"Why NOT Switch 2!" - Zoidberg

 This post will join my collection of reviews and comments on the various PC handhelds flooding the market. You can go over to Ebay and do a little searching to see just how many of these things are out there....it's nuts, especially OneXPlayer which churns out high priced handheld variants like Games Workshop churns new Space Marine models. But they have a lot of competition in this space now, with some of it being higher end but still cheaper than what they have to offer (MSI Claw, Legion Go line) and some of it being cheaper (Steam Deck, Xbox ROG Ally Base Model, Legion Go S). It seems like $1,000 to $1,500 is the "prestige price point" now, and anything over that is the dominion of OneX. Meanwhile, you can still spend less than $600 and get a perfectly decent experience, even if not all of the PC games in your collection will run optimally.

All of this is moot, though, when if all you want is a convenient on-the-go gaming experience then you can get a Switch ($379 last I checked), Switch 2 ($450 at least for now) or good old Switch Lite ($229 new, I think?) and have pretty much all the gaming you can stomach, even if its restricted to the walled garden of Nintendo. So what are the advantages of going this route, and what reasons might you not want to do this?

The top advantage aside from price is that the Switch 2 is an actual console, so it and its predecessor is built with ease of use in mind. You can dock it and it just works on your TV. You can take it to go and it just works, unless you are using a second unit and then you have to connect to wifi to get it to handshake with Nintendo's servers before you can play digital games (card-based games will work enywhere, unless you are using one of the cards that is only a code on  Switch 2). You can pop off the joycons and do multiplayer. You can kit it out with all kinds of stupidly fun accessories. I love the Satisfye style grip handles, for example. You can play it, stop a game, shut it down and then start it up again right where you left off with game pause that actually works. 

It does, in short, all the cool things that make consoles a better user experience than a Windows 11 PC in console clothing can do. Even SteamOS which tries hard is still only about 85% of the way there.....though with that said, if you really want the closest experience to a Switch at the closest price point to a Switch then the Steam Deck is a no brainer.

The downside of course is it is a console. So you can't load all your Steam, Epic, Xbox and GOG libraries on a Switch, and if you don't like the types of games that tend to find their way on the Switch then you are out of luck (this is really less of a problem than it seems, though Nintendo's eshop is kind of filled with hentai garbage these days and cheap cash grabs, the Good Games do stand out from the chafe). 

Switch 2 games tend to be more expensive. Many come on game cards but are really just codes; if it says its just a code, don't bother getting it unless you want to take turns sharing that code with family, which I think is possible. Even then, one day in the future if you like having a device guaranteed to last a long time, odds are those codes will eventually fail as all console storefronts tend to go kaput when the user base drops low enough for the company to sunset everything. Likewise with the eshop....look in to how Nintendo closed down their DS/3DS shop for an idea on what its going to look like on the Switch in 5-10 years. 

A note on Switch 2 ergonomics: its got terrible ergonomics, though you can figure out how best to hold it, or go buy a grip attachment or silicone skin like I have to make it more comfortable. That said, all of this is moot as the mere fact that it feels like a feather compared to all the PC handhelds means it will be a much friendlier, easier device to play with for long sessions as a handheld.

All that aside, for many of us there is an expectation that we may not plan on playing all games on a device for the rest of our lives and that the hot newness of 2030 will be far more important than whether games on the 2017 Switch will still be available. So for that scenario....buying one now is totally fine.

Anyway, this is hardly a review of the Switch 2, but it is a moment of sanity that I wanted to shine on the month I do all these handheld reviews: PC handheld gaming is awesome and fun, and I love these gadgets, but if I was on a budget and wanted some on-the-go gaming, I would stick with a Switch 2 in 2026, or maybe also a Steam Deck OLED (or Asus Xbox ROG Ally base model). The Switch 2 is the benchmark by which all of these other devices should aspire to.

The Handled Gaming Device Phenomenon - Two months in with the Asus ROG Ally vs. Steam Deck vs. Switch OLED vs. Switch Lite vs. BackBone

 I have written a bit about my time with all these handhelds, and one thing has become clear to me: I am not nearly enough of a handheld gamer to have much care or concern for them in the long run, and I should save my money going forward. My limiters on enjoying handheld games boil down to, in no particular order:

You Need Lots of Leisure Travel Time:  I travel a reasonable amount in state, but even when traveling rarely have the sort of free time it takes to pull out a handheld gaming device and play with it (and hey, I imagine every time I will have that sweet, sweet free time, but it's not nearly as often as I would like, it turns out); most of my travel is consumed by work related connectivity, it turns out.

This problem is not fixed by handhelds, but it does mean your handheld experience only needs to be as convenient as the actual time available. That means that, for example, if you only have 10 minutes free to play something light, you only need a device that accommodates short and easy play. 

When it comes to quick and portable, any of these consoles could be loaded with short quick-play games, but the king of the pack is either the Switch lite or the Backbone (a device that turns your phone into something approximating a handheld console), with the Switch OLED being a solid contender as well. Hauling a Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally around to play Asteroids or Pac Man (or if you're hip and modern, then Dead Cells or Blashphemous) seem like overkill. 

Tiny Screens are for Young Eyes: My eyesight as I get older is just not as good with tiny screens. This does mean that really good tiny screens with clear resolution, readable text, and decent colors are more important to the experience, though. I know of others my age with distinctly bigger eyesight issues than me, so I imagine some of these handhelds would border on useless.

Of the devices I mentioned, I would say the Steam Deck and Switch OLED are great, chiefly because most games designed for the Switch account for small screen play (there are a few obnoxious exceptions). Steam Deck requires good judgement on what you load, but also has that magnify feature that is AMAZING. Switch Lite is an eye strain unfortunately, even though I love my tiny Switch Lite for its portability. Asus ROG Ally actively hates your eyes, but its higher resolution is very nice. If it had a magnification option like the Steam Deck does that would be much nicer....but its real problem is the tiny Windows 11 interface that is a pain in the ass. 

Get a Grip!: Form factor is super important; third party products such as Hori's Split-Pad Pro attachments capitalize on this because they know plenty of adults have Switches and need something that feels comfortable to play with. To their credit, both Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally are very comfortable. So the Switch models lose out here, as they sacrifice ergonomic grips for portability and other features.

It Needs to Be Easy: the handheld is essentially a mini console, and its not something most people want to troubleshoot the OS on when you are flying of traveling somewhere with spotty internet. I am specifically calling out the Asus ROG Ally here, as its Windows 11 operating system has caused me no end of trouble diagnosing random crap that only Microsoft could be the cause of. The Backbone one is also a bit of a problem, unless you pay for their optional but useful Backbone app which helps make the product more useful, especially for streaming. The fact that so many ioS and Android games don't always play nice with it is a downside. So for Easy look to the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck (unless you do a lot of modding in Linux on Steam Deck, in which case Nope.)

It needs to not Overheat: The Asus ROG Ally overheats. A lot. It's bad enough that it impacts performance at times, and its placement of the MicroSD slot is adjacent to a major vent, so sometimes the device works fine unless you are trying to run a game off of the MicroSD slot. This is just bad design, and after two months with the Ally I've decided that problem alone changes my relationship with the device from "I love it despite and because of Windows 11" to "I grudgingly put up with this dysfunctional relationship because its the device I can play Destiny 2 and my Epic Game store products on with the greatest ease." I have never had an overheating issue on the Switches or Steam Deck. FYI I have had an overheating issue on my iPhone 13 Mini but that's pretty rare. 

Final Verdict:

Asus ROG Ally is not worth it, unfortunately, unless you are willing to put up with its many problems with Windows 11 being suboptimal, its overheating, and its lack of a coherent user interface for travel (it tries with the Armoury Crate thing, but fails).

Steam Deck is worth it, as long as you don't dive down the Linux rabbit hole too deeply. or if you like doing that, then its a must-buy!

Switch OLED remains the most versatile device, as long as you don't mind being stuck in the available library of games. Rumor has it a new Switch will come out next year, so YMMV though. 

Switch Lite wins for the ultra-portable element, but it loses for being hard on the eyes and not ergonomic. It also can't be modified like the OLED as the controller portions are not joycons, and are permanently attached. 

BackBone One wins as being most portable, but I find the entire "gaming on my phone" experience, even with a decent controller, to be suboptimal and disengaging; it just ain't fun for this old guy. 

That said, I still find simply pulling out the old gaming laptop to be a perfectly viable solution, especially if you expect most leisure gaming time to actually be in a hotel room. So....yeah.

A Brief 8/20 Update Since I wrote this: Everything I said above is still 100% valid, but I feel it worth mentioning that in the last 9 days I have done most of my handheld gaming on the Asus ROG Ally and that is primarily because the games I am currently focused on are either best to play or can only be played on its handheld environment (Destiny 2, Diablo Immortal, Diablo IV, Outriders...which I owned on the Xbox store and not Steam). I also have been dabbling in Assassin's Creed Odyssey on the Ally. I can't play any of those game on the Steam Deck, for the most part, without diving deep into the Linux environment and spending a lot of time trying to make some of them work. So...for purposes of my own circumstance, I guess the issues with the Ally are worth putting up with just for the broader range of games I can access alone.