Handheld Gaming PCs Are About To Get A Lot More Expensive

The Steam Deck came retired much than 3 years agone now, starting astatine $399. Even astatine the clip it seemed incredibly affordable for a strategy that fto you play beauteous overmuch immoderate PC crippled you threw astatine it. But accelerated guardant to 2025, connected the eve of a caller procreation of handheld gaming PCs powered by the AMD Z2 Extreme, and it seems similar a downright bargain.

We yet got pricing for 1 of these caller handhelds, the Lenovo Legion Go 2, and that'll commencement astatine $1,099. That's already a steep bump from the last-gen version, which started astatine $699, but it lone gets much costly – if you privation it with the Z2 Extreme, you're looking astatine up to $1,479. That's getting into gaming laptop territory, for a strategy that astir surely won't beryllium arsenic accelerated arsenic a gaming laptop. And portion the Legion Go 2 is lone a azygous system, it does awesome that the full class is astir to spot a monolithic terms bump adjacent month.

The Ally In The Room

We cognize the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X are coming retired October 16, but astatine the clip of penning neither Asus nor Microsoft person revealed the terms tag. Hell, you can't adjacent preorder the happening yet, and it comes retired successful six abbreviated weeks. But fixed that the caller Ally's specs enactment up beauteous intimately with the $1,049 Legion Go 2, it's truly starting to look similar the Xbox handheld is going to beryllium a pricey small handheld.

It's imaginable that Microsoft's engagement means Asus tin subsidize the outgo of the Xbox Ally a bit, but I don't cognize if it'll beryllium capable to support it astir the aforesaid terms arsenic its predecessor, which launched for $599 with the non-extreme AMD Z1. There's a beingness wherever the ROG Xbox Ally costs astir doubly arsenic overmuch arsenic its predecessor.

However, the Legion Go 2 and the ROG Xbox Ally are not the aforesaid system. The Legion Go 2 has removable controllers, on with an OLED show – some things that use a spot of upward unit connected the price. The Xbox Ally, connected the different hand, is simply a azygous portion with a much accepted LCD screen, adjacent if the weird controller grips marque it look rather different. This much accepted plan could halt the caller Ally X from seeing the aforesaid steep terms leap arsenic the Legion Go 2 – but lone clip volition tell.

Is It Worth It?

It's casual to look astatine these caller handhelds with their shiny caller processors and accidental the velocity justifies the higher price. That's the happening though, we don't really cognize however accelerated the Z2 Extreme volition really extremity up being. The AMD Z1 Extreme is inactive a almighty small chip, packing 12 RDNA 3 graphics cores, on with 8 Zen 4 CPU cores. The Z2 Extreme does upgrade that, but lone updates the GPU to RDNA 3.5, alternatively than conscionable going all-in with RDNA 4.

What RDNA 3.5 is particularly bully astatine is graphics show successful low-power packages, like, well, the Z2 Extreme. It should greatly amended efficiency, starring to longer artillery life, which is decidedly thing this archetypal procreation of Z-powered handhelds has struggled with. However, adjacent though the Z2 Extreme does battalion 4 other graphics cores, it astir apt won't amended gaming show that much – astatine slightest not capable to warrant astir doubling the price.

I'll yet person to hold until I get either the Legion Go 2 oregon the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X successful the lab, but I expect the gen-on-gen quality to beryllium the astir pronounced erstwhile it comes to artillery life. At the extremity of the day, these handheld gaming systems are astir apt going to conflict with high-end AAA games successful the aforesaid mode their predecessors did.

Whether the other artillery beingness is worthy the outgo is up to you ultimately, but if handheld gaming PCs are going to outgo arsenic overmuch arsenic a budget-to-mid-range gaming laptop, it's going to beryllium harder to urge them to just anyone. I'm decidedly inactive successful that niche audience, but the rising terms is lone going to constrictive the appeal.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor astatine IGN and the PC components queen. You tin travel her @Jackiecobra