Four reasons why it’s a surprisingly bad time to buy a gaming handheld
The Asus ROG Ally X alongside an original ROG Ally and Steam Deck. | Photo: Sean Hollister / The Verge
I love modern handheld gaming, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. Just maybe not today? If you decided today was the day to finally drop hundreds of dollars on your first handheld, I might advise you to wait.
Four reasons:
- The best handhelds are sold out
- The second-best handhelds just got more expensive
- Third-tier handhelds are riddled with compromises
- The entire state of gaming handhelds will improve if you wait
If you're reading this story, I suspect you've been on the fence about handheld gaming machines - until the Nintendo Switch 2, the fastest-selling game console of all time, caught your attention. Perhaps you liked the idea of bigger Mario Kart or smoother Fortnite and Pokémon; perhaps you liked the idea of taking graphically intensive games like Cyberpunk 2077 on the go.
Unfortunately, the $450 Nintendo Switch 2 is sold out everywhere as of this writing, and its alternatives may not offer the experience you'd hope.
The $550 Steam Deck OLED is the best, most Switch-like handheld you can buy thanks to its pick-up-and-play SteamOS operating system, its similarly decent battery life, and an eye-popping HDR OLED screen. …