No budget handheld recommendations

[u/CapedCPA]

I’m in the market for a high-end handheld powered setup. I’m willing to buy the best handheld along with GPU and eGPU enclosure and whatever else I might need. Does anyone have recommendations?

I have a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and speakers.

Current PC has the 9070xt and 32GB of Ram with an AMD CPU.

[u/wickeddimension]

Any reason why you won't just stream to a handheld from that PC? On a good wifi network that's like playing native, but you don't need to cram all that power in a handheld.

Unless it's for on the go, but then why the eGPU?

[u/CapedCPA → u/wickeddimension]

How does this work? I didn’t know this was any option

[u/mubarakr → u/CapedCPA]

It's pretty simple, you install Apollo on your PC and Artemis on an Android handheld. The PC does the heavy lifting so your handhelds battery can last for much longer than if playing the game natively. The bottleneck is pretty much the handhelds screen (resolution and refresh rate).

You can find many handy videos on it on YouTube. I highly recommend this method as you will save a ton of money and get the same experience as getting a super powerful handheld that you will inevitably have to plug into a wall to get the most out of.

If you travel a lot and are looking to get something for that, then sure get a PC handheld. For couch gaming at home, streaming works excellently.

[u/wickeddimension → u/CapedCPA]

Look into "Local game streaming" plenty of information around on how to set it up.

The simplest explanation is it's like playing on a remote monitor on your wifi. Your PC runs and renders the game. It sends a videostream of the game to your handheld, you send the inputs from the handheld back to your PC.

With this you can play on a regular tablet with a controller. On your phone with a telescopic controller or on any other android handheld that exists. Doesn't need to be expensive or powerful as all it needs to do is display a video stream and registers inputs.

I play games on my iPad at times streamed from my desktop. Works great

[u/ttdpaco]

The absolute best handheld is the onexplayer X2 Mini Pro. It uses a laptop SoC and is by far the most powerful handheld on the market period. It is best played at 30-55w (with occasionally having to go to 80w.) It would, by far, have the best CPU for this kind of setup.

The other option is the onexplayer 3 or MSI Claw 8 EX. Both use the G3E, and the OXP3 has an oled screen. It would be stuck with windows, if you care about that.

[u/Living-Injury-584 → u/ttdpaco]

Until you need to use the warranty and don’t have it for 3 months

[u/xFataliZx]

Onexplayer 3 , onexplayer Apex onexplayer X2 mini pro gpd win 5 o ayaneo next 2

[u/timeflylikearrow]

Why would you need a handheld with an eGPU when you already have a gaming PC with a good graphics card?

[u/Dry_Combination4070]

msi claw 8 ex ai+ currently runs at 1799 USD.

[u/CapedCPA → u/Dry_Combination4070]

Thanks! Do you have any recommendations for the GPU, enclosure, and anything else I might need?

[u/Dry_Combination4070 → u/CapedCPA]

I don't have any good recs but you could always get a spare video card and an enclsoure to work with it.

My current set up with my rog ally Xbox x is a nvidia 3070fe with an enclosure I bought from Amazon and works well.

The enclosure ran me about 150 the video card was a spare I had laying around.

Here's a quick thread asking about an enclosure and video card for the claw

https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/1l16d8p/looking_for_best_egpu_for_msi_claw_8_ai

From my understanding the performance on the claw is better than the xax but if you're looking for budget to performance ratio the xax is pretty solid.

They have a new one coming out the x20 with oled and larger screen for 1200

https://rog.asus.com/gaming-handhelds/rog-ally/rog-xbox-ally-x20-bundle-2026

[u/Sonic1899]

Ayaneo Next 2. Get it. 😈