The 2020s have been a strange and exciting time for the handheld market. After the initial launch of the Switch as a next-gen handheld device in 2017, more and more companies have tried to take the top spot as the best handheld gaming device money can buy, and that led to a sea of impressive emulation-focused devices that promised games from the NES to the PS2 in the palm of your hand.
These seem like the lofty promises of an Alibaba seller offering 5000 games in one on a piece of hardware suspiciously resembling the Playstation Portable, but against all odds, most of these competitors actually pulled off their goals. The Retroid Pocket 3+ allowed gamers the chance to play Kingdom Hearts 2 on a pocket-sized device, whilst companies like Anbernic and PowKiddy completely dominated the more budget market of handheld retro gaming enthusiasts.
With all this going on, however, one console stood above the rest in terms of power and design, offering an experience that would have seemed like a near-impossibility even a year before. On February 25th, 2022, the Valve Steam Deck would release, bringing with it a new gold standard that would need to be crossed for anyone looking to dominate the handheld space. At the time, practically nothing could even compare to the Steam Deck’s absolute prowess in the handheld gaming market, with the console allowing for AAA gaming experiences like Elden Ring and Death Stranding without too much in the way of graphical tweaking. Plus, the fact that it was designed and released by Valve themselves allowed for seamless integration between the Linux-based device and Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC gaming.
However, that was then, and this is now. Cut to August of 2023 as I’m writing this article, and the Steam Deck isn’t the only high-power gaming machine available on the market. So, that begs the question of where a gamer should be investing their money if they’re thinking of entering the handheld market now, and whether the Steam Deck is still the right choice in a fast-paced tech environment.
Firstly, What Made the Steam Deck So Special to Begin With?
There has never truly been something quite like the Steam Deck in the world of gaming. I don’t say that to overstate its innovation, as many of its specific functions can be achieved through the use of a solid gaming laptop. Rather, there has never been such a powerful device that was optimised solely for the gaming experience. A laptop is good, and will offer a high level of portability, but is it going to allow you to comfortably play Katamari Reroll on a packed train? Are you going to be able to whip out your laptop and seamlessly get back into a game of Dark Souls 3 while waiting for the bus? The answer is yes, but not without great difficulty and a lot of strange looks.
The Steam Deck took the basic control-first design principles of the Nintendo Switch and managed to successfully blend them with high-end hardware capabilities in a way that just feels natural in the hand. Some of my nicest gaming memories of recent times involve me lounging out in gazebos and on my family’s verandah in the rain with the Steam Deck (undercover, of course) playing Sekiro or Undertale and watching the clouds go by. It’s a unique level of freedom just being able to pull out a handheld console and play literally anything, and that’s an experience that most people had for the first time with the Steam Deck.
Steam Deck Specs
With a 40Whr battery allowing anywhere from two to eight hours of gameplay off the charger, the Steam Deck is an absolute beast of a machine. That coupled with a Zen 2 AMD CPU and 16 GB LPDDR5 on-board RAM makes the Steam Deck a machine capable of playing almost anything in the Steam library without issue. That said, all of this isn’t to say that the Steam Deck can play every game, with compatibility issues with the Steam Deck layout being one of the main reasons that certain games are labelled as unsupported. Certain well-loved games that the Steam Deck has proven to have issues with include:
- Destiny 2
- Fall Guys
- Dead By Daylight
- Burnout Paradise Remastered
- Valheim
- Terraria
- Remnant 2
Do note that many of the games mentioned here aren’t due to issues with the Deck as much as they are either issues with game optimisation or simply offer controls that aren’t very compatible with a controller setup.
Steam Deck Competitors
Whilst the Steam Deck may have been a trendsetter, inevitably, we were always going to get to the point at which competitors would be able to throw their hats into the proverbial ring. So, if we’re asking whether the Steam Deck is the best choice, we have to take a look at the releases that are vying to take its place.
ASUS ROG Ally
An absolute juggernaut in its own right, the ASUS ROG Ally is an incredibly sleek Ryzen Z1 CPU-powered machine that really gives the Steam Deck a run for its money. As a Windows-running console, it’s perfect for those that want to step away from Steam and into the world of standard Windows games that won’t work on the Steam, Deck’s Linux OS.
With all that said, the ASUS ROG Ally isn’t leaps and bounds above the Steam Deck in terms of game functionality, and for its still quite high price point and history of minor issues with hardware and software, it’s not an unquestioned pick for the top spot. The one thing that really sets the Ally apart from the Steam Deck is just its CPU, which is more optimised for gaming and is likely to provide a smoother experience for some more CPU-intensive gaming experiences.
The Logitech G Cloud Gaming Handheld
Whilst this Logitech offering has definitely been touted as a Steam Deck competitor, I’d say that I am in two minds about whether I would consider it as such. At a $300 USD price point, this Android-based device, as the name suggests, is designed for cloud gaming. In other words, it is not nearly as powerful as the Steam Deck, instead focusing the experience on the cloud and game streaming.
To be clear, this isn’t a bad thing on its face, but it does limit the type of experiences most people are going to have. For example, in Melbourne where I’m currently writing from, the internet speeds are truly terrible for most gaming means. In other words, most people here just aren’t going to be able to get the amount out of cloud gaming that someone in the States may, and that’s a problem for something like the Logitech G Cloud. This, coupled with the price point being not that different from the Steam Deck itself, makes its viability as a competitor pretty meagre.
The Razer Edge
Whilst not as impressive in some respects as the ASUS ROG Ally, I have to give the Razer Edge respect for being one of the more uniquely interesting handheld devices I’ve seen appear in the past few years. Razer is a well-regarded name in many respects, and this isn’t their first attempt at breaking into this market, technically. I say technically because their entry into the field wasn’t a gaming device in and of itself, instead being the Kishi, a controller add-on for phones that allowed them to take on a similar aesthetic and function to the Retroid or other small gaming handhelds at the time.
So, when it came time to create a gaming handheld properly, they didn’t leave the Kishi on the cutting room floor. Rather, they created a tablet to pair directly with the Kishi V2, allowing for a tablet handheld that is capable of running Android and Xbox games. Whilst I can’t say I’ve had the chance to sample the Edge personally, its Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen-1 chips and 5g capabilities really do make it a unique entry in Android-based gaming. I’ll be excited to see more come out about it as time goes on.
So, What’s the Verdict?
As much as the competition has really put up a good fight in doing what the Steam Deck has achieved, there’s still nothing that quite hits that sweet spot of affordability and powerhouse capabilities. Even as more powerful consoles are released, the Steam Deck’s native Steam compatibility and sleek design just make it a difficult machine to readily replace in the market. Plus, with the thriving emulation scene getting the EmuDeck to play games up to the late PS360 era, as well as practically every Switch game, it’s hard to see Steam being beaten out until they themselves potentially release an updated console.