discussion Portable Gaming - Laptop or Handheld?

[JD]

I have the Razer Blade 14 in mind, always have wanted one, spec'd with the 5070 (Ryzen 365, OLED, 32GB, 1TB) - $3149.

Or at the opposite end of the spectrum, either the ASUS ROG Ally X (I think the new XBOX edition is better?) or Lenovo Legion Go S (Steam OS model seems better than their Windows one?)

Planning on doing some travel and figure something to pass the time on the plane and in the evenings might be nice to have... obviously a huge price gap between my choices.

Any comments to sway me one way or the other would be helpful!

 

[lowfat]

Have you watched GNs recent vid on Razer laptops?

 

[JD]

Everything is bad these days it seems, pretty sure these handhelds have their fair share of complaints too...

I think it's going to be a crap shoot either way lol

 

[Bond007]

Yeah I have heard quite a bit of negative on razor lately, so I would probably pass on that.

But as far as laptop vs handheld I would say it is 100% use case dependant. For the at the desk environment, the laptop would be my choice, but for airplane/travel I would say 100% handheld. Being able to use your device for a whole flight (not just when you can have the tray down and not need it for food/drink is a big difference. I don’t own a handheld, but I believe they would be able to be used like a tablet for the whole flight.

 

[Izerous]

Honestly being able to flop down on the couch put your feet up and play a game for a little while without sitting at a desk makes the handheld a nice option and I don't regret the steam deck purchase. 1TB drive swapped in it and a 1TB sd card and I'm not short on storage especially having started with the lowest tier model it feels like good value.

 

[Jokester]

Steam deck is the best thing I've bought. So easy to take with you. Plays loads of great games. I would much rather have it then my laptop for travel. so many games on steam support handheld gaming perfectly.

 

[CMetaphor]

Id say it 100% depends on the game(s) you're going to play. Indie games, mobile-esque or old games? Handheld is fine. But dont expect to play BF6 and other AAA titles on one of those things. Plus, tiny tiny screens dont lend themselves well to games where your need to pick oit details in a visuals -heavy game.

So yeah: Handhelds are fine for games that aren't that demanding or when screen size isnt an issue. Laptops can do all of those, but also ypur graphics heavy games too. Is it worth 3k? That's up to you.

As for Windows vs SteamOS, couldn't tell ya. I may grab a steam deck quite soon, just to start trying out that ecosystem and fo see what it can and can't do for myself.

 

[Izerous]

Side note steam deck does do video out I imagine the others do too. With the dock a keyboard, mouse and a monitor you can run a larger screen at a desk.

While I didn't attend frags I did visit to see someone I know and one attendee that exactly what they did.

Kernal anti cheat protected games will only work on windows based handhelds*

 

[gingerbee]

I haven't read through the whole thread, but it's simple for me, a handheld has limited uses outside of gaming, whereas a laptop can be used for many things when not gaming on it. My choice would be a laptop.

I think it really comes down to use case, if you were backpacking across Europe, then a handheld would be the better choice for obvious reasons. In your case, it sounds like a laptop would offer more use, IE, gaming/movies/online/work/facebook/zoom. I think all of these things would be a possible use case in your kind of travels, from what it sounds like. A handheld only has one, gaming, maybe two, movies, but on a much smaller screen.

 

[JD]

So most seem to lean towards the handheld idea, interesting. A laptop would surely have more uses, but at ~$3k it's a tough call... and if Razer is off the table, then it's down to just the ROG Zephyrus G14 that would tick my boxes (OLED and >xx60 graphics) but the 2025 model has complaints of annoying fan noise.

I think the problem is I would expect the handheld to be able to at least run AAA type games "smoothly" and it looks like I'd be disappointed with the current options. Seems like I might be better off waiting for the AMD Z2 chips but I suspect that's going to push the price up closer to $1500.