Some of us here at Club386 have a real soft spot for PC gaming handhelds. Maybe it’s because we like to travel or just enjoy lounging around on the couch with our favourite Steam titles. Whatever the reason, it looks like 2025 is the year PC gaming handhelds will come into their own with plenty of announcements at CES.
The headliner for us is that SteamOS will finally break free from the confines of Steam Deck. This was always Valve’s intention, but it’s been a long time coming since the Linux-based compatibility layer graced portables in 2022. In the meantime, we’ve relied on third-party options such as Bazzite to fill the void, which it did fairly well.
Steam Deck lead designer Pierre-Loup Griffais tells The Verge that SteamOS is heading into Beta for other handhelds “after March sometime.” There’s no promise it’ll work with all portables out there as catering to multiple SKUs is always a challenge, but some should run like a charm right after it lands. Since Valve has knuckled down to add support for Asus ROG Ally, that seems like a good candidate.
Initially, this will solely be a DIY solution, where you can download the fork and install it yourself. It’s identical with access to all the same updates, but there’s no guarantee it’ll perform as well as it could with official support. Only handhelds that have undergone a rigorous vetting process and received Gaben’s final thumbs up will be able to ship with SteamOS already installed.
Lenovo Legion Go S
The first, and currently only handheld with the official badge of honour is Lenovo Legion Go S Powered By SteamOS. Yes, that’s its actual name, which at least makes it clear alongside its bespoke Nebula Violet colourway, that it’s different to the Windows 11 model also announced during the event. Both arrive with the same specs sans the operating system, led by either an AMD Ryzen Z2 or Z1 Extreme processor, 32GB of DDR5-6400, and 1TB of storage.
Reducing the resolution to 1920×1200 with 120Hz refresh rate is a smart decision. Not only is this far easier to saturate with the hardware underneath, but it makes more sense with the tighter pixels per inch on an 8in LCD touchscreen than the original Legion Go’s QHD approach. It should also make the 55.5WHr battery last that much longer, although there might be some discrepencies between a session on Windows 11 and SteamOS.
Legion Go S ditches detachable controllers in favour of a cheaper price point, but MSRPs will start a little higher with a staggered release. Lenovo will kick things off late January with a single Windows 11 model costing $729. Come May 2025, we’ll see the Powered By SteamOS version arrive on shelves starting at $499. It’s not clear what’s buried under the hood for each launch, but once both devices are on the market, you will start to see parity between specs and prices.
Despite its walled garden and extra hassle to get third-party storefronts working on SteamOS, I much prefer the intuitive console-like experience than Windows 11. I, for one, can’t wait to see more devices feature the operating system, particularly as developers are paying more attention to it. Nvidia has just announced it’s finally brining a native GeForce Now app to the platform rather than making you indulge a silly workaround. Winner winner.
Lenovo Legion Go 2
Lenovo’s second-generation handheld is more in line with the design ethos of its predecessor but featuring meaningful upgrades. It steps things up with AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme at the helm, merging Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 goodies into an incredibly capable machine with 16 graphics cores. It’s enough to power the newly upgraded 8.8in OLED display, ditching LCD for punchier colours and deeper blacks.
To the chagrin of some, Lenovo has made the decision to drop the resolution down to 1920×1200, but I’d argue this is a fantastic choice. Hitting 144Hz is far easier for most games and respects the bigger 74Wh battery. After all, battery life was a big issue on the original model.
No spec is truly cemented, given it was just a prototype shown on stage, but it rounds everything off with 32GB of DDR5-7500 LPDDR5X RAM and up to 2TB of storage. Lenovo hasn’t yet set a release date, but it’s likely Legion Go 2 will arrive at some point this year at the very least. Leaving it too long, however, will see it contend with Nintendo Switch 2, which I can tell you now isn’t a battle it wants to fight.
Sunday Dragon 3D One
Moving on from its Logitech partnership, Tencent has teamed up with Intel on a new handheld that aims to bring back autostereoscopic 3D à la Nintendo 3DS. I can’t say I was a huge fan of the feature, regularly switching it off, or that I believe it’ll be a hit when most games aren’t created with 3D in mind, but it’s nice to see something different, I guess.
Announced last year, we get our first look at the behemoth in Las Vegas. The Lunar Lake monster stretches the definition of ‘handheld’, packing an 11in 2.5K screen and detachable controllers that become a wrestling match to remove. Intel Core Ultra 7 285V is plenty to power it with 32GB LPDDR5x memory and 1TB of storage, but your main contention will be how long you can lift the thing.
As you might expect, there’s no sign of release or finalisation but it’s a peek into the future nonetheless.
Acer Nitro Blaze 11
It seems there’s a trend, with Acer Nitro Blaze 11 also pushing the boundaries of what a handheld is, featuring an 11in screen. It’s likely this will release before Tencent’s model in Q2 2025, becoming the biggest portable money can buy. It’ll set you back $1,099, which I have some questions about since it’s powered by a last-gen Ryzen 7 8840HS from 2023 and Radeon 780M graphics, but here we are. At least its 16GB LPDDR5x memory and up to 2TB of storage seem more reasonable.
There’s a more palatable 8.8in model, but controllers are static compared to the removable options on its bigger brother. A worthy sacrifice for something you can physically hold at 720g rather than 1kg, and with a marginally slimmer $899 price tag.
As Lenovo taught us, it’s a challenge to feed 2560×1600 resolution at 120Hz, let alone 144Hz on Nitro Blaze 8. This might be something Acer needs to learn if it heads into a third generation.
Zotac Zone 2025
In a rapid turnaround, Zotac has announced an all-new handheld meant to replace the original, which debuted just a few months ago. It makes sense, considering the original Zotac Zone was late to the portable game, packing AMD’s Hawk Point right at the end of its life and costing a pretty penny.
Zotac Zone 2025 upgrades the CPU to a Ryzen AI HX 9 370, alongside double the memory and storage at 32GB LPDDR5X and 1TB apiece. We don’t currently know how this will affect performance or price but it should put it on level footing with some of the upcoming competition at the very least.
The rest remains the same, with a 7in 120Hz AMOLED panel and a 48.5Wh battery, now wrapped in a white casing rather than black. This is a ‘why fix what’s not broken’ situation in my eyes, because I absolutely love that’s it’s one of the few rocking dual trackpads on either side. I’m in the minority here, but a handheld without trackpads is a missed opportunity in my eyes. Of course, we’ll have to see how it fares when it lands, whenever that may be.
Others
I could probably go on forever highlighting new handhelds, but there’s simply so many. Alongside the above, Microsoft has committed to bettering Windows 11 for portables, which could set the stage for an Xbox version but there’s no sign of it just yet. GPD Win 4 states that it plans to support SteamOS this year, although Valve has already gone on record to state that isn’t happening in any official capacity. And the already-available MSI Claw 8 AI+ received a spotlight at CES 2025 to promote all its fixes over the original.
It sure is a nice time to be a handheld enthusiast. Give Club386 a follow on Google News to make sure you don’t miss any of our CES coverage!
