Looking for a handheld gaming console

[LordHopz]

Hi

 I’m looking for some help , I’m not sure on what to buy , my gaming laptop is on its way out , and to get replacement parts it’s nearly impossible and expensive. 
 

im looking to buy something like a steam deck due to I travel a lot and dont want to carry a laptop everywhere when I use my iPad for all my work things now but im aware there’s other options, like the rog versons and the Lenovo ones . 

 

the games I mainly play are valorant , and genshin impact but I have a full steam library which I can’t really play on my laptop. 

 

any suggestions or recommendations is appreciated, 

[jaslion]

Whats the specs of the old laptop? Just to get a baseline of performance.

 

Overall for handheld gaming steamos is the best option you have the steamdeck and now also the legion go s with steam os which is a faster steamdeck basically

[LordHopz]

11 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Whats the specs of the old laptop? Just to get a baseline of performance.

 

Overall for handheld gaming steamos is the best option you have the steamdeck and now also the legion go s with steam os which is a faster steamdeck basically

the laptop is asus tuf fx507zc4

144Hz , intel i5-12500H, Nvidia geforce RTX 3050

[jaslion]

3 hours ago, LordHopz said:

the laptop is asus tuf fx507zc4

144Hz , intel i5-12500H, Nvidia geforce RTX 3050

Dont expect that sonething that didnt run on this machine will run better on the deck or legion. They are weaker devices for gaming.

 

Overall the legion go s steam os edition is the fastest, but the deck is the cheaper option with somewhat lower performsnce however it makes up that with having a lower res screen thus needing less power anyway (and its barely noticable at the size)

 

So really just depends on which youd like more. 

 

Valorant is unplayavle atm on steamos due to their anticheat (and thats an oncoming issue on windows too)

 

Genshin can work fine if you do the usual install 3rd party program -> add to proton -> add to steam library workflow. Couple minutes setup and you are in.

 

Windoes handhelds overall suck due to worse battery life, worse performance and very clunky user experience because of windows

[DreamCat04]

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Windoes handhelds overall suck due to worse battery life, worse performance and very clunky user experience because of windows

Worse battery life? Yes, but not because of Windows, but rather because of the fact that they usually put way more power hungry chips into those devices. The Steam Deck with its chip set to 15W lasts around as long as the ROG Ally set to 15W. How do Windows Handhelds have worse performance? Worse performance at the same TDP as the Steam Deck: sure. In my opinion, that also has nothing to do with Windows. I've had the Z1E ROG Ally for over a year and a half and have been really happy with the experience so far. Windows did bother me somewhat in the beginning but the issues stopped after a while and ever since I upgraded the SSD, I haven't had any major issues with Windows. I just hibernate it whenever I stop playing and upon starting it the next time I'm right back into the game without having lost much charge.

Personally I'd recommend the Ally X if you want a handheld that lasts for a good amount of time. It gets around 2h at full power and you can tune it down so that it lasts for over 5h. It also comes with 24GB of RAM compared to the 16GB that most other handhelds have. If you're not satisfied with Windows, you can always put SteamOS onto it

[jaslion]

5 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

because of Windows, but

Literally the legion go s has a windows version and that one is now also available with steam os on it or you install it yourself.

 

Steam os adds significant performance and battery uplift. Windows IS harming the performance of the devices it runs on.

 

7 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

chip set to 15W lasts around as long as the ROG Ally set to 15W

Sure but game performance isnt great then on the ally due to overhead.

 

Then prople put bazzite on it and it did better on perf and battery and thats bazzite not even real steam os.

[DreamCat04]

18 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Sure but game performance isnt great then on the ally due to overhead.

Didn't LTT compare the Ally and the Deck and found basically no performance difference between the two at 15W, even finding the Ally to be slightly faster in some of the titles they tested?
Also how would the OS used affect the battery life when the chips are always gonna run at their limits anyways? I do believe that SteamOS improves performance though since it was custom-made for gaming when Windows is much more broad and not optimized for one single thing

Edited June 24 by DreamCat04

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, DreamCat04 said:

two at 15W, even finding the Ally to be slightly faster in some of the titles they tested?

Yes because the z1 in the ally is way newer and flat out better not the same chips. Ones a zen3 cores and the ally is zen4 based. Its supposed to be a good bit faster yrt at the same wattage only matches the steamdeck or is slightly faster. Thats overhead from windows peopld are putting steamos on them and they LEAP forward.

 

1 hour ago, DreamCat04 said:

Also how would the OS used affect the battery life when the chips are always gonna run at their limits anyways?

Overhead. Your cpu is rarely always fully used by a game theres still background tasks happening and all. Since windows is far more bloated than arch linux by default it is simply working away more in the background eating system resources. 

 

Legit thats why the legion go s is SUCH A BIG DEAL. It has windows 11 AND steam os on the EXACT SAME device officially and the steam one in the absolute worst case performed the same as the windows one best case it wiped the floor. Keep in mind this is using like multiple layers of emulation to achieve this too.