More from Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and more: all the news about the handheld PC gaming revolution
Lenovo’s Clifford Chong says “of course” there’ll be a next generation of the Legion Go handheld, in this roundtable interview recorded by Chris Stead. Here’s hoping it keeps kickstand and joy-cons, but not the ergonomics.
Separately, Aokzoe will announce a new Intel Core Ultra handheld on April 14th, the third to try Meteor Lake after the MSI Claw and OneXPlayer X1.
The Phawx rips the handheld’s Intel chip a new one in the video below, trying and failing to find almost any redeemable quality. More power draw and/or worse performance than rivals isn’t a winning recipe.
ETA Prime and Retro Game Corps are seeing similar. MSI put this one on sale before reviewers could weigh in, which is never a great sign... I’ll keep an open mind as Intel and co ship updates?
Did you know Valve’s Steam Deck OLED product introduction video was entirely lit by Steam Deck OLEDs? Now you do, and Valve has just published a blog post that goes behind the scenes.
The thing’s legit, and I’m kicking myself for not publishing my own pics of it sooner. (Court happens!) Here I am inside the thing, and I like this intentionally goofy one of Valve’s Lawrence Yang.
Playtron CTO Franck De Girolami:
The immutable file system from Fedora Silverblue will be very helpful in implementing our anti cheat system but it is not our anti cheat system. We are planning to generate signatures for each version of our OS (easy with Silverblue) as well as all the DLLs we install dynamically. Basically using our SDK, a game developer will be able to obtain a signature of the current config on the device then call our backend to verify that this is a genuine Playtron version.
Playtron: the startup hoping to Steam Deck-ify the world
What if Steam Deck, but not just Steam and not just Deck?
6
Verge Score
It’s different, and different can be good.
One thing the Asus ROG Ally absolutely does better than the Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go: smooth out choppy gameplay with its variable refresh rate screen. Now, GPD will use a similar 7-inch 120Hz VRR screen on its 2024 Win Mini — and (sadly?) swap out the Oculink external GPU port for 10Gbps USB-A.
The MSI Claw will also have a 7-inch VRR screen.
One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows. How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That’s a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better.
Does that mean handheld mode isn’t just a hackathon project anymore? There was that Xbox app compact mode...
I had to download patches manually from Lenovo’s website just last week. Looking forward to never doing that again! I’m not sure what else is in Legion Space 1.2.7, as the company hasn’t issued a changelog yet, but previous updates brought joystick deadzone and sensitivity adjustments for example. There was a new graphics driver in December.
The tech works on DX11 and DX12 games and adds fake frames. It is not a silver bullet for low-perf handhelds: it can add so much lag AMD only suggests it for games running 60fps or better.
But this Filterless video shows it’s more nuanced than that. In the right games, you could save considerable battery or add noticeable smoothness. The ROG Ally will get it “as soon as possible”; Lenovo is “looking at how to properly implement” it.
No need to crowdfund — you can just up and buy it right here for its Early Bird price. There’s a lot to like about its design. But it’s unlikely its old Ryzen 5 4500U will even approach a $349 Steam Deck LCD in performance. I tested the very first Ayaneo, which came with that chip, and the Deck beat it soundly.
Also, it will no longer come with any flavor of SteamOS. It’s a Windows machine now.
Ayaneo’s Next Lite is a $299 Steam Deck competitor with unofficial SteamOS
I’m actually working on a review of the Legion Go right now, and it’s the only Windows gaming handheld I can recommend — if you absolutely must have Windows, can’t wait for Intel-powered handheld reviews, and don’t want a gaming laptop instead.
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Asus India exec Arnold Su told Techlusive that the new gaming handheld will “focus more on gaming” — what a Yo Dawg quote! — but will still be focused on Windows rather than, say, SteamOS. I wonder why.
The first Ally was a bit tortured but not a bad product overall, unless we’re talking about the cheaper, weaker version.
I’d like to know too! I’ve been told that in general Valve isn’t easy to get a hold of, and that it has contributed to some handheld makers’ decisions to launch on Windows.
But... Valve has clearly been working towards a SteamOS that works on more handhelds, as you can see if you launch the desktop Big Picture Mode on Windows handhelds. Also, Valve is a tiny company of roughly 300 employees.
Ayaneo’s Next Lite is a $299 Steam Deck competitor with unofficial SteamOS
There are still many unknowns about this new handheld Windows gaming PC, but Sean Hollister reports from CES 2024 that MSI’s Claw device feels comfier than competitors like the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go.
MSI says the Claw will ship this year, priced at $699 to start, or more if you’re willing to pay for an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU.
The gorgeous X-ray-like close-up photos in this video are from Fritzchens Fritz — I’ve introduced you to his work before. You can also go straight to his Flickr page if you don’t have time for video. I particularly like this shot.
The video also shows how much smaller the Steam Deck OLED’s die-shrunk Sephiroth chip is — no die shots of that one yet, though.
Chinese boutique handheld firms are moving fast, with Ayaneo and GPD switching out their AMD 7840U in 2024 handhelds for the new 8840U instead — even though that chip is largely unchanged from 7840U. The only public diff is faster AI.
And yet there may be a new sheriff in town: OneXPlayer’s next system will feature an Intel Core Ultra. Phoronix has an extensive comparo showing Intel’s 155H beating AMD’s 7840U in GPU performance and power consumption simultaneously — just what I want in a handheld.
A tidbit from my interview:
Why is Fortnite still not playable on Steam Deck?
If we only had a few more programmers. It’s the Linux problem. I love the Steam Deck hardware. Valve has done an amazing job there; I wish they would get to tens of millions of users, at which point it would actually make sense to support it.
Epic’s own Easy Anti-Cheat does support Steam Deck, though — and both Valve and Epic agreed the anti-cheat part should be a simple matter in November 2021.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney: the post-trial interview
Rapper/podcaster Danny Brown enters his Steam Deck review (not necessarily the OLED model, but still) as the ultimate in-flight companion device.