4K on a TV in MSI's office, with F1 25 running at between 80 and 90 fps, but I will say the use of frame generation, while necessary, wasn't doing good things for the visual stability or a smooth experience.

MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ hands-on verdict

I'm into it.

I'm into the Void Purple colourway MSI is going with for this initial release. I'm into the performance of Panther Lake, especially with a smartly specced out G3 chip, which prioritises the iGPU over jamming in more P-cores. I'm into the style and feel of the device in the hand. And I'm definitely into the battery life, too.

I worry about the price, and given the potential power/battery life balance of the 10 Xe version of the Intel G3 series, I'm a little disappointed that MSI is resolutely sticking to just a single expensive SKU. It's also a shame the Claw doesn't seem to be particularly supportive of Linux, but that may well just be a G3 thing.

Having played around with the device, and its quick settings/Xbox mode layout, it's still far more finicky than the standard Big Picture Mode experience you'll get with a simple Bazzite installation. I do reckon you'll quickly get used to it and its foibles, however.

But I've come away from my time with it impressed by what MSI and Intel have created here. There are other G3-powered handhelds I'll get my mitts on over the next few days at Computex, with Acer and OneXPlayer both having other machines here in Taipei, but while the first two MSI Claw devices felt very much like the company was partnering with Intel in a more experimental way, this is the first of its handhelds that really feels like a finished, premium product to me.

But that's just based on a few hours playing with the thing and chatting with MSI and Intel folk about the device and its design. The real proof will be when we get it home and start properly messing around with it.

If you recognise the name 'Anbernic', it's likely because you've had your eyes on the company's gorgeous retro gaming handhelds. You might want to think twice before buying one, though, as some folks have accused it of quietly downgrading the DDR4 memory to DDR3 and cutting memory size in half, with Anberic reportedly only denying the latter part of that allegation.

As reported by our friends over at Tom's Hardware, a user on Reddit noted that the Anbernic RG 34XXSP they bought reportedly came with 512 MB of LPDDR3 memory, instead of the 1 GB advertised on the website.

A quick look through an archive of the Anbernic websites shows the RG 34XXSP used to advertise 2 GB of LPDDR4 memory, but now merely says 1 GB. Speaking to Tom's Hardware, Anbernic says "the current standard memory capacity is 1GB" and that the 512 MB model was "an unexpected error". It also claims it will "assist with a replacement as a priority" for anyone affected.

That means anyone who has bought an Anbernic device recently should check that it does indeed have the advertised memory. As noted on Reddit, the downgrade to 512 MB of memory is "low enough to become an actual usage problem".

Notably, Anbernic did not seem to respond to the LPDDR3 downgrade claim, and replacing 'LPDDR4' on the website specs certainly doesn't paint the best picture about what memory you can expect in your device. As has become the norm with the memory crisis, that means buying the handheld now gets you a worse one than you would have gotten just a year ago, for the same price.

512 ram RG34xxSP - Update - Samsung 740 K4E4E324EE EGCF - 512 LPDDR3 from r/ANBERNIC

The problem many have with this downgrade is that it doesn't appear to have been signposted by Anbernic itself, outside of a specs sheet most will glaze over. If it instead got a price increase, people would notice immediately, but simply changing the spec sheet won't be enough to inform many of what has actually changed.

The memory crisis has hit many gaming companies over the last year. Just a few months ago, Wallace Santos, the CEO of gaming PC builder Maingear, told me, "In the two plus decades I've been doing this, this is the first time where I'm seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, at least for the next two years. It's not a multi-week problem, it's a multi-year problem that we're facing right now."

We've seen price increases, in turn, from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Valve on their respective gaming devices. And that's before mentioning the Steam Machine, which I'm not fully convinced we'll see soon, or at a reasonable price. Still, if you've got an Anbernic device, it might be worth cracking that bad boy open to see if all is in order.

Intel has just announced some new processors for handheld gaming PCs, and everyone knows what that means: a new MSI Claw. While other handhelds were lapping up AMD chips, the MSI Claw boasted Intel, so it's almost a given that the new G-series chips will tuck themselves inside a new Claw—and now it looks like we might have an actual image of what the handheld will look like.

A supposed Vietnamese promo image for the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ was recently posted on Reddit (via VideoCardz) after being spotted on the MSI Claw Discord server. VideoCardz also has a different photo of it, and the site claims it has obtained this separately, which increases the likelihood that it's legit. Nevertheless, there's still an 'unverified' caveat to all this, so take the salt and pinch it.

First look at the design of the new MSI CLAW 8 EX AI+: Alleged leaked promotional image from r/MSIClaw

The Redditor who posted the image says, "The leak seems to originate from press images leaked through a Vietnamese media outlet, and I obtained it from the MSI Claw Discord server."

According to my trusty buddy ChatGPT, the image's text translates to "MSI officially announces Claw 8 EX AI+ equipped with Intel G3 Extreme." That sounds about right to me, especially given we'd seen this name for the handheld show up at online retailers previously, so I won't question my non-sentient little friend.

The main thing worth mentioning here is its design, which seems to straddle both standard and ROG Xbox Ally X styles of handheld. The latter introduced controller grips that jut away from the screen in the style of the PlayStation Portal. This allows for a bigger screen while maintaining grip comfort. It hasn't gone the whole hog like the ROG Xbox Ally, though, with the screen just jutting down a little.

The recently announced Intel Arc G-series Acer handheld, on the other hand, has gone with more of a Lenovo Legion Go S kind of design: smooth, rounded grips and nary a jut in sight. Both are likely to be more comfy than the older, angled but non-jutted designs that you'd find in, say, an original Asus ROG Ally. Handheld makers seem to have learned a lot about what makes for a comfy device.

We haven't seen an official announcement from MSI yet, so no word on an official price or release date yet. But all signs point towards something very expensive. The retailer listings I mentioned earlier had the new Claw working out, after currency conversions, to $1,800+.

So, likely not one for those on any semblance of a budget, but we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps there'll be a non-Extreme G3 version with less storage at a more reasonable price.

The once budget handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck, recently received an astronomical price hike, with Valve citing "global logistical challenges" (otherwise known as the global memory crisis) for this decision. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney soon weighed in on the matter, drawing attention to Gabe Newell's $500 million superyacht in the process.

Commenting on X, Tim Sweeney says, "Everyone’s being too harsh here. There has been a significant rise in the cost of components that Steam customer spending ultimately funds, and economic trends have created severe disruptions in the component parts supply chain for megayachts."

For the unaware, the Leviathan is a 111-meter superyacht built for Gabe Newell with an on-board hospital, submarine garage, and 15 gaming PCs. It's the 50th-largest yacht in the world right now. It also comes with two gyms, a 250 square meter beach club with a spa and bar, and diving platforms. It's luxurious is the point I am trying to make.

It does sort of seem like Sweeney is just taking swings for the sake of taking swings here, because, although Gabe Newell does own a superyacht (that was likely super expensive), it's hard to believe the Steam Deck price hikes will exactly cover that cost.

The price of memory is sharply surging upwards, and Valve is just one of many companies that have raised prices to accommodate it. Without knowing the specific price of the hardware, it's hard to say if Valve is making a bigger profit or not from the rise than it was pre-memory crisis.

The comments on Sweeney's post are not very happy with it. The top one, as of the time of writing, says, "Hey Tim when was the last time Valve laid off their employees? Oh yeah never?"

It seems like the last public round of layoffs made at Valve was back in 2019, where 13 were let go. And tens of staff were let go six years prior, in 2013. Epic Games, on the other hand, let go of 1,000 employees just two months ago, with one employee saying, "We only had a slight hint that the company revenue wasn't doing well."

Despite prices of Steam Deck models rising by almost 50%, it still somehow sold out in North America less than 24 hours after the hike. If the Steam Deck can be successful way above its original price, it does make me a little worried that I'll need a superyacht to afford a Steam Machine for my living room, even if it may not be Valve's fault.

It feels like about time that we get some new and exciting handhelds, don't you think? Yesterday, Intel announced new Panther Lake chips designed specifically for handhelds, called the Arc G-Series (Arc G3 and G3 Extreme), and while we've already seen MSI's expensive Claw offering featuring one of the new chips, Acer has now also sprung one on us in the form of the Predator Atlas 8.

To my eyes and noggin, it seems very much like the Lenovo Legion Go S in design, which isn't a bad thing at all because that handheld is very comfy.

The new Acer even shares the exact same screen specs: 8 inches, 1900 x 1200 resolution, VRR support, 120 Hz max refresh rate, and 500 nits of peak brightness. And again, that's no bad thing at all because the screen on the Legion Go S is just about perfect for a handheld, in my opinion—well, perfect excluding an OLED.

So how about differentiators? Well, the most important differences will, I think, come primarily of course from the new G3 and G3 Extreme processors, but also from the battery. The latter is rated to 80 Wh, which is great for a handheld and matches the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, which holds its juice for an impressive amount of time.

Combine that with a new Panther Lake chip, though, and we'll hopefully have a handheld that can stay awake for a very long time. Acer SVP and GM Jim Johnson mentions the handheld's "exceptional battery life", and I'm cautiously optimistic about that actually being the case, though our previous tests with Panther Lake had it pretty neck-and-neck with previous-gen Lunar Lake on the battery efficiency front, so we'll see. Intel's Lunar Lake was already good on that front anyway, I suppose.

One possible downside is that the handheld will be quite heavy. If you get the version with a 60 Wh battery, you're looking at "under 770 g", and if you go the whole hog with an 80 Wh battery, it'll be "under 810 g." For reference, the ROG Xbox Ally X weighs 715 g for the version with an 80 Wh battery.

The new Acer handheld also has an 'AeroBlade' fan, which the company says is the "first metal fan in a handheld" and delivers up to a 10% increase in airflow compared to a plastic fan.

The Predator Atlas 8 will offer a maximum of 1 TB of storage, and it will max out at 24 GB of RAM rather than 32 GB. That limitation is a little more acute with handhelds, too, given that memory will be shared between the system and the GPU. Still, 24 GB should be more than enough for handheld gaming.

In all, to my eyes, this looks like it'll essentially be a slightly heavier Legion Go S with the benefits of new Windows/Xbox software and, of course, the new Intel chip. It'll all come down to how well that performs. Oh, and pricing, of which there's no word yet. Acer says it will be available in North America, EMEA, and Australia from October 2026, so we shouldn't have too long to wait to find out.

So, Intel has announced its new chips for handheld gaming PCs, the Intel Arc G-Series. And you know what? They're probably going to be pretty good given they're basically versions of the well-received Panther Lake processor. In fact, they could well be the fastest handheld chips on the market. Well, at least at launch. There are good reasons to doubt how committed Intel will be to Arc G in the longer term.

But here's the thing. The only reason why the top-of-the-range Intel Arc G3 Extreme could be the fastest gaming handheld chip at launch is because AMD has been dragging its feet horribly when it comes to APU technology.

AMD's Strix Point APU came out about two years ago. Strix Point was a decent advance on its predecessor, Phoenix, but it used the same TSMC N4 silicon, limiting the upgrade potential.

AMD has since launched the Gorgon Point APU, the follow up to Strix Point. But it's just a warmed over Strix Point APU in truth and, again, is still on N4 silicon.

Since Phoenix came out in 2023, AMD APUs have been stuck on the same silicon node for several years. But what you might call AMD's true next-gen APU, codenamed Medusa Point, isn't out until next year.

Now it's not entirely clear what node Medusa Point will be on. AMD has said that Zen 6, which Medusa Point will use for its CPU cores, is already in production on TSMC's new N2 node. But that's Zen 6 for Epyc server CPUs. It doesn't automatically follow that every Zen 6-based chip will be on N2.

Still, you'd expect Medusa Point to make the move to at least TSMC N3 silicon, which would represent the first node shrink for an AMD APU since 2023. And even N3 should allow AMD to squeeze in a much more powerful iGPU.

Oddly, however, the rumours suggest that Medusa Point will both stick with RDNA 3.5 graphics technology and actually regress from 16 graphics compute units (CUs) to just eight. If this is true, I'm not sure what to make of it all.

There are a couple of possibilities here. AMD could do a cut-down version of its Medusa Halo APU, which is rumoured to be getting up to 48 CUs, which fits into a handheld power budget. And that could represent a big step forward.

It's also possible that something suitable for handhelds could come out of the broader collab' on Xbox chips with Microsoft. Maybe there's a more performant mobile Xbox APU that could be used broadly in gaming handhelds.

Of course, whatever AMD has coming, it's just that—coming rather than here. Which is why the door has been left open for Intel. But, personally, I think that's a real pity.

However good Intel Arc G-series turns out to be, it's based on an essentially dead GPU architecture. Intel hasn't made an official announcement. But it didn't bother releasing its new big Battlemage GPU for gaming and all the indications are that the Arc experiment is over, with Intel set to replace Arc iGPUs in its chips with Nvidia graphics tech in a generation or two.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be super confident about paying what, in current market conditions thanks to the AI boom, will inevitably be a lot of cash for an Intel Arc G handheld. How much effort and money will Intel be putting into Arc drivers now that it has already decided to throw the towel in and let Nvidia do the gaming graphics?

Intel is promising "Day-0" driver optimisations for Arc G. But, frankly, I'll believe when I see it. And that will be doubly true a couple of years from now.

Intel has just announced the Arc G3 and G3 Extreme, new Panther Lake-based chips for handheld gaming PCs that promise "seamless gaming experiences on the go." A year or two ago, new handheld chips would have properly tickled my anticipation bone. But with the way 2026 is going, I'm not so sure. Will anyone be able to afford them?

Timing itself drives this point home: Intel's announcement comes right off the back of Valve massively increasing the price of the Steam Deck OLED. Valve's handhelds have traditionally been great value, even as other handhelds have climbed up and up in price. But no longer, as the 1 TB version now costs $949, up from $649.

"These new prices," Valve said, "reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole."

Seems about right. 2026 is seeming like the year when the harsh realities of AI industry-induced memory shortages, geopolitical conflict-induced material shortages, and general economic decline finally set into the consumer market. And there's been no hint that it will get better any time soon.

Talking handhelds specifically, I was pretty disheartened by the prices that they started climbing, even before there was much of a whiff of memory shortages. I got my hands on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X in August last year at Gamescom and still held some slivers of hope about the handheld market. But that console ended up costing $1,000, almost $200 more than the Lenovo Legion Go S, which I also thought was priced too high even at launch, despite how much I love it.

Those are both AMD handhelds, though. The main one you look towards if you want intel is the MSI Claw—specifically, for the latest Intel version, the Claw 8 AI+ A2VM. That's a high-end handheld and launched at $900 for the 1 TB, 32 GB version. Now, though, you're looking at far north of $1,000 for one.

Now, let's return to handhelds that will feature Intel's latest Arc G-series chips. We've already seen retailer listings on multiple occasions (in Australia and EU markets) for G-series MSI Claw handhelds that suggest a very high initial price tag, translating to around $1,800 USD or more.

And let me repeat: those are initial prices. Bearing in mind the Lunar Lake Claw's price hikes over time, and the fact that now even the Steam Deck OLED has shot up, and then throw in the fact that tech CEOs are predicting companies will literally have to go bankrupt because of memory shortages... well, let's just say I'm not holding my breath that handhelds with these upcoming Intel chips will actually end up in many consumers' hands. Gone are the days when a handheld could mean a cheap alternative to a gaming PC.

Computex 2026 hasn't even begun yet, and Intel is already rolling out the big guns. Its long-awaited Panther Lake-based handheld gaming PC processors have just been officially announced, and they're called the Intel Arc G3 and the Intel Arc G3 Extreme.

We've long mooted the idea that Panther Lake's efficiency and overall performance seem perfectly suited to a handheld chip, and after much teasing, the new processors look designed to do exactly that.

Intel says the new chips feature "up to Intel Arc B390 graphics" (that'll be the Extreme variant, then) and two P-Cores, eight E-cores, and four LPE-cores worth of processing grunt.

The blue team also says that handheld designs using the new processors will launch in the coming months, "beginning with Acer's Predator Atlas 8, MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, and OneXPlayer."

The press release promises "smooth, immersive gameplay and exceptional battery life without compromise" from the new offerings, and having messed around with a top-end Panther Lake laptop chip myself, I can believe it.

A big part of that "smooth gameplay" will likely be down to XeSS 3 support, which is highlighted alongside the new chips for its AI-based upscaling and Multi-Frame Generation chops. The company also points to Intel Precompiled Shader tech as an advantage to prevent stuttering, as it downloads prebuilt shader files in a similar way to Microsoft's competing solution.

Details are somewhat thin on the ground at the moment, although the company says we'll be getting more info at Computex 2026 itself. Still, it's a nice early official reveal, at the very least. I was just finishing my lunch, Intel. You couldn't have held on for five more minutes?

Valve announced a huge price hike on Steam Deck OLED handhelds overnight, with prices increasing by close to 50 percent in Australia. The 512GB Steam Deck OLED is now AU$1,199, up from AU$899, while the Steam 1TB Steam Deck OLED is now AU$1,429, up from AU$1,049.

So yeah: the 512GB model is now more expensive than the 1TB model was last week. Welcome to the future!

Here are the increases in handy table form:

What stands out above is that the Steam Deck LCD model hasn't suffered a price hike. There's a reason for that: they're no longer in production. What Valve has at hand is what remains from when they were still being manufactured, long before the AI boom eviscerated (among other things) the consumer technology world.

In most of the world the inexpensive Steam Deck LCD is out of stock. My colleagues in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom can't buy them. In other words, Australia is in a fairly unique position, in the sense that there's still a relatively inexpensive way to buy a Steam Deck in 2026.

I'm not sure how much stock remains in Valve's Australia-based warehouse, but if you want it, go forth. Be aware that the battery capacity isn't as great, the OLED has marginal performance boosts and, obviously, it has an LCD display.

"Steam Deck itself hasn't changed," Valve wrote in its announcement. "These new prices reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole. We’ll keep you updated if anything changes."

Andy Chalk reported on the wider reasons for Steam Deck's price hike, but you can in large part blame it on the ongoing (and likely to get worse) run on components by the AI industry.

These price hikes – which are hitting other consoles like the PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2, as well as most crucial PC components – paint a less-than-promising picture of Steam Machine's launch timing. It's a bleak time to be in the market for a gaming system, but there are some rare silver linings. Last year's ASUS Rog Xbox Ally can be had for only AU$799 at the moment.

The Nintendo Switch 2 felt quite pricey at launch, what with its $450 price tag and all. However, the memory crisis has hit everyone, and the Japanese company is feeling pressure to raise its prices.

This is all according to a recent report from Bloomberg. It notes that Nintendo's stock price has been on a decline, and hardware insecurity around both the memory crisis and outbreak of war in Iran has only made that worse.

Bloomberg notes that Nintendo investors are concerned its launch price of $450 is "deeply unprofitable".

Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Toyo Research Advice, tells Bloomberg that the stock will continue to decline unless Nintendo ups its prices. As of right now, a $50-$100 price increase seems the most likely, according to Bloomberg, but Yasuda thinks this is still not enough to make the console profitable.

However, companies don't tend to make their profits on consoles. The first Switch model did manage to break even, but it's a bit of an anomaly in that sense. The likes of Nintendo have control over its own storefront and will take a portion of sales from software. With hits like Pokémon Pokopia back in March, the Switch 2 is simply the price of entry to play the game.

Not everyone agrees that a price hike is the right call, though. As reported by Bloomberg, Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, says, "I think they would be foolish to raise prices".

As we reported earlier this year, Nintendo has been "carefully considering the situation" around the memory crisis and has been thinking about a price hike for a while. With Nintendo due to announce its earnings this Friday, all eyes are on that meeting.

I personally have been using my Switch 2 for almost a year now, and I still regularly turn the device on, but even $450 felt a bit much for me at launch. Paying $500-$550 for a comparably underpowered Nintendo console without any bundled games is a tough sell, no matter how much you want the next Mario game.

Masters of Albion is the new god game by Fable creator Peter Molyneux. Ahead of its early access launch in late April, studio 22cans addressed its Steam Deck compatibility in a blog post. "We have spent a significant amount of time setting this up, making sure that Masters is a smooth, playable experience on the Deck," the blogpost reads, "and it is time to let you all know that—YES!—Masters of Albion is Steam Deck Compatible."

The blog goes on to note that, at the time, the game was still in Valve's verification queue. It also lists some of the handheld optimizations the studio had worked on in advance of its early access release, including trackpad support and full Steam input support. 22cans seemed very confident that it would pass Valve's compatibility process though: "Until we receive the official 'Verified' badge, Masters of Albion may show as Unknown or Playable on Steam. However, we consider the game fully optimised for handheld."

I played Masters of Albion just after launch and at the time, its performance was mixed at best on Steam Deck. At lowest settings it would hover around the 30 fps mark but often lurch into the mid-20s and even into the late teens.

Crucially, playing it using the Steam Deck's onboard controls was fine, though I wouldn't dare play it without trackpads given how mouse-reliant it is. In this way, it's playable on Steam Deck, but certainly not in a docked situation (unless you were lucky enough to get a Steam Controller yesterday).

Still, it wasn't a great experience and I wouldn't recommend it. But then, very many Verified or Playable Steam Deck games aren't good experiences either. There are loads of officially Verified games that have really poor performance. Off the top of my head, Oblivion Remastered, Borderlands 4 and The Outer Worlds 2 are perfect examples of games that work but don't work well. I really don't think you should play any of those games on Steam Deck and if it were up to me, they'd get the same Unsupported note as Masters of Albion now has, and which I agree with: "This game's graphics settings cannot be configured to run well on Steam Deck".

"We do recognise Valve's assessment, and as a result performance optimisation remains a primary ongoing focus for the team," 22cans told me. "When we do roll out further performance updates, we will reassess against Valve’s requirements and pursue re-verification accordingly."

They went on: "Masters of Albion is playable on Steam Deck, and we’ve received positive feedback from community members on their experience. However, the game does not currently meet Valve’s performance thresholds for an official compatibility badge."

It all points to a continued inconsistency in Valve's verification process that continues to irk Steam Deck devotees, who are very vocal about the inconsistencies on Reddit and the Steam forums. Is a game really "perfect for Deck" if it looks like a PS2 game running at 24 fps? And why is that passable for some and not for others?

Valve's official Steam Deck compatibility documents don't specify a minimum performance requirement for Steam Deck, whereas Steam Machine has one even before launching (1080p and 30 fps). With the latter box looming, it's probably time for Valve to clarify what has become an ambiguous system.

With the vast majority of handheld gaming PCs using an AMD chip to handle graphics duties, users have been mostly limited to using FSR upscaling to give frame rates a healthy bump. However, with its latest update, the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X now offers Microsoft's Auto SR as a different option, and this upscaler is powered by the processor's NPU.

You know what an NPU or neural processing unit is, right? It's that thing inside some processors that seldom gets used for anything. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat bit of hardware that's great for handling AI models without using masses of power, but hardly any applications require one to be present.

But with the Auto SR Preview feature in the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X update, that's no longer the case, because Microsoft's upscaler doesn't run on the GPU inside the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme that powers the handheld PC. Instead, it's all done on the chip's NPU.

Microsoft explains why this is a good thing in a short blog about AutoSR: "When super resolution [upscaling] runs on the GPU, it counts towards frame time. To avoid impacting FPS, models are limited to a minuscule 1–2ms, constraining their size and quality. Game-integrated super resolution fits in this window and still delivers quality by relying on the game to provide more detailed texture data.

"Auto SR sidesteps this limit by running larger models on the NPU in parallel with the GPU. This gives Auto SR an entire extra frame of time to run the model—critical for devices like the ROG Xbox Ally X, that couldn’t otherwise run these models without significantly impacting FPS."

Now, it's important to note that Microsoft isn't saying that Xbox Ally X users should abandon using AMD's shader-based FSR in favour of Auto SR. Quite the opposite, in fact: "Game-integrated super resolution remains the preferred choice. Auto SR steps in where game-integrated super resolution isn’t available or when hardware constraints prevent it from simultaneously delivering quality and FPS."

In other words, a game that has been developed to use FSR natively is likely to produce better results than what Microsoft's automatic upscaler can achieve, but if that's not an option in the game, then Auto SR comes to the rescue. Well, sort of.

The system only works when the Xbox Ally X is docked and connected to an external display. The latter isn't a requirement; it's just that the only reason why you'd game on a docked handheld is to max out the power limit, so you can get the best frame rate on a big screen. But this does mean that you're still going to be using FSR, or AMD's driver-based RSR, when using the device in handheld mode.

That suggests the NPU has to work pretty hard to do Microsoft's upscaler, and even though it's designed to operate in low power conditions, the combination of the CPU, GPU, and NPU's power consumption probably isn't great for unplugged battery life.

And unfortunately, even with the update for Asus' handheld, getting Auto SR onto your Xbox Al…no, I'm not writing that silly name out again. Getting Auto SR onto your XAX is somewhat of a faff. You need to enrol in Xbox Insider to begin with, go through all the required updates in Windows, open the Xbox Game Bar to check that Auto SR is available, and install the latest Auto SR package from the Microsoft Store.

Let's hope that's all a lot simpler and easier to do once it's out of preview. Anyway, my take on all of this is that Auto SR will be a nice extra to have on laptops, once it's rolled out for more devices. And when desktop PCs with Intel Core Ultra chips, for example, get added to that pile, it might be a great way to finally make use of that NPU, while giving your graphics card a bit more breathing space to render your favourite games.

Although the AI-induced global memory crisis is currently doing its very best to wipe out the consumer PC market, that doesn't mean system vendors are giving up on releasing new products. In fact, we're just a month away from Computex, and you can be sure to see a whole raft of new desktops, laptops, and handheld gaming PCs. And in the case of the latter, the best ones could well have an Intel chip inside them.

That's if the latest PassMark benchmark result for the Intel Arc G3 Extreme is anything to go by, at least (via Wccftech). Never heard of that chip? Well, you've just joined a very large club, because it's not been officially announced yet, but essentially it's a Panther Lake processor that has a top-of-the-class graphics tile, but a retake-the-year compute tile.

More specifically, you're looking at a chip that has a 12 Xe core Arc B390 iGPU, which is a very capable little pixel pusher (though it really needs fast DRAM to make it shine). However, on the CPU-side of things, you're only getting two P-cores, eight E-cores, and four Low Power E-cores.

AMD's best APU for handheld gaming PCs, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, also has a beefy iGPU—16 RDNA 3.5 compute units, with a boost clock of up to 2.7 GHz—and seems to have better CPU specs, on paper, than the Arc G3 Extreme. While its eight cores comprise three Zen 5 and five, lower-clocked Zen 5c, in terms of configuration, it supports up to 16 threads in total. Intel's chip is a little behind with 14.

However, the PassMark result suggests this isn't an issue, as the multithreaded score of 29,222 is 25% higher than the average score of the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. While the gap isn't as impressive for the single-thread score (4288 vs 3964, 8% higher), Intel's pocket Panther Lake processor is better overall in these tests than AMD's chip, despite being mostly E-core powered.

For a handheld gaming PC, though, what ultimately matters is the iGPU, and that's where the Arc G3 Extreme could be a real winner. We tested the Ryzen Z2 Extreme's gaming chops when we reviewed the Asus Xbox Ally X, and if you look at those results and compare them to the Arc B390 in an Asus Zenbook Duo, you'll see that Intel's chip is considerably faster.

However, it's completely unfair to compare a laptop to a handheld gaming device, as the power levels aren't the same, so we'll just have to wait a bit longer for Intel to do the right thing and launch the Arc G3 Extreme. Oh, and then continue to hang around, kicking stones, muttering to ourselves, until we get a handheld gaming PC with said processor.

If we do, I suspect that it will top the charts in two areas: the fastest gaming handheld and the most expensive gaming handheld. Intel's Panther Lake chips aren't exactly cheap, and the Arc B390 needs the most expensive LPDDR5x around to get the best from it. That combination, in the era of the RAMpocalypse, just means one thing: a sky-high price tag.

Will Arc G3 Extreme portable PCs be worth a huge sum of money? Only time will tell.

Over four years ago, we were already reporting that Valve was working on a Steam Deck 2. In 2023, Valve said the Deck 2 was at least a couple of years away. So, what's the current sitrep? Short answer: still in progress, likely waiting on a decent new chip.

Speaking to IGN, Valve rep and Steam Deck designer Pierre-Loup Griffais says that the company is "hard at work" on the Steam Deck 2, which is great. However, there's still no firm release date for the device.

Griffais says that learnings from everything from the new Steam Machine and Steam Controller will go into the device, but still wouldn't give any guidance on a possible release date. As ever, the sticking point seems to be a sufficiently advanced new APU in terms of both performance and efficiency.

Late last year when Valve announced the new Steam Machine, Griffais said, "we're not interested in getting to a point where it's 20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life. We want something a little bit more demarcated than that," adding, "right now there's no offerings in that landscape, in the SoC [System on a Chip] landscape, that we think would truly be a next-gen performance Steam Deck."

The current Deck uses AMD-sourced hardware, of course, specifically a custom chip with Zen 2 CPU cores and RDNA 2 graphics. The Steam Deck OLED introduced a slightly refined and die-shrunk version of that chip, but it was essentially very similar hardware.

AMD has made significant advancements since those APUs were designed. But its APU division has arguably been slow to adopt cutting-edge manufacturing tech. Its very latest Gorgon Point APU, for instance, is a relatively minor respin of its existing Strix Point chip.

Both are based on AMD Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 technology with the same core counts and using essentially the same TSMC N4 silicon. Of course, Valve may well commission another custom APU. But you'd think the company would want to wait until AMD moves its APU tech onto TSMC's N3 technology, at the very least, if not its upcoming N2 node which is already in mass production.

We'd therefore guestimate that such a custom APU might be feasible for production late this year or early in 2027, which would likely translate into a launch window of late 2027, at the earliest, for a Steam Deck 2 device.

Personally, I'd like to see Valve jump all the way to TSMC's N2 node and deliver a really huge upgrade rather than something more incremental. That does seem to be the company's preference, going by the whole "50% better ain't good enough" vibe. Here's hoping.

The ASUS ROG Xbox Ally released in late 2025 and was marketed as an Xbox device (remember This Is An Xbox?), but it'll play mostly everything in your Steam library—providing the hardware specs allow it—and it even plays nice with the Epic Games Store. It was the lesser spec'ed of two Xbox Allys: the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X is the more premium model and PC Gamer's Dave James reviewed it favourably, though it is extremely expensive, especially in light of a February price hike.

Not wanting to fork out AU$1,799 for the ROG Xbox Ally X is totally understandable, but if you're after a decent handheld that'll play the vast majority of indies plus a lot of modern blockbusters, the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally will probably suit you. Its launch price was AU$999, but right now Amazon is selling it for AU$769, shipping included.

It's not the cheapest handheld gaming PC on the market: that would be the OG Steam Deck LCD, which Valve is selling for AU$649 at the moment until stock runs out, at which point it'll be gone for good.

So which should you get? I love the Steam Deck, and have written about how indispensable its trackpads have become for me. Performance between Steam Deck LCD and Xbox Ally are pretty similar, though the Xbox Ally has a 7 inch 1080p display with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the LCD has a 7 inch 800p display. The Xbox Ally has double the storage of the Steam Deck LCD at 512GB.

Leaving performance aside, the hugest point in the Xbox Ally's favour is that it runs on Windows 11. That's not good for a lot of reasons, but it's ideal for players who predominantly play online games that implement anticheat that's incompatible with Steam's Linux-based OS, such as Marathon or Destiny 2. The Xbox Ally is a clear winner in that department.

If you're in the market for a handheld gaming PC and don't mind spending more, check out our roundup of the best handheld gaming PCs.

The Playdate is a curious little device. It's a handheld console with a crank built into the side, which developers can make use of for in-game controls. What devs can't do anymore, though, is get their games accepted onto the Playdate Catalog store if they use generative AI "for art, audio, music, text, or dialog."

So says an announcement on the Catalog developer blog. Panic Inc, the developer of the device, defines generative AI as the use of:

• Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Google Gemini
• AI-based image generation models such as Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, Midjourney
• AI-base audio generation models such as MuseNet, Suno, Udio, and others

The announcement clarifies that games using AI in their development will no longer be accepted, but custom-written functions like enemy AI are fine. It also says that games already listed on the Catalog store that have previously used AI will remain, but they will be "flagged as such", with explanations provided as to exactly how generative AI was implemented.

"There are lots of people in the world who are extremely eager and excited to create beautiful music, art, and words for your Playdate creation," the statement opines.

"If you need any help at all finding people to help with any parts of your title, you can check out the collaborations channel in the Playdate Squad Discord or the Playdate developer forum."

The use of generative AI in games is a hot topic and sure to bring up some strong opinions. While a survey at the start of the year claimed that 50% of game developers think its inclusion is bad for the industry, some investors seem to think otherwise.

It must be a tempting option for the developers of small games for a relatively niche device, though, where budget and time constraints are pushed to their limits. Still, it's a no-go for gen AI-enhanced game development on the console-with-a-crank. The wheels, they keep turning. Something like that, anyway.

Considering it's emulating one of the most complex consoles ever made, PS3 emulator RPCS3 is remarkably easy to use. On desktop it has a load of helpful tooltips explaining the basic, recommended settings, with lots of graphical settings and checkboxes for the tinkering-inclined to play with if they so choose. The controller-friendly "big picture" experience wasn't quite so polished, but that's now changed with recent updates to the emulator polishing up the in-game overlay.

As you can see in the video above, the UI for running RPCS3 on a handheld like the Steam Deck now looks quite a bit like SteamOS itself. While the emulator did have an overlay already, it wasn't nearly as functional. You'd have to dig through layers of menus to access things like graphical or audio options, and not everything was tweakable while a game was running.

Now pulling up the overlay by pressing Start + Select offers immediate access to some handy options—taking a screenshot, saving state, restarting the game—as well as access to a settings menu with most of the adjustments available without further digging. Key graphics options like resolution scaling and the framerate limiter are right there and easy to adjust.

There are some more advanced settings here too, and without the helpful tooltips of the desktop UI they might not be intuitive to new users. But on the bright side, there's also an easily enabled or disabled performance overlay for monitoring framerate, and most of the settings can be changed without having to reboot a game. (Even rendering resolution, which until this recent work required a restart.)

The upshot is dialing in performance on a Steam Deck or ROG Ally should be relatively painless.

RPCS3 has been a marvel of a project for years now, being able to boot every game from the PlayStation 3 library and even bringing back online matchmaking for some beloved games. But I'd say its developers have been on a hot streak recently, both in terms of quality of life additions and performance improvements. Last month the emulator added an option on desktop to right-click a game and create a Steam shortcut, adding it directly to your Steam library. And just as these handheld-focused updates have rolled out, the team has also given the emulator a nice little speed boost.

Valve's upcoming Steam Machine should be a great PlayStation 3 emulator box, assuming this year's hardware shortages and soaring prices don't make it impossible to release.

Crimson Desert is one of those games that seems to be able to wrangle together all kinds of disparate gamers to attempt to master the bizarre behemoth of a multi-tool RPG. So it's a little unfortunate that it has had far from perfect hardware support. We witnessed the game's lack of Intel Arc support ourselves, and now Pearl Abyss and Asus are saying ROG Xbox Ally X devices might need to roll back their drivers to launch the game.

In its list of known issues, the game developer and publisher, Pearl Abyss, says: "We have identified an issue where Crimson Desert is not launching properly on ROG Xbox Ally X running on the latest driver version. Microsoft and AMD are currently looking into the issue. Until the issue is resolved, we recommend installing and using the driver version immediately prior to the latest one, available on the Asus website."

Asus reiterates the same and provides a download link that, uhh, doesn't work. If you want to download the driver to roll it back, go to the ROG Xbox Ally X driver and tools page, scroll down to Graphics, click See All Downloads, and download the driver Version V32.0.21025.27003.

It's never a nice feeling to have to roll back your drivers, but Pearl Abyss assures us that this is only until the issue is resolved. And if a driver rollback really does work to get the game launching on the Microsoft-Asus handheld, there's good reason to think it can get up and running on the latest drivers with a little work, too.

Hopefully, these compatibility issues will be resolved quickly. And ditto the Intel Arc ones, given after the initial issues were spotted, Pearl Abyss said it will work on bringing support for the GPUs to the game, and Intel told us it "remains ready to assist Pearl Abyss however we can."

Even if the game does work on your hardware, although general performance seems to be smooth, plenty of people have reported that the game is a little graphically glitchy, blurry, and so on. In which case, I suppose it's good news that the devs are actively working on improving things.

I can't have been the only one intrigued by the prospect of Ayaneo's Next 2 handheld, a Strix Halo-powered machine with a whopping 115 Wh battery, twin NVMe drives, a whole host of high-capacity memory configurations, and the sort of specs sheet that would make many gaming laptops tremble in their boots.

Well, the company has just announced it's temporarily suspending pre-orders of the device, as storage costs make it less than viable in the middle of the ongoing memory and storage supply crisis.

The announcement was made on Ayaneo's Indiegogo page, and it makes for sad reading. The company goes into great detail to explain its decision, and the timeline surrounding the Next 2's fall from grace.

"When we launched Next 2, storage prices were already at a very high level", the statement reads. "At that time, we were already under significant cost pressure. However, considering that many Ayaneo fans had been looking forward to this product for a long time, we still decided to release it as planned and open pre-orders so as not to disappoint our supporters.

"However, after the Chinese New Year, when we communicated with our suppliers again to confirm the latest storage procurement prices, we found that storage prices had increased to several times higher than before the holiday. Under such circumstances, the overall cost of the product has become far higher than our current selling price."

"In fact, even before the launch of Next 2, storage prices had already been rising for several months", the statement continues. "At that time, we believed the price might be approaching its peak. Even if it meant making little to no profit—or even a slight loss—we still decided to move forward with the launch.

"However, what we did not expect was that storage prices would not only continue to rise but would increase even more rapidly. At present, the total cost of the product has far exceeded our selling price, even approaching twice the price we originally set. Under such circumstances, continuing to sell this product is no longer sustainable."

Ayaneo goes to great pains to point out that production will still go ahead as planned for backers who have already pre-ordered the handheld, and that the suspension is temporary. "If storage prices return to more reasonable levels in the future, we may consider resuming the sale of Next 2", says the company.

Whenever that is. Current estimates vary as to when this whole fiasco might eventually peter out, but it's looking like 2026 is a write-off, and likely 2027 as well.

DRAM manufacturers are scrambling to bring new facilities online to keep up with the AI server-based demand, but it takes a long time to gussy up an electronics supply chain, and I fully expect we won't see the end of highly-inflated memory and storage prices any time soon.

Cheery news all round, ey? On the plus side, Ayaneo's transparency here is refreshing, and it says that after-sales service support will not be affected. It seems to be about as well-handled as you could reasonably expect, but that doesn't stop it from being disappointing news for those of you looking for a handheld gaming PC with serious grunt.

Not so long ago, I was primarily a console gamer. One thing I definitely don't miss about those bad old days is that, unlike with a gaming PC, when things went wrong, cracking the console open myself was rarely a real option. Well, thanks to the EU's right to repair bill, some significant repairability hoops are about to disappear for the Nintendo Switch 2.

Teardown team iFixIt was previously unimpressed with the repairability of the Nintendo Switch 2, particularly on account of the battery being easy to disconnect but otherwise glued in place within the launch model. The good news is that Nintendo will soon release a version of the Nintendo Switch 2 with batteries you can replace much more easily yourself—but only in the European Union (via Nikkei).

The new version of the Switch 2 will feature replaceable batteries for both the main console and the Joy-Con controllers, too. The Switch 2 model featuring the glued-in battery will continue to be sold in Japan, and Nintendo still doesn't recommend folks outside of the EU attempt to replace the console's battery themselves.

Instead, Nintendo and many non-console manufacturers like it often only offer consumers a very short list of authorised repair facilities. Packing up and sending off faulty hardware is not only a faff, but can also be expensive if these sanctioned specialists then decide it's not worth the repair. In other words, there have been concerns for a long time that this repairability model actually limits consumer choice.

For instance, back in 2023, iFixit described Apple's iPhone 14 as 'literally not repairable' due to strict parts validation rules. This severely limited smaller repair shop operations' ability to fix the smartphone back then, though the iPhone 16—a year later, with its debond-on-demand battery—may have signified the first wave of a sea change.

Basically, the replaceable battery model of the Switch 2 exists so that the console remains compliant with various repairability laws that will soon come into effect across EU member states—specifically, the EU introduced fresh battery regulation back in 2023.

This includes a directive that aims to ensure portable batteries are easy to remove, replace, and recycle by typical consumers "without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy or solvents to disassemble it." This comes into effect from February 2027.

As we've previously covered, the EU further strengthened the 'right to repair' with fresh legislation back in 2024 as well. The resulting directive aims to "reduce premature disposal of viable goods purchased by consumers and to encourage consumers to use their goods longer" by "allowing consumers to seek affordable repair from the repair service provider of their choice." EU member states have until 31 July 2026 to incorporate this directive into national law.

Nintendo, seeing which way the legislative wind is blowing, is simply getting its ship in order. Now we've seen such a major player steering with the EU's current, odds are plenty of handheld gaming PC manufacturers will soon follow suit.

Offering replaceable batteries has been a long time coming for the handheld market, and there's little room to argue now that the EU has made it clear that that's the price to paddle among its waters. Here's hoping similar 'right to repair' legislation outside of the EU gets a boost, too, in the near future.

As much as I like the sound of bedtime gaming, I haven't yet committed to a handheld gaming PC of my own. Part of that is down to pricing, but a not insignificant part of it is also to do with the question of long-term hardware support.

Lenovo, for one, is saying it's in the handheld arena for the long haul. Specifically, the company said it planned to support its original AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme-based handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go, until at least 2029.

"Support for the Lenovo Legion Go (8.8”, 1) has not been discontinued," The company wrote in an official statement issued to PCWorld, "Lenovo is actively continuing to support the Legion Go (8.8”, 1) with necessary driver and BIOS updates and will continue to do so through October 2029. Lenovo is working in concert with AMD on driver update cadence, and new updates will be released once they have passed Lenovo’s rigorous review protocols."

Concerns around long-term support for the Legion Go first arose after a machine translation of a Lenovo Korea customer service response suggested that there were no plans for the original handheld to receive any further driver updates. At the time, the Lenovo Legion Go hadn't received a GPU driver update since last September.

Last week, our Nick investigated another similarly AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme-based handheld, the Asus ROG Ally. The handheld's attempt to run Resident Evil Requiem left much to be desired, especially compared to the older Steam Deck.

A driver update arrived for the ROG Ally the same week as Nick's story, though it did not substantially improve the handheld's in-game performance. The entire episode did not seem to disprove the rumour that AMD had abandoned driver support for its Ryzen Z1 chips.

Lenovo's latest statement is highly specific and declarative, instead suggesting a continuing support commitment to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip from AMD. That's just as well, as the original Lenovo Legion Go is barely two years old and can still go for a premium price even second-hand. However, it's interesting to note that to date we've not heard anything quite as confident from Asus ROG about support for the Ally.

I enjoy a weird prototype as much as the next person, but it's not CES, and I'm a bit surprised to see Lenovo whipping out the big guns for Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026. The Legion Go Fold is rather large for a mobile device.

The Legion Go Fold is a concept handheld gaming PC with a large 11.6-inch screen betwixt two detachable controllers. This screen can be mounted in a few ways: horizontally, as one large window onto your games or applications; or, if that doesn't sound ludicrous enough, vertically, with more of a view to two applications open at the same time.

Thankfully, this screen is also foldable, meaning it can pack down to a 7.7-inch screen more befitting a handheld form factor. It also has a specially-designed folding case with a trackpad and keyboard built-in—essentially turning it into a regular laptop.

A regular laptop with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V and 32 GB of RAM. There's no mention of a dedicated GPU, so I'm assuming it relies on the eight Xe-cores of the Arc 140V iGPU included with its choice of chip. So performance may be a little limited, as might be the battery life. It includes just a 48 Whr battery.

"This proof of concept is designed for gamers who don’t have hours to sit in front of a TV or PC, or who don’t want to juggle both a laptop for work and a handheld for gaming when travelling," Lenovo says. I'm one of those gamers when travelling, though I usually just take the one laptop on the plane and play Vampire Survivors until my eyes hurt.

It's going for a similar form factor to the Asus ROG Flow Z13, with the added benefit of a folding screen and detachable controllers to make it much better suited to gaming. I'm definitely more on board with that, as it feels an attempt has been made to justify its gaming aspirations, though we have tested handheld gaming PCs with really large screens before and they're just not that nice to hold. If it's not the size of the screen that's a bother, it's the weight.

Though one strange addition is a tiny screen on the right-side controller. A round one, shown to display a tiny analogue clock face in the image provided by Lenovo. Though you can do more with it, according to Lenovo, such as performance metrics and other settings. You can also use it as a customisable hotkey, as it's a tiny touchpad.

No word on when this one will show up—if, indeed, it ever does.

It's busy and crowded out there in the world of handheld gaming PCs. If you want to stand out, what you need is some kind of unique feature. Hummm. How about the world's first glasses-free 3D handheld PC? We give you the Abxylute 3D One.

Actually, this huge handheld has quite a bit more going for it than just the glasses-free 3D stuff. For this class of device, the 10.95-inch IPS display is pretty monstrous. Then there's the modular construction with detachable controllers, kick-stand and a keyboard. Oh and it's all powered by an Intel Lunar Lake chip, in this case the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V complimented by 32 GB of memory.

The real novelty is, of course, the glasses-free 3D tech. Abxylute describes it as, "electronic parallax barrier technology, the most mature and reliable form of glasses-free 3D tech today to balance brightness, tracking, and viewing comfort." But I think it amounts to essentially the same approach as seen in various glasses-free 3D monitors.

That includes the Acer Predator SpatialLabs View 27 I reviewed last year, which uses lenticular lenses and eye-tracking cameras. The Abxylute 3D One does indeed have tracking cameras at the top of the display and the resulting visual experience is very much the same as that Acer monitor, albeit in a smaller scale. But hold that thought, there are a few other issues to attend to.

Support for this kind of glasses-free technology isn't a given for any particular game. Moreover, there are also hardware limitations to deal with. In terms of game support, at the time of writing Abxylute lists 46 games with "native" support.

You can peruse the full list on Abxylute's website. Some of the better known titles include Baldur's Gate 3, Death Stranding, Starfield, Hogwart's Legacy and a couple of Assassin's Creed installments. But 46 games is 46 games. It's not, ultimately, very many.

There's also an "AI" 3D mode that doesn't require explicit and specific game support and can be applied to any game in theory. In practice, while it does work on a basic level, it's so hit and miss in terms of correctly mapping depth to rendered objects (including sometimes "wrapping" menu elements around 3D objects) that it isn't really usable. Broadly, it's probably safer to assume that if a given game isn't on the supported list, the glasses-free 3D feature may not work well enough to be usable.

Actually, it's an open question as to whether you'd really want to use the glasses-free 3D tech at all. Part of the problem is performance. Abxylute has decided to go with a 2,560 by 1,600 resolution screen for the 3D One. With most handhelds, you'd have the option of running at lower, non-native resolutions where performance is marginal. But not on the Abxylute 3D One. Not if you want to use the 3D tech, anyway.

According to Abxylute, using a non-native screen resolution will, "disrupt the 3D interlacing and cause depth distortion." A simpler version is that it really doesn't work at all at non-native resolutions.

If that sounds like a problem on a handheld running an iGPU and such a high-resolution screen, actually it's even worse than you think. "The 3D One uses integrated graphics," Abxylute explains, "and 3D mode renders two 2.5K frames simultaneously, which is demanding. We recommend lowering graphics quality if needed, but do not reduce resolution. Some games may fail to display correctly in 3D if the resolution is below 2.5K."

The performance implications of this are all too obvious. 2,560 by 1,600 is one heck of an ask for a chip with integrated graphics. Another niggle involves GPU drivers. Over to Abxylute again: "Do not update the GPU driver. The current version has been carefully tuned for the best 3D performance. A newer driver might improve 2D FPS very slightly, but could cause visual issues or instability in 3D mode."

Great. So, to enable the glasses-free 3D experience, you're running at 2x 1600p with old drivers on an Intel iGPU.

Let's take Baldur's Gate 3 as an example. It's actually kinda playable at 1600p High settings in regular 2D mode. But turn on the 3D effect and it's awfully choppy. That's all running purely natively. Turn on XeSS Quality upscaling and the 2D experience is pretty smooth. But the 3D frame rate actually gets worse.

Knock things down to Low settings and native rendering and you're looking at mid 30s frame rates in 2D mode and a reported mid 20s with 3D enabled, but lots of spikes in the frame rate graph that make it feel even worse than that. Turn on Quality upscaling and that improves to frame rates in the high 40s or low 50s in 2D mode and the mid 30s in 3D mode. But, again, it looks and feels much worse than mid 30s in 3D mode. It's still not really playable.

Long story short, the choice to go with a 2,560 by 1,600 screen given the need to run at native resolution to enable the lenticular 3D feature really doesn't make much sense. Maybe that was the only panel available, in which case you'd have to question the whole endeavour somewhat. But a 1080p screen certainly seems like it would have given the glasses-free 3D experience a better shot at being truly playable.

Whatever, putting the question of pure performance to one side for a moment, there's also the actual visual experience, how good does the 3D effect look? Exactly what you make of it will be somewhat subjective, but here's my take.

First, it's fairly easy to setup, though you do have to launch games from the 3D Zone launcher rather than, say, Steam. Thereafter, it's a simple case of flipping the 2D/3D toggle switch on the top bezel. And it does actually work and in some ways is quite impressive.

There's a real sense of depth, of, well, 3Dness, particularly for individual objects or characters. They can really pop out of the screen. It's also very noticeable when you switch back to 2D mode how flat everything looks, especially if you're standing still, in-game. But there are limitations.

While individual objects are convincingly three dimensional, that's not entirely true of the whole scene. The overall effect is a bit like a pop-up book, with various elements placed at discrete depth positions in the scene, but not a truly seamless 3D vista. Another problem is that you don't get a sense of looking through a window into a life-sized 3D world. It's more like looking at a tiny scale model of everything.

There's also a noticeable step down in image quality and screen brightness in 3D mode. Personally, I sense a degree of eye-strain associated with the 3D mode, too. Your eyes have to tune into the effect, adjust to the lenticular output, and it doesn't feel hugely natural for a lengthy gaming session.

All of these issues also apply to the Acer monitor I reviewed last year. Overall, my take that applies to both that screen and this handheld is that glasses-free 3D tech is superficially impressive and fun, but only on immediate acquaintance. It's likely not a feature I would use in most games given the performance limitations and even where performance isn't an issue, I'm not sure the visual experience entirely hangs together.

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1080p gaming performance

Black Myth Wukong (1080p Medium)Black Myth Wukong | Upscaling (1080p Medium)Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Medium)Cyberpunk 2077 | Upscaling (1080p Medium)F1 24 (1080p Medium)F1 24 | Upscaling (1080p Medium)Horizon Zero Dawn (1080p Original)Horizon Zero Dawn | Upscaling (1080p Original)Metro Exodus Enhanced (1080p High)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

19

15

OneXPlayer X1 Air

22

17

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

26

19

07.51522.530

Black Myth Wukong (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	19 Avg FPS, 15 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	22 Avg FPS, 17 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	26 Avg FPS, 19 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

30

23

OneXPlayer X1 Air

35

21

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

39

30

010203040

Black Myth Wukong | Upscaling (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	30 Avg FPS, 23 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	35 Avg FPS, 21 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	39 Avg FPS, 30 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

31

27

OneXPlayer X1 Air

38

24

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

41

34

015304560

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	31 Avg FPS, 27 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	38 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	41 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

45

34

OneXPlayer X1 Air

55

37

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

53

44

015304560

Cyberpunk 2077 | Upscaling (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	45 Avg FPS, 34 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	55 Avg FPS, 37 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	53 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

66

60

OneXPlayer X1 Air

87

70

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

84

76

0255075100

F1 24 (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	66 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	87 Avg FPS, 70 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	84 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

81

73

OneXPlayer X1 Air

98

85

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

97

88

0255075100

F1 24 | Upscaling (1080p Medium) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	81 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	98 Avg FPS, 85 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	97 Avg FPS, 88 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

45

23

OneXPlayer X1 Air

48

28

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

48

15

015304560

Horizon Zero Dawn (1080p Original) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	45 Avg FPS, 23 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	48 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	48 Avg FPS, 15 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

50

9

OneXPlayer X1 Air

57

36

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

70

18

020406080

Horizon Zero Dawn | Upscaling (1080p Original) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	50 Avg FPS, 9 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	57 Avg FPS, 36 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	70 Avg FPS, 18 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

ABXYlute 3D One

29

20

OneXPlayer X1 Air

23

12

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

27

15

07.51522.530

Metro Exodus Enhanced (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	29 Avg FPS, 20 1% Low FPS
OneXPlayer X1 Air	23 Avg FPS, 12 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	27 Avg FPS, 15 1% Low FPS

System performance

Thermal performanceCinebench R243DMark Time Spy3DMark Storage7-zip

Max CPU temp (°C)

Max CPU package power (W)

ABXYlute 3D One

82

30

OneXPlayer X1 Air

96

37

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

96

55

0255075100

Thermal performance Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	82 Max CPU temp (°C), 30 Max CPU package power (W)
OneXPlayer X1 Air	96 Max CPU temp (°C), 37 Max CPU package power (W)
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	96 Max CPU temp (°C), 55 Max CPU package power (W)

Single-core index score

Multi-core index score

ABXYlute 3D One

551

116

OneXPlayer X1 Air

119

568

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

111

762

0200400600800

Cinebench R24 Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	551 Single-core index score, 116 Multi-core index score
OneXPlayer X1 Air	119 Single-core index score, 568 Multi-core index score
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	111 Single-core index score, 762 Multi-core index score

Index score

GPU index score

CPU index score

ABXYlute 3D One

4342

4087

6731

OneXPlayer X1 Air

4457

4139

7911

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

4033

3663

9462

02,5005,0007,50010,000

3DMark Time Spy Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	4342 Index score, 4087 GPU index score, 6731 CPU index score
OneXPlayer X1 Air	4457 Index score, 4139 GPU index score, 7911 CPU index score
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	4033 Index score, 3663 GPU index score, 9462 CPU index score

Index score

Avg bandwidth (MB/s)

Access time (ųs)

ABXYlute 3D One

1625

274.83

109

OneXPlayer X1 Air

2737

464.7

65

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

1163

199.98

155

07501,5002,2503,000

3DMark Storage Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	1625 Index score, 274.83 Avg bandwidth (MB/s), 109 Access time (ųs)
OneXPlayer X1 Air	2737 Index score, 464.7 Avg bandwidth (MB/s), 65 Access time (ųs)
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	1163 Index score, 199.98 Avg bandwidth (MB/s), 155 Access time (ųs)

Compression (GIPS)

Decompression (GIPS)

ABXYlute 3D One

56.7

52.9

OneXPlayer X1 Air

62.27

56.579

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X

81.14

86.54

0255075100

7-zip Data

Product	Value
ABXYlute 3D One	56.7 Compression (GIPS), 52.9 Decompression (GIPS)
OneXPlayer X1 Air	62.27 Compression (GIPS), 56.579 Decompression (GIPS)
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X	81.14 Compression (GIPS), 86.54 Decompression (GIPS)

Of course, you could treat the whole glasses-free 3D thing as a mere extra and assess the Abxylute 3D One more broadly as a gaming handheld. How does it hold up by that more conventional metric? The two most obvious things are that it's both very expensive and very large. The size of the screen certainly has some advantages in terms of gaming immersion. But it does rather knobble the portability aspect compared with much smaller handhelds.

The Abxylute 3D One is bundled with a protective carry case, for instance. But it measures over 15 inches or about 40 cm across. It's debatable, then, how much more portable this device is than a gaming laptop. And even in today's distorted market, you can get an RTX 5070 Ti laptop for the same amount as the Abxylute 3D One's current $1,599 list price. And that is an incomparably more powerful gaming device.

That portability arguably gets worse when you factor in battery life. To give you an example, I found you could get exactly an hour out of the battery playing Baldur's Gate 3 at 2,560 by 1,600 at low settings and using XeSS Quality upscaling. That's with the 3D One's power mode set to balanced the screen running a little over half brightness.

That's not great, even in the context of gaming handhelds, which are universally pretty bad. One way of addressing that is to use an external power brick. I have a Ugreen 25,000 mAh brick which is about as big as you can take on a plane. It's also capable of outputting at 145 W, so plenty powerful enough. Indeed, it will increase the battery charge as you play. And here's how things work out.

Roughly speaking, draining the battery pack takes about one hour, over which time the 3D One's battery charge increases by 40%. Do the math and that means the pack will give you an additional one hour and 25 minutes play time. So, even with an external brick that's the largest you are allowed to take on a commercial flight and hardly improves this device's portability, that's about two and a half hours of total play time. Not exactly stellar, is it?

Then you also have to remember that Intel has recently launched its new Panther Lake chip with a massively improved iGPU. It's not only much faster, but can also match Lunar Lake's performance at much lower power consumption, with pretty obvious implications for battery life. At a guess we're at least four or five months away from the first handheld gaming PCs with Panther Lake. It may be more than that. But if you unloaded $1,600 on this thing now only to find there are loads of much more powerful and efficient handhelds out there later this year, I doubt you'd be happy.

With all that in mind, you could argue the rest of the Abxylute 3D One's qualities are somewhat academic. For the record the two detachable controllers have both hall-effect joysticks and track pads, and are pretty nice to use. I particularly like the tactility of the shoulder buttons. There's also a nifty little dock you can use to join them together into a single larger wireless controller, which is a nice idea.

To that you can add a clip-on keyboard and a kickstand behind the tablet section of the device, enabling you to use it a little like a laptop. As for connectivity, there are two USB-C ports and one USB-A. The overall build quality is certainly sturdy, but the feel of the plastics used for the main tablet chassis and controllers is a bit hard and scratchy.

The 10.95-inch display is also pretty nice. It's punchy and bright, albeit given the lofty price point you might have expected an OLED panel. Oh, and for those who care about such details, the 1 TB SSD is a Zettastone CP300Y, which is a PCIe 4.0 drive, but uses QLC NAND flash memory as opposed to faster and more expensive TLC NAND.

All of which means it's hard to be hugely positive about the Abxylute 3D One. It's very expensive and yet fairly obviously compromised. Physically it's big enough and the battery life is fleeting enough that some would argue you may as well get a much faster gaming laptop for the same money. And its main selling point, the glasses-free 3D feature, doesn't really add up. Then factor in the imminent arrival of a much faster handheld chip from Intel, and the Abxylute 3D One feels a little dead on arrival.

Speaking of which, as I write these words, it's yet to ship out to customers, but it's available to pre-order on the Abxylute website. Shipping is said to "start" in February, so presumably is imminent, with a US price of the aforementioned $1,599 and the UK coming in at £1,194. Shipping is free within that price, but it's not totally clear what the customs and tariff implications are.

Abxylute's website says, "customers, especially those in EU countries, are responsible for paying any required taxes. In the United States, packages over USD$800 may be subject to taxes." So, it seems like you might have to pay even more for the device shipped and landed in most territories. At the listed price, the Abxylute 3D One struggles to make a case for itself. If tariffs and duties mean it's even more expensive than that, well, that only makes it even harder to recommend.

Thanks to the ongoing AI-induced shortages on RAM and storage, it's a rocky time for handheld gaming PCs. Asus recently jacked the price up on its ROG Xbox Ally X, from AU$1,599 to AU$1,799, and Steam Deck shortages have just hit the United States. They haven't hit Australia yet, but it's probably only a matter of time.

Which is why I was surprised to see that Lenovo's Legion Go S SteamOS gaming handheld —which we consider the very best—is not only readily available in Australia but going for a discount. The AU$1,329 device is currently available for AU$1,199, with delivery included.

The deal is ironically part of Lenovo's ongoing Study Essentials sale. While I concede that a handheld gaming PC can be used as a PC, it's probably the least suitable form factor for it. Still, fair play, Lenovo.

The Legion Go S runs SteamOS, which means it'll functionally work like a Steam Deck, only it's a more powerful device in almost every respect. Not only that, its 120Hz IPS screen is larger at 8 inches, versus the Steam Deck OLED's 7.4 inches, and it runs at a maximum resolution of 1200p versus the Steam Deck's 800p. You can expect much higher frame rates on the Legion Go S compared to the Steam Deck OLED, too.

There are drawbacks: In his review, Jacob Ridley notes that the battery isn't exactly the best on the market. Not only that, but the trackpad, in Jacob's words, "basically doesn't work". I really love the trackpad on the Steam Deck because it makes mouse and keyboard-only games more viable on the handheld, but if you're the kind of player who sticks exclusively to gamepad-led games, the trackpad being crap won't matter much to you.

Also, if you're gaming on a budget and don't especially need brilliant performance on your handheld, this discount is still AU$150 more expensive than the 1TB model of the Steam Deck OLED. That extra money for the Lenovo is definitely worth it for its performance boost, but not everyone needs high performance, especially if you're just going to main Vampire Survivors and Balatro.

Still, it's interesting to see a handheld get a discount during these turbulent, resource scarce times. Chances are we'll be seeing fewer and fewer significant discounts on PC handhelds in the coming months.

The ROG Xbox Ally X was already expensive when it launched late in 2025, but its Australian RRP of AU$1,599 has just increased to AU$1,799. That AU$200 increase is pretty significant when you consider that other consoles, like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, usually get price hikes in increments of AU$30 to AU$50.

In other words: If you wanted a ROG Xbox Ally X and didn't buy one yesterday, you're probably kicking yourself. I've reached out to Asus for more information on the price increase, and will update when I hear back. The price rise is reflected by all retailers that sell the unit directly in Australia, including JB Hi-Fi and ASUS direct.

It's pretty easy to put the pieces together ourselves though. The RAM and storage crisis is in full swing and few gaming hardware makers are unaffected by it. It's affecting Steam Deck OLED supply in some regions, and it's reportedly prompting Nintendo to reconsider its price for the Nintendo Switch 2. Sony is also reportedly looking to delay the PS6, while Valve has confirmed its Steam Machine and Steam Frame hardware has been pushed back due to the shortages.

The Ally X is one of two Xbox-branded handhelds released last year. It's the more powerful device: the lesser ROG Xbox Ally hasn't received a price increase from its AU$999 RRP, and in fact, can usually be had for at least AU$100 cheaper (such as what Amazon is offering at the moment). Dave James reviewed the Ally X last year and liked it, but noted even then that it's a pricey beast.

According to VGC, the ROG Xbox Ally X has also copped a price increase in Japan of the equivalent of AU$200.

The RAM and storage crisis can be mostly blamed on the AI boom, which is sucking up all available resources so that blue-tick X users can generate cringe-inducing approximations of Star Wars and declare the film industry is over. The CEO of Phison thinks many consumer electronics manufacturers "will go bankrupt or exit product lines" by the end of the year thanks to the crisis.

Reports last week that the Steam Deck is sold out in the United States prompted speculation ranging sober through to outlandish, but the actual reason is simple and you've likely already guessed it: like the rest of the games industry, Valve has been hit by the memory crisis.

"Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages," Valve now acknowledges on the Steam Deck store page, confirming that the handheld's scarcity can be blamed on the same phenomenon that has delayed the Steam Machine, jacked up RAM and SSD prices, and threatens to shutter "many electronics manufacturers".

Even the likes of Sony and Nintendo are being hit hard: Sony is considering pushing back its next-gen console until as far as 2029, while Nintendo is considering a price increase on the Nintendo Switch 2.

At time of writing, all Steam Deck OLED models remain available in the UK and Australia.

While the Steam Machine is still on track to release in the first half of 2026, Valve hoped to announce a price and firmer release date by now. "But the memory and storage shortages you've likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then," Valve wrote last week. "The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame)."

The crisis has everything to do with the AI industry's greedy demand for memory, so next time you're watching a Gemini-generated reel about a giant Norwegian Forest Cat eating live cartoon tuna while razing Manhattan you'll know who to blame. To understand the crisis in full detail, Jacob Fox's RAM shortage explainer is a great resource.

While we're still a day away from the official start of 2026's Chinese New Year (it's tomorrow, should you be wondering), handheld gaming PC wizard Ayaneo has started its celebrations early with a list of commitments to improving the overall customer experience. One part of this will be especially good news to some buyers because it's adding repair facilities based in the US.

Right now, if you have any warranty repairs needing to be done on your Air 1S, Flip DS, or Kun handheld, the whole caboodle might have to be shipped back to Ayaneo's factory in China. But perhaps not for much longer, as Ayaneo writes that "We are actively advancing our overseas repair capabilities. We have initiated cooperation discussions with multiple third-party repair organizations and have sent test units for validation.

"Our overseas repair network is planned to launch starting from the US market. This is currently in a testing phase, and we will officially announce it to the public once validation is complete."

In addition to this, Ayaneo also says that it now uses a "dedicated service email to centrally address urgent issue tickets", backed up by "a new round of customer service recruitment and systematic training." You should now expect an after-sales email response within 24 to 48 hours, too.

This might seem like standard fare for a large-scale PC manufacturer, like Asus or MSI, but Ayaneo is very small and also very new, in the grand scheme of things. It was only founded six years ago, but thanks to some clever use of Indiegogo to crowdfund projects, it's rapidly expanded over that time. Ayaneo's product catalogue is vastly bigger than it was just two years ago, for example.

So it's great to read that it's taking after-sales services more seriously, even though I can't recall off the top of my head that there were any notable issues in this area.

However, there's one problem currently doing the rounds that it can do little about: the global crisis in the supply of DRAM and SSDs. "The pricing of some new products, like the Next 2, has been heavily affected by the use of high-capacity memory," it writes. "Other new products may also be impacted, and some already-released products might require price adjustments or removal from sale due to these circumstances."

Ayaneo may be considering using the likes of China's CXMT for DRAM supply, just as Dell and HP are, but with the AI money pot being so large, these companies are also dedicating an increasing amount of their production to high-bandwidth memory for AI GPUs. In short, such DRAM is cheap and plentiful at the moment, but may not be for some time.

Of course, the handheld gaming PC maker isn't the only tech company to be feeling the DRAM pinch, as they all are, but when you're very small and rely heavily on enthusiasts buying your specialised products, Ayaneo could find 2026 to be an extremely difficult year.

We already know for sure that the memory crisis has messed up Valve's original plans to price up and launch its upcoming Steam Machine. Now the Steam Deck has sold out online in the US and the obvious question is to ask whether it's down to the same reasons.

Currently, all three versions of the Deck are "Out of stock" on the official US Steam store. So, that's the entry-level 256 GB Steam Deck LCD, the 512 GB Steam Deck OLED and the 1 TB Steam Deck OLED, all goners. That's a worrying development for sure. However, it's not the only data point.

As a for instance, the UK Steam store still has all three models in stock. Yup, including the 256 GB LCD model which is listed with the following proviso: "We are no longer producing the Steam Deck LCD 256GB model. Once sold out, it will no longer be available."

From that we can presumably say that the Steam Deck LCD is permanently history on the US Steam store. It's sold out and won't return. So, what's happening with the rest of the model line?

Valve hasn't made a comment, unlike the Steam Machine situation, which was marked by a post on the official Steam Hardware Events blog. So, we are in speculation territory. And there are various possibilities.

One is that gamers have been panic buying Steam Decks, fearful that prices are set to increase thanks to the ongoing AI-driven memory crisis. Another is that Valve has run out of RAM or storage for the devices, either because it can't source any or is unwilling to pay increased prices... or needs that supply for other devices.

Some observers have gone for the latter and pointed the finger clearly at the memory crisis. And you could argue if it's actually panic buying, that too is ultimately down to the memory crisis.

Of course, the US situation could also be related to tariffs. It's hard to keep track of the prevailing tariff situation. But perhaps Valve halted shipments for a time in response to one of the more extreme tariff announcements and that has lead to the current US sell-out. But it could also all just be a temporary and relatively meaningless blip in some territories.

That said, the other question that immediately follows is whether a price adjustment will be applied to the two OLED models if and when they return to availability. Again, there's no official word from Valve. But given how much more memory and storage has become in recent months, not to mention the impact of tariffs, you'd think that was something Valve is at least considering.

For now, then, all we can do is keep a weather eye on the Steam store and Valve's Steam Hardware Events blog for any developments. And cross all our fingers and toes.

The Next II, Ayaneo's Strix Halo handheld gaming PC, has finally received a shipping date and an early bird price is available to those willing to go on a whim to buy one ahead of release. If you don't get the worm, however, you're looking at a hefty sum equivalent to even a high-end desktop PC with much more power.

To quickly break it all down, the AI Max+ 395 model with 128 GB of memory and 2 TB of storage costs $3,499 in the early bird phase. As Ayaneo go through kickstarting website Indiegogo, the early bird price is effectively just the preorder price tag. Once that's done and dusted, the device will cost $4,299 in general sale.

The 395 model with 64 GB of memory and 1 TB of storage fetches $2,299 in early bird and $2,699 at retail. As the Next II website points out, Ayaneo has the only AI Max+ 395 handheld with built-in power, thanks to its 116 Wh internal battery. That battery is so big that some airlines may not even let you bring it on board.

Perhaps the most tempting of all the devices is the AI Max 385 version with 32 GB of memory and 1 TB storage for $1799 / $1999. With 32 CUs, the integrated Radeon 8050S graphics is still going to absolutely hurtle, capable of handling most of the games you can throw at it. You're still getting eight cores, 16 threads, and a max boost clock of 5 GHz, with a configurable TDP of 45-120 W.

The Next II doesn't just offer a strong processor; it's loaded with solid specs and neat additions. All models come with a 9.06-inch 2400 x 1504 OLED display, TMR joysticks, Hall effect triggers, two touchpads, and four rear buttons. The display supports refresh rates from 60 Hz up to 165 Hz and comes with a peak brightness of 1155 nits.

It's also a rather dashing-looking device. The dual touchpads and blue triggers remind me of the Ayaneo Kun, which, barring its subpar D-pad, 54 W TDP mode, and washed-out IPS panel, is a solid offering.

The Next II isn't the first 395 handheld to market. GPD offers the Win 5 with the AI Max+ 395 and 32 GB of memory model coming in at £2,308 ($3,140). However, that same model cost HK$12,829($1,650) at its early bird price. What holds back the Win 5 is a lack of an internal battery. Instead, you hook up an external battery, which can either clip onto the back or extend from the device via USB Type-C port.

If you wanted to buy a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 handheld right now, both GPD and Ayaneo are beaten out on price by the OneXPlayer OneXFly Apex, which offers a 48 GB model with 1 TB of storage for $1,999. However, this too comes with an external battery.

So, if you want to play an AI Max+ 395 handheld without an external battery or without being constantly plugged in, the Next II is your only choice as of right now. Whether or not the extra memory and internal battery is worth a minimum of $300 extra will naturally depend person to person, but Strix Halo will fetch a pretty penny either way, and the memory crisis is surely not making those costs any better for some time.

Still, Ayaneo has made a solid argument for itself by not only stuffing a powerful chip in the Next II but by focusing on all those extra details that make handhelds work well. It's the most I'd personally be tempted by a Strix Halo right now, though I'd still hang tight to see what Intel's got cooking up in the handheld world before I commit to anything.

I've just wrapped up my benchmarking of the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, or more commonly-known to most of you at this point, the top-end Intel Panther Lake mobile chip. It's a feisty little beast, with iGPU performance that feels very close to what you might expect from an entry-level, discrete GPU-equipped gaming laptop—and that gives me hope for a clutch of super-fast handhelds on the horizon.

Intel remains tight-lipped regarding handheld implementations of its impressive new chips, with the only word I've heard on the matter being something shown to the public "soon". So, I'm left with little but speculation for now. Still, we can have fun dreaming together, can't we?

Handheld gaming PCs are currently in a bit of a weird space, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, there are plenty to choose from, but it's quite telling that the Steam Deck still crops up with regularity as one of the top recommendations.

Its APU is really starting to show its age in 2026, and while it still makes a fantastic value proposition, I'd primarily recommend it as an indie gaming machine if you're looking for smooth performance. Much faster handhelds are available, of course—but with so many demanding games on the market, you still have to be pretty careful with the minimum specs requirements before committing your gaming experience to the truly-portable life.

The closest I've come to experiencing truly impressive frame rates out of a handheld was, funnily enough, during my previous testing of the MSI Claw 8 AI+, which features an Intel Lunar Lake chip running underneath the hood.

Intel Arc B390 1080p upscaled gaming benchmarks

Upscaling set to Quality

Cyberpunk 2077 (Medium)Black Myth Wukong (Medium)F1 24 (Medium)Horizon Zero Dawn (Original)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)

92

60

Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)

53

45

Intel Arc 140V (Asus Zenbook S 14)

40

33

RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)

110

63

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (Medium) Data

Product	Value
Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)	92 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)	53 Avg FPS, 45 1% Low FPS
Intel Arc 140V (Asus Zenbook S 14)	40 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS
RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)	110 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)

57

43

Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)

36

29

Intel Arc 140V (Asus Zenbook S 14)

30

23

RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)

81

63

0255075100

Black Myth Wukong (Medium) Data

Product	Value
Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)	57 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)	36 Avg FPS, 29 1% Low FPS
Intel Arc 140V (Asus Zenbook S 14)	30 Avg FPS, 23 1% Low FPS
RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)	81 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)

141

126

Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)

80

65

RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)

150

85

037.575112.5150

F1 24 (Medium) Data

Product	Value
Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)	141 Avg FPS, 126 1% Low FPS
Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)	80 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS
Intel Arc 140V (Asus Zenbook S 14)	N/A
RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)	150 Avg FPS, 85 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)

94

67

Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)

77

12

Intel Arc 140V (Asus Zenbook S 14)

37

20

RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)

116

83

037.575112.5150

Horizon Zero Dawn (Original) Data

Product	Value
Intel Arc B390 (Asus Zenbook Duo)	94 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS
Radeon 890M (Asus Zephyrus G16)	77 Avg FPS, 12 1% Low FPS
Intel Arc 140V (Asus Zenbook S 14)	37 Avg FPS, 20 1% Low FPS
RTX 4050 Mobile (75 W, Acer Nitro V 15)	116 Avg FPS, 83 1% Low FPS

The Intel Arc 140V was certainly impressive at the time, but now I know it can be thoroughly trounced by the Arc B390 found in several Panther Lake chips at equivalent wattages, I can't wait for the new iGPU be crammed inside a handheld chassis. It's remarkably quick on its feet, in a way that feels downright futuristic when compared to its direct competition.

There's also the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, of course, which makes use of AMD's Ryzen Z2 Extreme to great effect. It's a fair few frames faster than the Claw, on average—but looking at the performance delta between the new Core Ultra X9 chip and its laptop-based equivalents, I can't help but wonder what its Arc B390 iGPU could do when limited to a similar TDP.

There's a fly in the ointment, though, and I'll ask you to hold your groans—it's the potential price tag. Yes, 2026 is a year in which we'll be complaining about the rising MSRPs of all sorts of hardware (mostly due to the ongoing RAMpocalypse), but high-end handhelds were already a pretty expensive proposition before the DRAM market imploded with horrific results.

The Claw 8 AI+ retails for around $900, while the Asus/Xbox machine commands an imposing $1,000 MSRP. Nothing I've seen so far indicates that laptops featuring the top-end Intel chips will be cheap, and given the performance advantage they're likely to provide, I can't imagine that handhelds making use of the Arc B390 iGPU will be any better.

Rumours suggest that Intel will eventually release a handheld-specific chip with the full-fat 12 Xe3-core specced iGPU on board, supposedly called the Intel Core G3 Extreme. It's said to have lower clock speeds, with a couple of cores lopped off for good measure, but I still can't imagine it'll show up in anything but the most premium of handheld models.

So, perhaps I should temper my expectations. Any Panther Lake-based handheld will likely come with a hefty price tag, and that's enough to ruin anyone's fantasy gaming scenario. There's always the 10 Xe3-cored Arc B370 iGPU found in some of the lesser-specced Core Ultra Series 3 chips, I suppose, but even that's likely to cost a pretty penny if it makes it into a handheld format.

Still, if Intel's new chips really can kick the top end of the market into high gear, perhaps it won't be too long before slightly crunchy handheld gaming performance becomes a mid-range to budget expectation, rather than the norm for most.

A humble hardware writer can dream, can't they?

In response to the rising prices of RAM and storage in 2026, the Nintendo Switch 2 may be set to become more expensive.

This is according to research firm Niko Partners (via VGC). In its 2026 prediction post, Niko Partner says, "We believe the Switch 2 is set to follow in Sony and Microsoft’s footsteps with its own price hike driven by the impact from tariffs, increased memory costs, and broader macroeconomic conditions."

The report goes on to point out that Nintendo chose to keep the $449 price point last year, despite tariffs impacting production, and it suggests that Nintendo may instead choose to remove the cheapest Switch bundle. This would make buying a Nintendo Switch 2 more expensive, but only for those looking for a console by itself. If you buy the console in a bundle, it could cost the same, according to this prediction.

Tied to potential price hikes, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa spoke to Kyoto Shimbun last week (thanks again, VGC, for the spot).

In that interview, Furukawa said (machine translated) "We procure from suppliers based on our medium- to long-term business plans, but the current memory market is very volatile." Adding to this, he says, "there is no immediate impact on earnings, but it is something we must monitor closely".

Furukawa doesn't confirm or deny those predictions either way but does say, "While it’s difficult to accurately gauge the future impact, our basic policy is to recognize tariffs as a cost and pass them on to prices as much as possible, not just in the US".

However, Furukawa also argues, "On the other hand, this is a crucial period for our game business as we promote the adoption of new hardware and maintain the momentum of our platforms. We are working on this while carefully considering the situation."

The volatility Furukawa gestures at is naturally being considered, but pricing is so important to a console, especially so early on in its life. The Nintendo Switch 2 only launched last June, and given the relatively budget price of the OG Switch and the Steam Deck, it felt like a lot of money for a console with few exclusives.

My first six months with the Switch 2 have certainly been positive, but paying even more for a device that can still get stick drift hurts the hardware nerd in me. And the Nintendo kid, too.

We've finally seen AMD's 'new but not really new' AI 400 range in a gaming handheld, and surprisingly, it's one with a rather small OLED screen and a rather large battery.

The Ayaneo Konkr Fit is the company's upcoming Windows handheld gaming PC. It comes loaded with the AI 9 HX 470, which was only recently announced. With four Zen 5 cores and eight Zen 5c cores, and clocking in at a max boost clock of 5.2 GHz, it's a pretty powerful chip.

Previously, Ayaneo's Konkr range has relied on Snapdragon chips, namely the G3 Gen 3 or 8 Elite. This is a step above the Android-based OS of the Snapdragon Pocket Fit. Built-in Windows support gives the handheld a boost in terms of compatibility with vast libraries of games on Steam and anti-cheat.

If you're confused on the naming, the Konkr Fit is the one with an AMD chip, Windows operating system, and a larger frame. It comes with a seven-inch OLED screen. The Konkr Pocket Fit is Android-based, smaller, and presumably cheaper, with this model ranging from $299 to $329. The Pocket Fit comes with a six-inch LCD display. They look nearly identical but the Windows model is clearly much larger when viewed side-by-side.

We've liked Ayaneo devices a lot previously. Its Flip DS is a great clamshell Windows device, and the more recent Ayaneo 3 is flawed but very customizable and powerful.

You can see the AMD Konkr Fit in action in Ayaneo's latest live stream, where the host picks it up and shows it off to the camera. We don't get much testing, unfortunately, but we do see a little bit of Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay. On first glance, the Konkr Fit looks very much like the Konkr Pocket Fit, but it's rather chunky on the side.

That size is likely to accommodate the big 80 Wh battery. That's the same size battery as the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. Naturally, battery size doesn't totally indicate battery life, as different components use different amounts of charge, but the AI HX 470 does drop down to a 15 W TDP, which is the same as the Xbox Ally X.

In fact, the Z2 Extreme, which is rocking the same 890M graphics as the AI 470, is a pretty good parallel as far as gaming handhelds are concerned. We're talking higher boosts, but the same RDNA 3.5-based GPU architecture and 4 nm process.

Another reason why the side seems quite chunky could be the device's cooling. The AI 470's TDP can be configured up to 54 W, which is mighty hot for a handheld, so compromises need to be made to cool the chip. Until we get a look at the internals or receive more communication from Ayaneo, those are just guesses, though. We don't yet have a release date or even a release window.

Naturally, whether or not this device is worth it will be largely based on the price, but we don't know anything in that regard yet. Given that it's using a beefy CPU, I can't see it exactly being cheap, and I wouldn't be surprised if it finds itself in ROG Xbox Ally X pricing territory. And, with how impressive early testing of the latest Intel chips is looking, there's a chance the AI 400 range will look particularly weak this year.

Still, the orange model looks quite lovely to me and a slightly smaller gaming handheld is welcome for couch play, especially when it's got an OLED panel in it. Here comes an AMD Ryzen AI 400-powered handheld PC and it's surprisingly

Although affordability was a key factor in the success of Valve's Steam Deck, its greatest strength lies in the brilliance of its operating system, SteamOS. So far, only a few other handheld devices have also sported the Linux-based software, but now there's one more: Lenovo's Legion Go 2.

Launched at CES, this is actually Lenovo's second device to natively use SteamOS. The first was the superb Legion Go S, which just so happens to be the best handheld gaming PC you can buy right now. That said, the hardware inside is somewhat last-gen, and that's something the Legion Go 2 offers over the Go S.

The newer model sports an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, whereas the older device gets by with a Z1 Extreme. These are APUs—a single chip comprising a CPU and GPU—and while they both house eight processor cores (supporting 16 threads), the Z2 Extreme uses AMD's Zen 5 and 5c architectures (three of the former, five of the latter).

However, handheld devices are rarely held back by their CPUs, as games are far more GPU-limited than anything else. That's another area where the Z2 Extreme edges over the Z1 Extreme: its GPU has 16 RDNA 3.5 compute units (CUs), whereas the older chip has 12 RDNA 3 CUs. They're generally clocked to the same level, so the Z2 Extreme offers around 33% more rendering performance.

That's a good match for the Legion Go 2's 8.8-inch, 144 Hz, 1200p screen, though you will still probably want to lean on FSR upscaling with more graphics-heavy games.

The rest of the Legion Go 2 is standard fare for a high-end handheld: 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8000 and up to 2 TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage. Just as with the original Legion Go, the side controllers are detachable, so you can prop up the screen on a desk and play it console-style, and you can even mount the right controller in a base so it acts a bit like a gun in FPS games.

Basically, just think of it as being like the brilliant Legion Go S, only a little bit bigger but an awful lot more pokier. And now that you'll be able to pick one up with SteamOS installed, you'll be able to happily tell Microsoft to get rekt as you play your favourite games in bedtime comfort. Assuming, of course, that the ramopocalpyse doesn't price it into oblivion.

In Lenovo's store, you can buy the Legion Go 2 with a standard Ryzen Z2 processor (which is just a rebadged Z1 Extreme) and 16 GB of slower LPDDR5x, but it'll set you back an absurd $1,100. At the time of writing, Z2 Extreme versions aren't in stock, though they are in Lenovo's UK store (where they cost £1,100).

The combination of the Lenovo Legion Go 2's hardware and Valve's SteamOS might be a portable PC gamer's idea of heaven, but if prices continue to rise (and they probably will), those pearly gates might be shut for everyone.

This year has been a bit of a weird one for gaming handhelds. AMD's mighty Strix Halo chip launched at CES, yet it's too power hungry and hot to see its inclusion in anything we can actually use right now. AMD's Z Extreme range is still going strong, though, with the Z1 Extreme making for a good mid-range handheld, and the new Z2 Extreme powering the surprisingly capable Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.

The Xbox Ally X had to do an awful lot to justify the very premium price point, but smart software, a comfortable fit, and excellent performance make it a standout choice for the 1% of the gaming world.

Despite its latest range of desktop chips being a bit of a letdown, Intel managed to put out some fierce mobile chips, too. The Core Ultra 7 258V powering the MSI Claw 8 AI+ seems to be one of the standouts, giving excellent performance. However, the chip isn't the only thing that makes a device, and our favourite gaming handhelds of this year pack a punch in the look, feel, and battery life departments.

We didn't see any new iterations from Valve in the hardware department this year, but other companies getting access to Steam OS means more bespoke Windows-less devices also made their way to market. Lenovo's SteamOS-powered Legion Go S offers great performance, despite being on the older Z1 Extreme chip.

We saw companies like Ayaneo throw their hat in the ring with the Strix Point Ayaneo 3. This handheld comes with a very neat but odd modular control system that didn't fully win our hearts over. Though not a PC, the implementation of smart DLSS in the Nintendo Switch 2 certainly bridges the performance gap, even if Nintendo is consistently its biggest selling point and its worst enemy.

As they say, cream rises to the top, and we've nominated the three creamiest best gaming handhelds of 2025, and we'll announce which one takes the gold on New Year's Eve.

Best gaming handheld 2025: the nominees

Each of these three gaming handhelds offers different things at different price points, and they have all earned their nomination. It seems like budget gaming handhelds didn't really get a word in edge ways this year, which we're hoping isn't a trend next year. Nonetheless, only one can take the win, and we'll let you know who does on New Year's Eve.

Handheld gaming hardware head Ayaneo has just unveiled its first phone. The Ayaneo Pocket Play is a smartphone with a sliding display that can be pushed up to reveal a d-pad, AXBY face buttons, and two virtual joystick touchpads.

Ayaneo had previously teased this gaming-geared phone early last month. Now, there's a fresh blog post in Ayaneo's typically effusive style about the Pocket Play, plus a Kickstarter page. However, tech specs remain thin on the ground.

We don't yet know what processor this bad boy will end up boasting, or even the device's display dimensions. However, given that Ayaneo is known for Android-based gaming handhelds such as the Snapdragon-based Ayaneo Pocket S, perhaps I won't need all three guesses to figure out this phone's headlining hardware specs.

So, like most of its ilk, it will likely be an Android device. That means we won't be able to play our precious PC games on it without an emulator, such as Winlator, which is a bit of a job to set up. At least other forms of Android emulation are generally excellent these days.

Though there's no gesture at a release window beyond the words 'coming soon,' I'm already intrigued. For one thing, there's something refreshingly retro about the Ayaneo Pocket Play's sliding design; some folks have already made comparisons to ye olde Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 from 2008 with its sliding keyboard panel, and 2011's more gaming-geared, PlayStation-themed Xperia Play.

Crossing paths with it again, perhaps it's high time to dust off the arc-slider phone design and see whether we can, perhaps, make gaming handhelds actually pocket-sized once more. Besides that, otherwise foldable screen tech isn't really an open-and-shut design decision.

Though foldable gaming handhelds aren't yet mainstream, foldable phones sort of are for those with deep pockets—and you've got to treat those bits of kit like the little princes they are if you want that pliable screen to keep working. Mind you, one creator's multi-day stream that tested the hinge of a Samsung Fold 200,000 times may suggest modern foldable phones are hardier than I'm giving them credit for.

At any rate, I'm cautiously optimistic about the Ayaneo Pocket Play. Granted, once the Kickstarter ends, experience tells me this gaming phone will cost a pretty penny indeed, and there's no guarantee Ayaneo will even support the device long-term. Given the fact I'm currently rocking a five-year-old Samsung Galaxy A52s, I'm not really looking to commit to a new device that will slide out of my life at the first opportunity.

This is a gaming tablet that makes itself hard to love, and yet there are definitely things I like about OneXPlayer's latest Intel-based gaming tablet. Lunar Lake in tablet form does very, very well, and its Arc 140V GPU is seriously impressive when it comes to gaming performance. And then there's that gorgeous, bright 11-inch display.

But it's also flaky as all hell with strange bugs and, despite the whole reason for its existence being that it's supposedly a versatile 3-in-1 device, it resolutely fails to convince in pretty much any of those formats.

Like the older, Meteor Lake-powered OneXPlayer X1, this is a device designed to operate as a standard (although very thick) PC tablet, with a laptop-esque form thanks to its magnetically attaching keyboard and touchpad, and as a handheld gaming PC with a pair of clip-on controllers. And, inevitably, that desire for flexibility hobbles each option in different ways.

I was genuinely hoping that things would be different this time around, but it feels like OneXPlayer has not learned the lessons from the original device and is determined to make the same mistakes. Though maybe that quest for versatility means avoiding those mistakes is just not possible. Either way, I don't love it.

The OneXPlayer X1 Air is probably at its best when used as an 11-inch laptop with its attached keyboard. Though the form factor inevitably makes it slightly less useful than an actual 11-inch laptop would be. As ever with such things—think Microsoft's Surface tablets—the issue is the fact they resolutely suck when used on your lap. Feels like a real miss for a laptop, eh?

That's down to the lack of a hinge as all the components are necessarily behind the screen and the keyboard section amounts to little more than some inputs on a leatherette flap. Any ergonomic rigidity then has to come from the little stand on the back of the tablet section, and that's never going to work comfortably, or for a decent amount of time when used away from a desk.

Actually on a desk, however, it's surprisingly effective. The flappy keyboard, as with the previous version, is susceptible to bending, which can be a little distracting, but there is more travel on the keyboard's switches than you will find on many an actual laptop keyboard. It's very comfortable to type on, there's plenty of distance between the keys, meaning you don't get an abundance of mistrikes, and the trackpad is impressively responsive.

In all, it makes for a good facsimile of a notebook so long as you're not trying to use it anywhere the stand isn't going to work. Though that stand is much improved over the last-gen X1, because it's actually integrated into the chassis this time around. Before it was another magnetically attached accessory—again finished in leatherette—and made the device feel even thicker than it already was.

Now it's a full-width metal sheet of a stand engineered into the tablet itself. It's both versatile in how you position it and has an impressive amount of structural rigidity, too. It can't really be used in portrait mode, however, unless you want the X1 Air to stand bolt upright at 90° to the table top.

But then, you're probably not going to be using it in portrait mode much because it seems to lack the ability to auto-rotate. In fact, the latest Windows 11 update seems to have removed the rotate option entirely from the quick settings. I can, of course, still go into Windows Settings and alter the panel display orientation each time I want to switch between modes—if I want to read a comic or a specific site, for example—but that is not a user-friendly option, especially when the previous OneXPlayer tablet has no such problems.

So, it's not that great as a tablet then? What about as a handheld gaming PC? Well, frustratingly the performance is really good but the experience most definitely is not. The Arc 140V iGPU inside the Lunar Lake Core Ultra 7 258V chip is excellent, and will deliver gaming performance sometimes right up there with the best Strix Point chips, and very occasionally beyond.

I'll admit was hoping the battery life was going to be better, but at full speed I only saw 103 minutes out of the X1 Air in the PC Mark gaming battery life test. I'm familiar with the OneXConsole software now, and I do appreciate its granular approach to giving you control over the performance and power draw of your device. Though there are still segments (notably the software update section) that are resolutely in Chinese characters, and Windows itself does not like the update packages either, flagging and disposing of them via Defender.

But the control you have with the OneXConsole software does mean you can really dial into the Intel chip's baked-in efficiency. Where Lunar Lake does well is in the low power modes. I've been happily running it at 15 W (essentially half-power) and that makes a big difference to its gaming up-time while still delivering decent performance.

Sounds pretty good so far. And it would be, were the actual experience not an exercise in gaming and technical frustration. For one thing those detachable controllers are still horrible. They were bad on the original X1 and they're no better with the X1 Air. They're oddly hollow, the button feel is not good, and they flex unpleasantly when they're slotted into the device. They are secure, but it's hard to shake the feeling you're going to end up with a face full of thick Lunar Lake tablet when you're lying down in bed trying to game on it.

Though you're not going to be doing that given the heft of the thing as a whole. Where dedicated gaming handhelds—such as the Steam Deck, ROG XBox Ally X, and OneXFly F1 Pro—are balanced to help distribute the weight of the components, there's nothing happening on that front with a thick 11-inch tablet and some elephant-ear controllers. There's no way to comfortably game with this device in handheld form for any length of time beyond fashioning some sort of intricate bungee cord setup.

And this pain is all before the bugs hit. Granted, I've not had the visual artefacts I experienced with the Meteor Lake device and its immature driver stack, but that doesn't mean it's been plain sailing by any means. The first major issue I had came around my battery life testing, where I necessarily drained the juice from the X1 Air while gaming. After that the damned thing refused to boot even after being plugged in for a while.

It kinda did, though nothing appeared on the screen, and I ended up having to go through some arcane ritual of hard resetting, charging, starting the device so its power light came on (though nothing else did), and then swapping to another laptop charger to get some different juice into it. And then just ignoring it for a few days before finally starting it up again while ringed in bee's wax candles and centred within a pentagram.

It's now mostly working again, though it does require a drop of virgin blood each time I plug it into the mains. I am still getting the occasional issue where the power button needs to be pressed a few times before it will actually boot, and standby mode is typically flaky as with any Windows-based device.

But even bug-free the overall package doesn't do enough to justify its price. The version I've been testing is theoretically $1,499, but is currently discounted down to $1,280. That's RTX 5070 gaming laptop money, people, and not the sort of money I'd be willing to spend on something that doesn't really excel in any of its three modes, laptop, tablet, or handheld.

Which all means it's an almost impossible recommendation from me. I've been using the OneXPlayer X1 Air, in different ways, for a long while now, and while there are improvements over the original X1, and some parts of it I do like (that screen…), I cannot in good conscience suggest that anyone spending $1,200+ would have a good time with it.

Especially not when you can spend half that and get the outright best gaming handheld, or the same amount and get a genuine Lunar Lake laptop. Sure, you're maybe losing that versatility, but the compromises the X1 Air asks you to make are simply not worth it.

The Ayaneo Next II, a Windows-based handheld gaming PC, has been officially revealed—and it's every bit as beefy as its announcement back in July suggested. The jewel in its hardware crown is the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, a decidedly power-hungry chip that is sated by a whopping 115 Wh battery. This ain't no teeny tiny slider patty but a full quarter pounder.

There's no details on pricing or a release date yet but what I can tell you now is that, yes, in theory you could still take this chunky gaming handheld on a plane (though, you would need to check ahead of time what restrictions on 100+ Wh batteries may be in place for your specific airline). However, it's not just the chip that's greedy; the Ayeneo Next II's TDP is 85 W in order to feed an impressive list of tech specs.

To begin with, there's the 9.06-inch OLED panel that features 2400 × 1504 resolution and enjoys up to 1100 nits of brightness. This screen also offers variable refresh rates, including options for 60 Hz, 90 Hz, 120 Hz, 144 Hz, and 165 Hz. But even such a luscious screen is still just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg.

Next, let's peel back the lovingly grilled layers of that AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 mobile processor patty; in Ayaneo's own words, this chip is "powered by a Zen 5 Strix Halo CPU, RDNA 3.5 Radeon 8060S integrated GPU, and advanced AI compute capability, [allowing] players [to] enjoy top-tier performance whether playing AAA blockbusters, creating multimedia content, or multitasking."

We have tested this chip inside the Framework Desktop, and while we like how it performs without battery constraints, we weren't as fussed with its smaller sibling, the 390, in the ROG Flow Z13.

Beyond that, I personally wouldn't want to edit my TikToks on a handheld gaming PC, but each to their own. The point still stands that that's an impressive amount of power burbling away under the hood of what is a mobile device—and it even comes with rumble! Haptics here are supplied via a "magnetic-levitation haptic motor" developed by Ayaneo and Guli Technology.

You're also getting Hall effect joysticks and triggers, effectively banishing stick drift from what I have no doubt will be a very premium handheld. The Next II also includes 'dual-stage trigger locks,' which offers "linear mode and micro-switch mode" (as far as I understand it, that's a mode where the triggers actuate fully, and a much shallower, 'clicky' mode for fast and responsive action). There's also an '8-way floating d-pad,' plus a remappable touchpad similar to the one also seen on the Ayaneo Kun handheld.

But with such beefy innards, what's this thing actually going to be like to handle? At the moment, I can only theorise but Ayaneo does offer a few compelling clues. For a start, Ayaneo makes a point of leading with its "upgraded ergonomic large grip" (clearly someone's taken a peek at my hopes for the Steam Deck 2's form factor—and strongly disagreed).

For those ever-hungry for more nubbins, there are four remappable function keys, plus four extra buttons on the handheld's underside as well. Ayaneo writes that this way "players can enjoy a fluid, holistic ten-finger control experience," and that the "four ergonomically positioned geometric rear buttons offer fast, natural activation, enabling everything from quick reactions to complex input combinations."

I'm sure that will be comfortable for somebody with mighty mitts, but I think perhaps I'll need to undertake a regiment of stretching for my weird little baby hands. With no clear release window for the Ayaneo Next II, how long I'll need to do that remains to be seen. We also don't yet know how much the Ayaneo Next II will cost—but with all of the tech specs discussed above, I've little doubt this is going to be a very pricey handheld.

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally is one of our favourite handheld gaming PCs, and it would easily sit in the top spot if it weren't for a couple of things: price, and the existence of SteamOS handhelds. On the latter front, though, Microsoft seems to be doing what it can to improve the new handheld-oriented version of Windows towards, well, handhelds, and the latest here is that it's now introduced 'Default Game Profiles.'

If you have an ROG Xbox Ally or ROG Xbox Ally X, with this update you should now be able to select profiles for different games tailored to balancing performance and battery life. Xbox says:

"This means smoother, more enjoyable gameplay and extended battery life, without requiring manual adjustments. For example, in Hollow Knight: Silksong, the Default Game Profile can add nearly an hour of battery life compared to Performance mode while still delivering smooth 120 fps gameplay."

There are currently, at launch, 40 supported games, including Fortnite, Gears of War: Reloaded, and Hollow Knight: Silksong. Though I should note that we were told for the ROG Xbox Ally X launch that there will be "support for 150+ titles and more to follow", so watch this space, I suppose.

I'm personally a fan of default per-game profiles, provided they're done well. That view isn't ubiquitous, though. For instance, while I like many of the per-game profiles SteelSeries provides in its software for its Arctis GameBuds, my colleague Andy wasn't entirely convinced of the same feature for the Nova 5X. I suppose, here, it will all boil down to whether the default profiles truly balance smooth gameplay with decent visual performance and battery life.

This update can be applied via Asus Armoury Crate and then toggled on/off using the Armoury Crate Command Center Game Bar widget. So ensure you have Armoury Crate updated if you want this feature.

You can already make your own per-game profiles in Armoury Crate, but this will add an easily togglable option to give you pre-made profiles, so you have to do less tinkering yourself. There will, of course, be gamers who prefer to find the right settings themselves, but I reckon many will like the option to have Xbox do this for them.

I've been wanting such a feature out of SteamOS for a while now. I managed to achieve something similar using Decky plugin loader on the Legion Go S, but the solution I found just shows community-made tailored game settings, and I have to then implement these myself—plus it's a little janky.

In this regard then, this is one feature I think the Windows handheld experience, at least for the two Xbox devices, might be at an advantage over SteamOS handhelds. And with the Xbox full screen experience now rolling out to other Windows devices than just handhelds, we have some pretty strong evidence that Microsoft is committed to improving the platform.

It's nearly time to sit down with awful TV, a full belly, and that new handheld of yours. It is the time for giving, and whether you're treating yourself or sending links to your parents, these are our top recommended PC accessories to grab this holiday.

The PC handheld scene has come quite a way since it properly exploded with the Steam Deck. This year has been especially interesting, with almost every handheld maker putting something out. Whether you went with the Lenovo Legion Go S or an MSI Claw, there’s something for every kind of PC handheld in this list.

With the explosion of options, thankfully, PC hardware has remained relatively standardised across the bunch. Obviously, when we get to things like cases and NVMe replacement drives, there’s a little bit more to consider. Don’t fret, though, we’re here to help you through.

There’s never been a better time to pick up some additional bits, either. If you have to buy for someone with a handheld this Christmas or for an end-of-year birthday, this list will give you the must-haves and best bits of kit. If you want a deeper dive, be sure to read our best handheld gaming PC guide.

You’ll also want to keep tabs on any storefronts running deals during the holiday period. Amazon is especially good around this time of year, with deals running constantly around the clock. Even as tech prices are bumped up a little with the ongoing economic climate, there are absolutely some great savings to be had for those last-minute shopping panics. Check out all the Black Friday PC gaming deals we recommend for more.

Black Friday handheld gaming PC deals

If you haven't scored a device yet, the Black Friday sales are now on and we've spotted a handful of handhelds on sale:

• Steam Deck - 256 GB | $319 @ direct from Steam
• Legion Go S - SteamOS/Z1 Extreme version | $650 @ Best Buy
• Legion Go S - SteamOS/Z2 Go version | $450 @ Best Buy

Controllers

MicroSD cards and NVMe SSDs

Docks

Chargers and power banks

Cases

Best for ROG Ally X

Best for ROG Ally

Best for ROG Xbox Ally

Best for Lenovo Legion Go 2

Best for Steam Deck

Headphones and earbuds

Upgrades

A couple of months ago, I reported that you can install the Xbox full screen experience (FSE) on other handhelds than just the new Microsoft Xbox/Asus ROG ones. And now, Microsoft is opening up FSE for more than just handhelds, saying it's "now available in preview for more Windows 11 PC form factors, such as laptops, desktops, and tablets, tailored for the PC experience."

Xbox FSE was, of course, initially designed for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X handhelds, and our Dave considered it a pretty big boon for the latter when he tested it. The seemingly Xbox Series X/S-inspired UI, at least on the ROG Xbox Ally X, allows you to access a bunch of different game platforms to launch games, and it runs smoother and snappier than the regular Windows environment.

As for how this translates to PC, according to Microsoft, if you have the update, you can enable it with Win + F11 and then hover over the Task View icon on your taskbar—or press Win + Tab to do the same—and select Xbox full screen experience to swap to it. In other words, it acts as another virtual desktop, which is how it works on the ROG Xbox Ally X, if memory of my brief hands-on experience serves me well.

To get the update, you need to be on the Windows Insider Preview Build 26220.7271. But even if you have the update, this feature is a gradual rollout. There will be workarounds, of course, such as the one I tried back in September using ViVeTool to try to get it set up on the Legion Go S.

That didn't exactly go well, as the controls were screwed up, and our Dave told me he had the same issue when attempting to get it running on a OneXPlayer tablet and a laptop over the weekend, as he hasn't been offered the new feature yet in the gradual roll-out.

It's worth noting that MSI claims its Claw devices officially support Xbox FSE, though, so Claw users might have more luck there.

I'm also not sure just how beneficial Xbox FSE will be for non-handheld devices, even if I'm gaming with a controller, which is the use case Microsoft is promoting here:

"The Xbox full screen experience introduces a controller-navigable UI that brings an immersive, console-like experience to Windows 11 PC form factors. Designed for controller-first navigation, it provides a gaming-first, full-screen environment where players can easily browse and launch titles from across their game libraries, including most popular PC storefronts. A powerful Task Switcher enables quick movement between games and apps, delivering a seamless experience."

I can see it being useful for hooking up your laptop or PC to a TV for some couch gaming, but most PC gamers won't be using their gaming PCs and laptops on the couch. And for when I'm just sitting at my desk, I don't know whether I'd bother booting into Xbox FSE, even if I'm gaming with a controller. I can just lean forward and use my mouse.

But something doesn't have to be perfect for absolutely everyone to be a useful feature, and Xbox FSE does seem like a nice step in the right direction for Microsoft, towards what people like about SteamOS. Let's just hope that the gradual roll-out picks up a little more steam.

Best handheld PC 2025

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Choose a list Best gaming laptop 2025Best gaming PC 2025Best gaming rigs 2025Best handheld PC 2025Best mini PC 2025

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BEST OVERALL

1. Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS

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BEST BUDGET

2. Valve Steam Deck

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BEST WINDOWS

3. MSI Claw 8 AI+

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BEST BIG SCREEN

4. Lenovo Legion Go

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BEST COMPACT

5. Ayaneo Flip DS

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There are some corners that cannot be unturned, some scientific experiments that cannot be un-experimented, some contraptions that cannot be unseen. There are those too, of course, that are glorious. And then there are those, like this one from Speedrunner and X, TikTok, and Twitch user veegeea, that sit in the curious valley between the two.

I'm not sure whether veegeea has gone where no person should, or exactly where a person should. Their project, 'Project IRL', is, as they put it, one that allows them "to put on a full fledged game stream experience anywhere I’d like utilizing the capabilities of the ROG Ally and Ally X with one doing AAA Gaming and the other grabbing the recording and putting together the stream."

In other words, it looks like a project to allow them to become an IRL streamer, whilst also gaming on the move. Usually IRL streamers have to manage a small device or two with a camera, and no gameplay. But this setup allows a game streamer to keep game streaming, while also IRL streaming. And have their hands free, too, when they need, thanks to the harness setup.

They've been at it for a while now. Back in July 2023 they posted a TikTok of themselves wearing a harness with a stand attached that holds an ROG Ally in front of their face. Though back then it looks like they were calling it 'Project Go Live.'

If you're wondering what it looks like now, well, it's about as bonkers as you might expect. In particular, I like the video from June this year showing him streaming to a giant vertically oriented screen on his back, and presumably also to a streaming platform such as Twitch, too.

Late last year, though, he was using an even more convoluted setup featuring an Elgato Prompter. It's a smart way to stream, I suppose, because you can look directly into the camera and speak to your audience while you're gaming. Though I don't know whether I'd find it a little disconcerting to see a streaming constantly looking into the camera in the facecam.

Whatever the case, that prompter seems to have been ditched for the outing to whatever convention they were at earlier this year. To make room for the much more reasonable back-mounted screen, of course. It's all bonkers, as I said—but exactly the right kind of bonkers. Keep it up, veegeea.

Best handheld PC 2025

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Choose a list Best gaming laptop 2025Best gaming PC 2025Best gaming rigs 2025Best handheld PC 2025Best mini PC 2025

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BEST OVERALL

1. Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS

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BEST BUDGET

2. Valve Steam Deck

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BEST WINDOWS

3. MSI Claw 8 AI+

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BEST BIG SCREEN

4. Lenovo Legion Go

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BEST COMPACT

5. Ayaneo Flip DS

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There's a lot to like about the ROG Xbox Ally X, even if its price tag isn't one of those things. And for those who prefer a more, err, reasonably priced handheld gaming PC, the original ROG Ally or ROG Ally X are still great choices, especially when they're on sale. So it's good news for a bunch of handheld gamers that Asus has just released a big batch update for the three handhelds, plus the oft-forgotten ROG Xbox Ally (non-X).

And when I say a 'big' batch update, I mean a BIG one, at least if Asus' announcement post on X is anything to go by: "Everyone! This is a BIG week for updates on the ROG Ally, ROG Ally X, ROG Xbox Ally, and ROG Xbox Ally X! A new Armoury Crate SE update is on the way, bringing expanded CPU and power controls, stability upgrades, and a series of fixes and improvements across both devices."

I'm not sure what "both" refers to, given the company lists four devices, not two, but what I can say is the most exciting updates are for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. The latter gets 'P-core' and 'E-core' options in the Armoury Crate SE software.

Note that 'core' is all lowercase there, because 'P-Cores' and 'E-Cores' refer to Intel cores. AMD has its own version of big performance cores and smaller efficiency cores, though, which feature in the Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip at the heart of the ROG Xbox Ally X. These are the full-fat Zen 5 cores and the skinny Zen 5c cores, respectively.

The update here should let you adjust the power for both kinds of chips separately, which might help eke out some more battery life depending on what you're doing. It'll be interesting to see whether manual adjustments can do better than the CPU and software's automatic ones.

In addition, the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X also get updated AMD GPU drivers which should improve gaming performance, and the latter gets an updated AMD chipset driver to improve overall system performance. The AMD GPU driver was released a couple of weeks ago but is now coming to the handheld via Asus' software.

The two Xbox handhelds also get a new BIOS with improved power delivery firmware, among other things. This should improve power consumption in standby. Standby power consumption in Windows handhelds is one thing that drives many towards SteamOS, so seeing improvements there could be a big deal, depending how big those improvements are.

The non-Xbox ROG handhelds, the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X, don't get anything quite so exciting. But they do get some nice changes such as the integration of AMD Radeon Chill into the FPS Limiter, and an "improved gyro aiming algorithm". For, y'know, better gyration. And some other, even less exciting changes.

So, there's definitely more to get excited about for ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X owners, but still some nice-to-haves for the pre-Microsoft machines. Worth diving into Armoury Crate for an update, I say.

Best handheld PC 2025

All our current recommendations

Pick a category Best overallCore ComponentsChairs & DesksSystems & LaptopsScreensPeripheralsCases, Cooling & Storage

Choose a list Best gaming laptop 2025Best gaming PC 2025Best gaming rigs 2025Best handheld PC 2025Best mini PC 2025

---

BEST OVERALL

1. Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS

Check Price

BEST BUDGET

2. Valve Steam Deck

Check Price

BEST WINDOWS

3. MSI Claw 8 AI+

Check Price

BEST BIG SCREEN

4. Lenovo Legion Go

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BEST COMPACT

5. Ayaneo Flip DS

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I know it shouldn't really be a factor, but learning that an actor or other celebrity is a PC gamer makes me take notice. I remember the furore when everyone discovered Henry Cavill was a PC gamer, for instance. So I have certainly noticed Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, because Jacob Elordi, the actor who plays Frankenstein's monster in the new Netflix movie, likes to pass the time by gaming on his Steam Deck.

In the Netflix promo material showing Elordi transforming into 'The Creature' for the role, we can see him busting out a Steam Deck to pass the time on, in addition to checking his phone and reading. Apparently, the transformation into Frankie's creature took 10 hours, so bringing a Deck to the makeup/SFX seat was certainly prudent.

The Steam Deck in question has a black-and-green housing shell, which threw me off at first. But you can see that it's a Steam Deck from the shape, button positions, and so on. Plus, there are pictures of him holding a Valve carry case. The distinctive orange on Elordi's carry case means it's likely the OLED model too.

One diligent Redditor has also made my job much easier by finding what looks to be Elordi's Steam Deck's green-black shell, though it's currently unavailable. I rate it, but I also tend to judge things by whether they'd make a good CS:2 skin or not, so I might not be the most reliable aesthetician. It's similar to Razer's Acid Sludge shell, but there's more black to Elordi's, which fits the former Amazon one better.

Apart from the Steam Deck—which we still reckon is the best budget handheld gaming PC, despite its age, by the way—all this has drawn my attention to Frankenstein, which, as a rock dweller, I'm embarrassed to say completely passed me by. Judging by the trailer(s), the del Toro movie seems like it might have that thankfully gritty and now-in-vogue Robert Eggers vibe, which would be fitting after last year's Nosferatu.

But that's judging from the trailer alone; I'll have to watch the movie to find out. It's a fitting time to rekindle the Mary Shelley classic anyway, with AI being the new big thing.

The quote from the trailer, 'only monsters play God', might seem like a warning for our age as much as the fantastical one in the movie. That's all a bit bleak, but on the plus side, it's nothing a bit of handheld gaming can't distract me from.