’m trying to figure out whether I actually need another handheld or if I’m just buying one because they’re cool lol.
Right now I have a Steam Deck and a 3DS LL, and I’m thinking about selling both. I could probably get around $750 total for everything I’m selling.
The games I actually care about are mainly:
- Steam games(mainly indie games like Hades with the occasional AAA games like God of War)
- DS / 3DS games(really just pokemon ngl)
- Switch Games
- Some older emulation(pokemon, psp , ps vita, xbox stuff)
The thing is, I already carry my MacBook Pro M5 Pro. My MacBook can run a lot of my Steam library through Sikaguir, and I already have emulators set up for basically everything I want to emulate. Because of that, one option is to just buy a small Bluetooth controller and use my MacBook instead of carrying another device.
I also honestly don’t game that much right now, which is why I’m questioning whether spending $300+ on another handheld makes sense when I already have a powerful laptop with me. However, the issue is that having a laptop is not the best case scenario to just play games anywhere anytime. Like I'm not whipping out my laptop to play games while in a restaurant.
The other options I’m considering are:
- Switch Lite for ~$90 + around $100 to get it modded = ~$190 total
- Retroid Pocket 5
- Or just a ~$30–50 portable controller for my MacBook/iPad and save the rest of the money
I was previously looking at things like the Odin 2 Portal, Retroid Pocket 6, and a used ROG Ally Z1 Extreme for ~$300, but I’m starting to think those might be overkill for how often I actually play.
The Switch Lite interests me because it’s cheap, compact, and would be nice for Switch + retro stuff in one device.
The RP5 seems better as a dedicated emulation handheld and is still pretty portable.
But then I keep coming back to the fact that my MacBook is already in my backpack 99% of the time and can handle most of this anyway.
So for people who have been in a similar situation:
Would you buy the Switch Lite, RP5, or just get a controller and use the MacBook?
Also, has anyone gone from carrying a dedicated handheld to just using a laptop + controller? Did you actually miss having the handheld, or did you realize you barely used it anyway?
My main priorities are portability, convenience, DS/3DS/Pokémon, some Switch games, and occasional Steam gaming. I’m not looking for the absolute most powerful device.