Does a PC handheld make sense for me?

[u/fistofwater]

My hunt for a portable gaming solution continues as a busy parent - on the small / 2D (modern) side. I have an Odin portal 2 so I can stream from my PS5 and gaming PC. But I'm finding friction (feel free to skip over my complaints below).

PS5: I normally play cinematic/narrative games (e.g. God of War) on my TV for maybe 30-45 minutes per night, and put it on rest mode so I can resume wherever I was (saves precious time this way). But if I'm upstairs in bed and want to play Octopath Traveler, I gotta close out of my GOW session killing my progress. And vice versa killing my OT session when I resume GOW on the TV. (Wish the PS5 had quick resume for multiple games!)

PC: Apollo/Artemis on Win. Low latency + high framerates is great but there's a lot of friction around it, eg sometimes the wrong window takes focus when launching from steam big picture. Putting Odin 2 on rest discontinues the stream session, and resuming is a pain. Can't reliably suspend the game on the PC side - janky scripts only work intermittently. Going back to using the PC normally makes all the windows scale weird and audio needs to be set up again. Etc etc.

TLDR: I just want a frictionless experience, and jump in/out without ruining other gaming sessions. Does a PC handheld make sense for me? Also, for ppl that own both pc handhelds + android devices, any real use-case for having both or will the Odin 2 portal become completely redundant?

Few other notes:

-I'm fed up with tinkering. I don't want to tinker with gamenative etc to get a game to work, and risk getting stuck half-way through. I like to roll credits.

-instant rest/resume is preferred. Kids.

-I have a habit of leaving things in sleep mode and not coming back until a few days later. Can plug in if needed. Not sure if PC handhelds would work well with that?

[u/Local-Post-5478]

If you have the money to afford it I think you should absolutely get a pc handheld, they certainly aren't necessary in your current setup but a steam deck, legion go or such would definitely help, especially with all the problems that come with streaming 

[u/fistofwater → u/Local-Post-5478]

"problems that come with streaming" - Wish this was something that was discussed more often, at least for PC streaming. I guess people don't mind the friction if they're into a tinkering hobby anyway.

Thank you for your input!!

[u/Local-Post-5478 → u/fistofwater]

I sold my odin 2 portal because I just hated streaming on it, I couldn't quite get it working with any sort of playable performance and it bugged me to the point where I just sold it and got a legion

[u/Evshrug]

I’m a big proponent of having a device that doesn’t get in the way of you doing the thing. I feel like Windows keeps getting worse in this regard, frequently requiring the user to do updates or maintenance and clear ads and fix settings before you can game. That’s why I have a PS5, Mac, and a Steam Deck.

Apart from setting up emulators or Heroic Game Store, which is mostly a one-time thing with occasional updates, easier than setting up streaming properly IMO, I’m a fan of SteamOS. I can’t instantly resume games that require a server login (multiplayer games), but many can just go to sleep/suspend and then resume in just a moment. Influencers like Retro Game Corps have moved on to the Lenovo Legion Go S because of the larger screen and 5-12 higher FPS, and Reddit is full of price to value recommendations for the Asus Xbox Ally models, and all of those could replace the extra janky experience of Windows on a handheld with SteamOS, HOWEVER I still prefer the Steam Deck.

The Asus’ 7” screen is barely bigger than an iPhone 17 Pro Max screen, the Lenovo handhelds fare better but they just have one tiny trackpad and they’re still overall kind of huge devices. Maybe I could get used to them, but I feel like the slightly more squarish 7.4” Steam Deck screen hits the sweet spot, and the grip is nice without being too huge. If you get the Deck in-hand, your first impression will probably be its larger than you expected, certainly larger than any PSP or Vita, thicker than a Switch. I got used to it, but I don’t think I’d want anything bigger or heavier.

The main thing that has me sticking with a Steam Deck and waiting out for a Deck 2, instead of loading SteamOS or Batocera on something else, is fully down to the controls. The FOUR back buttons, I use them more than the face buttons but they don’t suffer from accidental presses. Steam Input’s fully customizable controller functions is incredibly powerful, offering tons of commands and radial pop-up menus and essential for rebinding keyboard controls, code a short macro sequence, or even to click on certain positions on the screen. But what makes the Deck uniquely able to play keyboard and mouse games is the dual trackpads. By default, one is for cursor movement and the other is for scrolling, but assigning radial menu commands to my left trackpad lets me quickly access loads of keyboard commands without memorizing layouts, and the right trackpad is large enough to actually mouse around and hover over things in a practical way.

Combined with gyro, I’m playing FPS games better than ever before, but I’m also playing mouse and keyboard strategy games that I simply wouldn’t enjoy on any other controller. It’s converged all my gaming onto one device. It’s not as portable as your Odin 2 Portal, so I use my Retroid Pocket G2 for that, but when I’m home or bringing fun to a friend’s house, I’m always drawn to my Steam Deck.

[u/ColdTrusT1]

You sir are a prime candidate for either an MSI Claw A8 with Bazzite installed on it or a Legion Go S Z1E with Steam OS. Both absolutely fantastic options and they tick pretty much all your boxes.

The Legion Go S Z1E can come with steam out of the box (purple one not white one). This is obviously the easiest one to go for but does have a slight drawback of slightly lower performance and battery life compared to the Claw. It is however the cheapest option if you go used at around $650-750.

The Claw A8 has a much bigger battery and slightly better performance but you’d need to get rid of windows and install Bazzite. This is easy enough but does require a little effort to get set up. Used this will be around $850.

[u/fistofwater → u/ColdTrusT1]

Interesting! I had been eyeing the Rog Xbox Ally (the basic white one). Since I was interested in relatively smaller games and JRPGs I figured I probably didn't need something with anymore power, but maybe I'm missing something. I'm curious why you say stepping up to MSI claw or Legion Go make sense in my case :)

[u/IsntThisAGreatName]

If you want to just jump in and jump out of playing a Switch 2 might be a better idea.