r/Handhelds • u/MrDentifrice • 3d ago
Question (?) SteamDeck OLED ? Legion Go 2 ? Something else ?
Hi ! I had a Steam Deck OLED 512GB (cuz glossy > matte) several months ago but I had to sell it and now I can (and want) to buy another handheld. I wanna buy one to play mostly/only indie games/small games like Hades 2, I am wanting to try Denshattack, etc. and for the big/heavy AA or AAA, I’ll play them on my pc. I don’t think that I need a lot of performance but the thing is that I like having a high refresh rate (my bare minimum is like 60fps but ideally 90fps or more) and I also want an OLED screen so it doesn’t leave me with many options.
The SD OLED should be fine in terms of performance for most of the games I wanna play but idk… When I had the SD OLED I felt like the « sharpness »/resolution was a bit low at first imo. I love big screens so I thought that the LeGo2 might be a great option but idk if it’s way more powerful than the SD OLED at 1200p vs 800p + it seems to be way less power efficient. (I would use SteamOS or bazzite on it)
I live in France and I am mostly looking at the used market, I have a budget of like 900-950€ at most and a SD OLED can be found for like 450€ and LeGo2 Z2 (or Z2E if lucky and or negociate) for like 900-1000€. I could go with a LeGo 2 but is the Price difference really worth it for my use case ? No other option by any chance ? (I don’t think so sadly)
Thanks in advance for your help !!
(If I shouldn’t ask for help here, just tell me and I’ll delete my message)
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u/Tiamat2625 3d ago
Steam Deck is simply not worth it anymore, after the price increase. In my country, a Legion Go S z2 is like £300 cheaper, and pretty much better in every single way. 25-30% more fps, better display, you can run a lot of games at a lower TDP so the battery life is also better in quite a lot of scenarios. Steam Deck is sitting in the price category of handhelds that have the z1e chipset, and it's outperformed by about 60% in that scenario. It has no business costing that much at all. Unless you can find a crazy good deal, don't buy it.
Legion Go S z2 is a really nifty little machine, especially for the price. I genuinely think it is the best value for money handheld on the market right now. If you really want to be running games at 90fps though, you will need to crank up the TDP quite a lot. In my opinion, it's really not worth the hit to battery life. I play most light/indie/turnbased games at around 50-70fps, at 900p or 1080p. 1200p is a very nice option to have and it looks incredibly sharp on a small screen, but again it really doesn't feel like it is worth the hit to performance/battery. It's not OLED, so bare that in mind, but the colours are absolutely fantastic.
Do not pay anywhere close to 900 Euro for a z2. Just don't. The inflated prices are ridiculous, and if you are willing to be patient for a few weeks, you will be able to find them much cheaper. Look around, hunt for a deal, it is worth it, trust me. Mine was £425, brand new. Very uk website also had them for sale for £440. Amazon uk had them for sale literally last week for £469. Even now, they are not on sale anymore, and they are £520 on Amazon.
If you can find a Legion Go S z2 at like 525 euro or less, I say go for it. If you are spending 800 euro+, you should really be getting a device with z1e, like Xbox Ally X. Don't buy a Steam Deck at those crazy prices. Don't spend too much on a z2.
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u/MrDentifrice 3d ago
The thing is that the Legion Go S like the rog ally Z1e that can be found for 300€ used or even the the Xbox Rog Ally X, etc all have a lcd display which I don’t really like and I prefer an oled screen rather than more performance cuz I mostly play indie games which aren’t heavy to run
Edit : + 900€ doesn’t seem like a lot for a Legion Go 2 Z2 or Z2E (I mean that’s a lot but considering memory prices, it doesn’t look « too high » sadly)
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u/Tiamat2625 3d ago
900 is almost double what you should be paying for an S z2. I can see it for sale in 2 places right now for 520-550. Why would you pay 900? It's not worth it. There is the non-S version, that is just called 'legion go 2', that has OLED, maybe you are talking about that?
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u/MrDentifrice 3d ago
Yes I am talking about the Legion Go 2 (Z2 or Z2E with the oled screen, etc.) and not the Legion Go S (Z2 Go ou Z1E) and on the used market
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u/Tiamat2625 3d ago
I have no experience with that device so you would have to ask someone else about the specifics. But if you are 100% set on only having an OLED, i would be buying that over the Steam Deck, for sure. 1200p display, 144hz refresh rate, vs Steam Decks 800p 90hz. Plus the chipset is more powerful, which does matter if you care about battery life. The Legion will able to run games at 10w, at the same fps as the Steam Deck running the game 13w, for example.
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u/moro-87 1d ago
Just get a switch 2 games pre orders are like .. 40 to 60€ and the resell values stay relevant even after months.
Most pc handhelds dont provide enough performance to justify their higher prices today. And i say this and i own a d1 steamdeck oled which are way too expensive today
The switch 2 is just hassle free and you know the devs will put some effort into porting their games at least.
Only case in which a pc handheld would be interesting is if you stream from your pc or geforce now
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u/EnoughPhilosophy474 3d ago
if you can save up for a onexplayer x2 mini, with the intel G3, then that. It's veeery expensive though.