Let's Talk About Handheld Gaming
Nintendo Switch 2, Legion Go S, Steam Deck, and more.
It stands to reason that when offered a choice of gaming platforms, one would opt for the most powerful hardware and the biggest display. And certainly, in the past several months of testing things like 18-inch gaming laptops with Nvidia 5090 GPUs or pairing a gaming desktop with a 77-inch OLED TV, that's been true... some of the time.
But we're also in the midst of a handheld gaming re-revolution. I say re-revolution because I recently stumbled across a treasure trove of vintage handheld gaming machines, including two of my all-time favorites: the Sony PSP Go and the Nintendo Game Boy Micro. Of those, the PSP Go holds up especially well, with a design that still looks sharp, a decent screen, and a great collection of games, provided you can get them installed (sadly, my modest UMD collection was no help there).
These classic devices set the stage for today's more powerful handhelds, and I've recently gotten my hands on both the new Nintendo Switch 2 and the Lenovo Legion Go S. These two devices offer different takes on the portable gaming experience, and they both have to compete with the storied Steam Deck from Valve, which kicked off a lot of my interest in modern handheld gaming.
The State of PC Handhelds
The Steam Deck received an OLED screen upgrade about a year and a half ago but has otherwise been on the same hardware platform since its early 2022 release. And it's that OLED screen that helps it still feel relevant even with newer hardware competition -- that, and its twin touchpads, which no one else seems to be able to match.
But screen aside, in almost every other way, the new SteamOS version of the Lenovo Legion Go S feels like the greatest distillation of the handheld gaming PC idea right now. The system's ergonomics are great and a notable evolution from the ambitious but oversized original Legion Go, with its giant screen and detachable controllers.
The overall grip is more comfortable on the Legion Go S, but the control layout on the Steam Deck still feels more natural to me -- it might be because I prefer the horizontal alignment between the analog sticks and touchpads. The Legion Go's LCD screen looks very good head-on, but when you see it next to the OLED Steam Deck, there's a clear difference -- the brighter OLED display is the winner.
One note on the Legion Go S: It's available in both Windows and SteamOS versions and with either an AMD Z1 Extreme or AMD Z2 Go chip. My advice is to get the SteamOS version with the Z1 Extreme. Windows remains an awkward companion for portable gaming, just as it was when I was reviewing handheld UMPC quasi-laptops almost 20 years ago.
Handheld PC gaming has made great strides, and might even be almost-kinda-sorta mainstream, but it’s still nothing compared to the buzz around the long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2.
Switching to… Switch 2
The original Switch was definitely feeling its age, especially with ports of newer games running poorly. Interestingly, its most important hardware upgrade since 2017 was the leap to an OLED screen in 2021 (and the Steam Deck eventually made a similar upgrade).
The new Switch 2 catches up a bit on performance, and even if it remains underpowered compared to PC-based handhelds (or other living room consoles), it still feels like a big step forward, much more so than I expected based on its on-paper specs.
That's not necessarily because of the games. The launch lineup is thin, and this feels like a dedicated Mario Kart console right now. The design and functionality isn't radically new, either, though the subtly tweaked design gives it a much more premium feel. The matte finish, bigger screen, and bigger, better JoyCon controllers (plus the excellent magnetic connection on those controllers) all add up to something bigger than the sum of its parts.
Looking at the first wave of reviews, it’s hard to get a good feel for the Switch 2 without actually playing with one. Some of the fawning media coverage of the Switch 2 has been hard to swallow, and so much of video game hardware and software coverage is more access-driven than ever -- driven by how afraid reporters and publications are of losing the precious early access their click-farm websites rely on.
Despite that, I'm enjoying the Switch 2. It does one thing almost no other gaming platform does: it prioritizes couch co-op for up to four players. I've been searching for a game my family could play together, but we could never quite get it together to jump into Fallout 76 or Borderlands 3. Since the Switch 2 arrived, we've been playing Mario Kart, along with a rotating cast of drop-in teenage guests. All in all, playing Mario Kart on the Switch 2 is probably the closest we've come to the previous great all-in co-op gaming moment, which was Wii Sports on the original Nintendo Wii.
That's not to say the Switch 2 and its software ecosystem doesn't have issues. I've been writing about games and game hardware since the 1990s, but if you asked me to explain exactly how Nintendo accounts, downloaded games, virtual game cards, and game sharing between Switch systems work, I'd probably just throw up my hands.
Going from the OLED Switch screen to this new LCD one also feels like a step backward. And the ports of older games feel expensive. Cyberpunk 2077 is $70 on the Switch, while the PC version is frequently on sale for $20. That's part of the appeal of PC gaming -- competition between storefronts leads to frequent discounts. Good for the consumer. For publishers and developers, not so much.
There's also another part of the Switch 2 that especially appeals to me -- it’s a perfect gadget for tinkering with 3D-printed accessories. Even before my unit arrived, I was printing various Joy-Con grips to try out. You can see some of my experiments in this MC News article: Best 3D Printer Projects for Nintendo Switch 2
Of all the options discussed here, I'll probably log the most time with the Lenovo Legion Go S, especially since GeForce Now streaming works so well with games that aren't on Steam. That said, I'm very interested in the Asus/Xbox handheld coming later this year. Yes, it's essentially just another PC gaming device, but the promised AMD Z2 Extreme chip is exactly the kind of thing I'd hope for in the next iteration of the Steam Deck.
RIP Laptop Mag
I was sad to hear of yet another tech news publication getting chopped. This time it was Laptop Mag, which for much of its 35-year history was an actual newsstand print magazine. This points back to my longer-term warning that the entire digital media business model remains mostly broken (with a few exceptions).
Honestly, a big part of the blame has to go to those of us around for dotcom 1.0. (Including myself -- I shifted from working for print magazines to working for websites back in 1999). That was when we decided even premium content should be free, and we'd pay for it with an ever-shifting series of (I'll say it again) get-click-quick schemes, and then scrounging around for the equivalent of loose change in the office couch cushions when things didn't work out.
One silverish lining, Kotaku was just sold to the same European company that bought Gizmodo (where I used to be EiC), giving that publication a fighting chance. I could go on for several newsletters about Kotaku's former corporate owner, but instead let's just enjoy this good news while we can.
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