What handheld PCs ought to do to struggle the Nintendo Change 2

I ended shopping for most video games for my Nintendo Change the day I purchased a Steam Deck. My Change has been a Mario and Zelda machine ever since. It’s easy: the Steam Deck took the Change’s greatest trick — pick-up-and-play portability — whereas providing extra video games that run higher. I can simply resume those I began on my desktop PC, or proceed to play transportable titles on my desktop and marvel at improved graphics. 

However the Nintendo Change 2, coming later this 12 months, might change that worth proposition. Not solely will it proceed to be the console that draws households and youngsters with creative, shocking, must-try unique Nintendo video games that use its removable Pleasure-Cons’ many tips, but it surely additionally has an actual likelihood at convincing the fans who would possibly in any other case purchase a handheld gaming PC — or who had been ready for handheld PCs to turn out to be much less of a wild west.

The Change 2 might meet or beat the Steam Deck in efficiency. If historical past’s any indication, it ought to simply promote higher than each handheld gaming PC mixed. When the unique Nintendo Change launched almost eight years in the past, there was nearly nothing to play however Zelda, and Nintendo held its recreation catalog in an iron grip — however now, the backwards-compatible Change 2 will launch with one of many largest and most welcoming libraries of all time, rivaled solely by smartphones and computer systems. The Change may theoretically turn out to be the brand new baseline for recreation builders to focus on, and essentially the most dependable place to seek out new handheld-friendly titles.

So: How can the budding handheld PC revolution escape the shadow of the Change 2? I gained’t say I do know for certain, however I did simply test the {industry}’s temperature at CES 2025, the world’s greatest tech present — and I’m afraid PC handhelds might keep in that shadow except the {industry} does extra. 

Handheld ergonomics was one vivid spot going into 2025. Whereas I nonetheless choose the Deck’s general really feel, virtually each PC handheld I touched had properly sculpted grips that made them extra snug to carry than their predecessors. From the 8-inch MSI Claw 8 AI Plus and Lenovo Legion Go S, to the 8.8-inch Legion Go 2, and the enormous 11-inch Tencent Sunday Dragon, even the most important Home windows handhelds didn’t really feel as awkward as a few of their first-gen predecessors.

There are 4 locations I believe the {industry} has to vary — and perhaps, band collectively — if these handhelds desire a significant piece of the Change. 

Consumers must know that their recreation will likely be able to play once they press the ability button on a handheld. That’s the Nintendo Change expertise, and it’s much like how the Steam Deck works as soon as video games are downloaded — but it surely’s removed from what Home windows handhelds at the moment provide.

That’s why the three greatest items of handheld gaming information on the present had little to do with the {hardware} itself. They had been about ditching right this moment’s model of handheld Home windows. 

First, Lenovo revealed it could produce the primary licensed third-party handheld to ship with Valve’s easy-to-use SteamOS as a substitute of Home windows — one thing solely the Steam Deck has performed up to now. Second, Valve advised us it could deliver a SteamOS beta to further third-party handhelds as quickly as this April. Third, a Microsoft govt advised The Verge that the corporate would lastly do one thing significant about its bloated Home windows expertise on handhelds later this 12 months, combining “the very best of Xbox and Home windows collectively.” 

These strikes are heartening, because it’s a Wild West in handheld PC land. Most corporations go for a replica of Home windows that doesn’t reliably launch video games or sleep and wake correctly, defeating a number of the objective of a pick-up-and-play handheld expertise. They’re crammed with difficult-to-navigate UI and pointless bloatware, too — to the purpose that right this moment, a community-created fork of Valve’s SteamOS UI is already a much better expertise than Home windows. 

It’s additionally good for SteamOS followers: whereas the Steam Deck is a good platform for SteamOS, we’ve already seen the Deck can’t compete with the Change by itself. Recreation publishers don’t see the uncooked gross sales numbers to deliver massive multiplayer video games like Fortnite or Valorant to SteamOS. (They are saying cheaters are too massive a threat.)

However, whereas the CES strikes are important, Valve, Microsoft, and Lenovo are non-committal about how a lot issues would possibly enhance. Microsoft would solely give me the barest hints about making Home windows really feel extra like an Xbox recreation console sooner or later later this 12 months. Lenovo is hedging its SteamOS guess exhausting — not solely will the Legion Go S ship in each Home windows and SteamOS varieties, the Home windows model will go on sale months earlier, and Lenovo gained’t decide to SteamOS for its bigger, later-in-2025 handheld. 

No different firm introduced a SteamOS handheld at CES, both, save for PC maker GPD, with a declare that was apparently false or misplaced in translation. Valve advised me it has no different associate units at the moment within the works for SteamOS, although it’d be pleased to work with extra corporations. I consider each handheld maker ought to give SteamOS a shot.

This one’s straightforward: to maximise efficiency, battery life, economies of scale, and provide a closer-to-game-console expertise, handheld PC makers ought to universally undertake a 1080p-or-lower-resolution HDR OLED display with variable refresh price. 

Many PC producers are losing what little efficiency they will muster from a handheld chip and battery on a display with far too many pixels for the duty, artificially constraining efficiency and battery life in alternate for 1600p or 1200p sharpness that almost all avid gamers gained’t miss on a 7-inch to 8-inch panel. Moreover, each handheld with out a variable refresh price display is probably going losing a very good chunk of the frames that their handheld can serve as a result of their display is artificially limiting their framerate — VRR was the Asus ROG Ally’s secret weapon, letting it play video games extra easily than competing handhelds even when rivals’ chips supplied the identical FPS.

Lastly, HDR is a revelation on the Steam Deck OLED’s display, letting each native titles and the HDR video games I stream from my PS5 really feel like they’re crammed with actual mild that explodes out of the display. It’s one thing Home windows desktops and laptops have by no means persistently supplied the best way right this moment’s consoles do, however handhelds might be the gateway to altering that.

Is a display just like the one I’m describing costly or exhausting to seek out? Band collectively, PC corporations, and certainly a show maker can change that for you.

Except you depend the Nvidia Tegra on the coronary heart of the Nintendo Change, AMD is the chief in handheld chips. However its semi-custom Aerith and Sephiroth components for the Steam Deck really feel just like the solely ones proactively designed with power-sipping handhelds in thoughts, leaving everybody else at a portability drawback. And it seems like AMD’s new Z2 line won’t be all that totally different.

AMD’s Z1 batch of chips in handhelds just like the Asus ROG Ally wasn’t initially for handheld; they’re mildly tweaked laptop computer processors that want 17 or 18 watts to start to hit their stride, sufficient for an entire handheld to empty a typical 50Wh battery pack in properly underneath three hours with mildly intensive video games.

The Z2 line is equally a set of tweaked laptop computer chips, and whereas AMD advised me some might provide extra efficiency on the similar energy and add improved effectivity tweaks, the whole consumed energy might not lower. Lenovo product supervisor Alex Zhu advised me it’s taking a look at operating its Legion Go S’s Z2 Go chip at round 20 watts, which could give it worse battery life than the 15-watt-and-below Steam Deck even when its GPU is extra succesful. AMD additionally confirmed the Z2 Go is much less highly effective than the prior-gen Z1 Excessive.

AMD senior fellow Mahesh Subramony advised me the corporate’s flagship Z2 Excessive chip, on TSMC’s shrunk-down N4P course of node with a mixture of newer Zen 5, Zen 5c and RDNA 3.5 cores, ought to be each extra environment friendly and way more succesful than the Z2 Go, and fairly a bit higher than the Z1 Excessive as properly, but it surely’s not a leap ahead. Which will require AMD’s even newer RDNA 4 graphics, and it could require bespoke processors.

Don’t maintain your breath in the event you’re hoping Intel would possibly present significant competitors within the handheld chip realm. Whereas early critiques of the Intel Lunar Lake chip within the revised MSI Claw 8 AI Plus are fairly promising, its dear Lunar Lake chip could also be a little bit of a one-off, with future Intel components steering away from the power-saving on-die reminiscence that Intel experimentally added. I’m curious if that’s why MSI hasn’t absolutely launched the Claw as anticipated.

In the meantime, Intel actually has larger fish to fry proper now than making {custom} handheld chips. “It’s not a market that we’re actively pursuing, but it surely’s a market we’re pleased to allow,” Intel VP of technical advertising and marketing Robert Hallock tells me of handheld gaming. “It’s considerably extracurricular,” he added, explaining that it’s a enjoyable and thrilling however small market and that Intel has to select its battles. “We’re coming off admittedly, about 5, six years of strife and we’ve got to determine the place we need to make investments.”.

Some producers have been in a position to enhance the battery life drawback of right this moment’s off-the-shelf AMD chips by together with a a lot bigger battery pack — the Asus ROG Ally X doubled the scale of its predecessor’s pack to 80 watt-hours, and it’s not the one 80Wh handheld you should buy. However that comes with dimension and weight tradeoffs that may solely be partially engineered away.

We’d like handheld makers to hitch collectively and make a case for higher chips.

The PC {industry} additionally wants to chop costs if it desires an opportunity to eat Nintendo’s lunch. 

The Nintendo Change debuted at $299 in 2017 — round $380 in right this moment’s cash — and the OLED model arrived at $349 in 2021. A 12 months later, Valve’s Steam Deck debuted at $399. However right this moment, the one Home windows handheld gaming PC I can suggest prices $799, roughly twice the worth of an entry-level Deck, and most Home windows handhelds have began at $600 and up. Excessive-end choices are nice, however the house might stay area of interest with out low-end choices, too. 

Solely the least costly mannequin of Lenovo’s SteamOS variant of the Legion Go S will decrease that bar to $499 this Could. And all of these costs are nonetheless greater than Sony or Microsoft costs for a TV console with much more efficiency, and sure greater than Nintendo will cost for the Change 2.

I’m unsure what precisely PC makers would wish to do to problem the Change on worth, but it surely’s probably not easy. Valve CEO Gabe Newell stated it was “painful” however “important” to launch the Steam Deck at $399, hinting that the corporate might have adopted the razor-and-blades enterprise mannequin the place console makers initially promote {hardware} at a loss, then make the cash again as folks purchase video games. In that case, that’s a tricky act to comply with, as no different PC maker controls the world’s largest PC video games retailer and might afford to subsidize a handheld that means.

However not each console has been a loss chief: Nintendo reportedly by no means bought the Change at a loss, and Sony stopped promoting the PS5 at a loss lower than a 12 months after its debut. So it’s doable to chop costs with the appropriate invoice of supplies and economies of scale. Lenovo explicitly advised me it labored with AMD on the Z2 Go chip to assist decrease the Legion Go S’s worth, for instance.

To compete with Nintendo, an organization like Microsoft or Valve and even Sony wants to guide the cost, securing the elements and providing the appropriate working system for dozens of true Change rivals Think about dozens of transportable Xboxes or PlayStations or Steam Machines, as a substitute of every PC maker marching to the beat of their very own drum.

I believe it’s time for an industry-wide push on handheld gaming. It is perhaps the way forward for gaming, interval. There’s an excessive amount of at stake to sort out it one half-baked Home windows handheld at a time.