As I see it there have been three epochs of PC handhelds. Firstly, the preliminary wave of prototype and underpowered gadgets testing the waters. I attempted few of those early handhelds, and so they all appeared fatally flawed in their very own approach. To not fear, subsequent got here the massive bang of the Steam Deck. That is when Valve found out a successful formulation and handhelds all of a sudden made sense to your common gamer.
Right this moment, we’re in one other epoch, one in all quickly evolving designs. We went from barely one good handheld final yr to being unable to determine between them which of them will make it into our greatest handheld gaming PC information.
Simply this yr we have seen the discharge of heaps of handhelds together with the ROG Ally, OneXPlayer OneXFly, OneXPlayer 2 Professional, Ayaneo Air 1S, Ayaneo 2S, Lenovo Legion Go, Aokzoe A1 Professional, and the Valve Steam Deck OLED. There are a bunch of different designs within the pre-order stage, and I am certain I am lacking a number of different crowd-funded ones, too.
There is a good cause why we have so many handheld gaming PCs to select from. It is largely thanks to 1 notably spectacular AMD processor: the Ryzen 7 7840U. This chip powers nearly each gadget on that record, both because the 7840U or in its semi-custom guise, the Z1. It is solely Valve choosing one other chip, and that is nonetheless an AMD semi-custom job.
We had a troublesome time making an attempt to whittle down this yr’s handhelds to only three nominations. However myself, and the broader PC Gamer {Hardware} crew, assume we’ve got give you a strong record. Right here goes:
Finest handheld gaming PC 2023: the nominees
The winner of the PC Gamer {Hardware} Award for the most effective handheld gaming PC shall be introduced on New 12 months’s Eve. All three of those handhelds are in with a shot of taking dwelling the massive prize, so tune in to seek out out which one it’s going to be.
