Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and more: all the news about the handheld PC gaming revolution

For the last few years, PC gamers on the go have had a choice: Buy a gaming laptop, or pick up one of the many Steam Deck–inspired handhelds that are a fraction of the size but a lot less versatile. Acer’s latest concept device, Project DualPlay Mini, is an attempt to upend that dichotomy by sticking a keyboard in a handheld.

The DualPlay Mini is first and foremost a Windows gaming handheld, cut from the same cloth as Acer’s existing Predator Atlas 8 (which is being joined this week by a new 7-inch model). In its default configuration, the handheld’s screen is flanked by analog sticks, a D-pad, and Xbox-style ABXY face buttons, plus two triggers on each shoulder. But the DualPlay Mini’s “flip-and-swivel design” allows you to flip the device open and swivel the screen round to instead line it up with a compact, backlit mini keyboard.

The Asus Xbox Ally X20 looked like it could be one of the best handheld gaming PCs yet made — but originally, Asus wanted you to buy a bundle pairing it with pricy AR glasses. In July, we told you that bundle would no longer be necessary, and today it’s official: you can pre-order a standalone handheld at Best Buy or Asus’s online store for $1,300, shipping October 15th.

Asus spokesperson Don Nguyen tells us it’s the same basic ROG 20th Anniversary handheld I tried at its US offices, so you should be getting a translucent gadget with gold trim.

When a company’s software update turns your computer into a useless brick, should fixes be free? Framework, the modular computer startup, apparently thinks so. But it’s not clear that computing giant Lenovo will go that far.

Three weeks after a Redditor presented a nearly $300 repair bill for their handheld gaming PC — among other reports of damage and high repair bills — the company is breaking its silence. It says, in short: try holding down the power button longer, and if that fails, contact customer support.

As The Verge’s resident handheld reviewer, I have nearly every portable gaming PC on a shelf in my house. The MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus is now the first one I reach for. Thanks to a next-gen Intel chip and improved MSI design, the Claw EX is the most powerful handheld that truly feels portable. It’s the handheld with the longest battery life, and the first Windows handheld I can trust to sleep and wake reliably.

Like the Steam Deck, when I press the power button, my game is always right where I left off. Unlike the Steam Deck, it can hibernate for days without losing a significant amount of charge.

Logitech’s new gaming boss, Robin Piispanen, tells me he likes the idea of gaming handhelds. “It’s such a charming value proposition,” he says, as we sip iced vanilla lattes at my local cafe. But he’s not building one right now. He’s not sure when or if Logitech should try again, after its underwhelming experiment with the Logitech G Cloud streaming handheld.

“Right now, in this moment in time, there’s bigger things for us to focus on than doing a second G Cloud,” he tells me.

Valve has been incredibly friendly to customers who need repairs — which is why it was so surprising to hear that Valve was already discontinuing the battery for the Steam Deck LCD handheld. It would have meant you could no longer just buy a battery from iFixit and install it yourself. Why would Valve stop stocking the most important replacement part just as people are starting to need it?

Here is Valve’s answer to The Verge, as of 5PM ET: “We just confirmed with iFixit that they plan to have batteries back in stock by next week.”

When I first told you about the “OLED Xbox Ally X of my dreams,” I had to curb my enthusiasm a bit. That’s partly because I hadn’t yet tried the handheld myself, and partly because Asus was only planning to sell it bundled with a pair of expensive AR glasses! I’m happy to say both things are no longer true.

Asus will sell a standalone version of the OLED Ally as well, spokesperson Anthony Spence confirms to The Verge. “We are actively discussing the release schedule for a standalone version of the new Ally. Please stay tuned for upcoming announcements.”

This is not a review of the MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus, the first gaming handheld available with Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme handheld gaming chip. Now that my colleague Sean Hollister is done reviewing the Steam Machine, I’ll let him go deep on the new Claw at some point in the future. This article, instead, is my first impressions of the new MSI Claw as someone who primarily plays games on a Steam Deck OLED. Sean called the Claw the “next-gen handheld,” and I wanted to find out: Would it be a worthwhile upgrade for Deck fans like me? Could it possibly be worth the eye-watering $1,799 price?

For me, the Claw has a high bar to clear. The $789 Steam Deck OLED is my favorite handheld — maybe my favorite gadget — since the original Nintendo Switch. It’s comfortable to hold, has a great-looking display, and has a good enough battery to survive pretty much any evening of gaming for me. It lets me play the vast majority of my Steam library wherever I want. But the Deck isn’t great for every game I own; top-of-the-line AAA games occasionally play poorly, with muddy graphics, bad frame rates, or both. I will suffer through those drawbacks for many games, but every once in a while, I turn to my PS5 for titles that don’t work well on the Deck.

MSI’s Intel-powered Claw gaming handhelds have so far mostly been Windows machines, meaning that anyone who picks one up has to deal with the crusty experience that is Windows on a handheld gaming PC. But now, both Valve and Intel tell The Verge that they’re working with each other, and people like YouTuber ETA Prime are already having good experiences with SteamOS on Intel.

Valve’s recently launched SteamOS 3.8 update spells out that Valve has added “initial firmware for upcoming Intel handhelds” and controller support for some MSI Claw devices, including last year’s well-received 8 AI Plus. ETA Prime actually got a beta of SteamOS 3.8 running on that machine, and while he said it’s “not perfect,” it appears that everything works pretty well, for the most part. A user on Reddit was also able to get SteamOS booted up on an Intel Arc B580 desktop GPU.

Gaming handhelds are amazing. They make it so much easier to fit all kinds of games into my day. Sadly, they’re less affordable than they’ve ever been — due to an unprecedented, AI-fueled shortage of memory chips, an unforced oil crisis, rampant inflation, fallout from tariffs, and more.

But that’s not going to stop you. You’ve decided now’s the time to buy one, before the next shoe drops.

Intel couldn’t catch a break. Layoffs. Shakedowns. Crashing CPUs torpedoing its reputation, sending desktop gamers fleeing to AMD. Apple and Qualcomm pushing Intel out of multiple flagship laptops. A gaming graphics card going MIA. But its Panther Lake laptop chip, the first on its all-important 18A process, turned out excellent — and a handheld version might make Intel the leader in portable gaming chips.

On Monday, I spent two hours with an MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus handheld atop Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme. I walked away thinking that next-gen handhelds have finally arrived. The true leap in performance and battery life we’ve been waiting for, but at a high price.

If you asked me what I’d change about the Xbox Ally X handheld — aside from fixing Windows, I mean — I’d tell you two key things.

First, give me a bigger, better screen. Even a little bit bigger, so games feel less claustrophobic and with less ugly bezel. Second, get rid of the “Library” button. I am so tired of an accidental press booting me out of my game and into the Xbox library without a simple way to get back.