Four reasons why it’s a surprisingly bad time to buy a gaming handheld

I love modern handheld gaming, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. Just maybe not today? If you decided today was the day to finally drop hundreds of dollars on your first handheld, I might advise you to wait.

The best handhelds are sold out

If you’re reading this story, I suspect you’ve been on the fence about handheld gaming machines — until the Nintendo Switch 2, the fastest-selling game console of all time, caught your attention. Perhaps you liked the idea of bigger Mario Kart or smoother Fortnite and Pokémon; perhaps you liked the idea of taking graphically intensive games like Cyberpunk 2077 on the go.

Unfortunately, the $450 Nintendo Switch 2 is sold out everywhere as of this writing, and its alternatives may not offer the experience you’d hope.

The $550 Steam Deck OLED is the best, most Switch-like handheld you can buy thanks to its pick-up-and-play SteamOS operating system, its similarly decent battery life, and an eye-popping HDR OLED screen. You might even be happier with a Deck OLED than a Switch 2 if you prefer the freedom of PC gaming to Nintendo’s first-party games. But the Steam Deck OLED, too, is entirely out of stock in the US and Canada. You’d have to wait.

The second-best handhelds just got more expensive

If I were buying today and couldn’t get a Switch 2 or Deck OLED, what would I buy instead? A few months ago, the choice seemed clear: I would personally spend a bit more money for the $800 Asus ROG Ally X, the best Windows gaming handheld yet — and arguably the best PC gaming handheld period once you replace Windows with the SteamOS-like Bazzite.

If I couldn’t afford that, I would have waited for the $500 Lenovo Legion Go S, the first true Steam Deck competitor authorized to use SteamOS.

But both of those prices no longer apply. Ahead of the Nintendo Switch 2’s launch on June 5th, Asus and Lenovo’s handhelds suddenly cost $100 more than promised in the US. So does their rival the MSI Claw, with both 7- and 8-inch models $100 pricier than originally communicated. It’s possible these increases are tied to China tariffs and could go down again, but neither company would tell us so.

Third-tier handhelds are riddled with compromises

If money were burning a hole in my pocket, the next thing I’d probably do is talk myself into buying a first-gen handheld PC. I’d (correctly!) point out that the original $650 Asus ROG Ally and original Lenovo Legion Go have the same AMD Z1 Extreme chips as the newer Ally X and Legion Go S. But I’d be tricking myself into buying dramatically shorter battery life and a less comfortable experience.

Both the Ally X and the Legion Go S are better than the originals, with slightly better performance and far longer playtime from the Ally X’s doubled battery pack. Asus and Lenovo have made their cooling systems quieter and more efficient, the Legion’s speakers and charging are improved, and its lower-res variable-refresh-rate screen can sometimes make games run smoothly that’d be choppy on its predecessor.

In some cases ignorance is bliss; some power users would be perfectly happy if they found a good deal on the original Ally or Legion Go. But for a new buyer, the totality of these changes could be profound — the difference between “I don’t know why anybody would want a PC gaming handheld” and “where has this been all my life?”

The entire state of gaming handhelds will improve if you wait

But the most profound change, for many gamers, would be having a potent portable game system that just works. The original Nintendo Switch offered portability and ease of use, but it’s never been a powerhouse; almost all of today’s Windows handhelds are more powerful than a Switch 2 or a Steam Deck, but I can’t rely on them to wake and sleep and launch games reliably.

Excitingly, both Valve and Microsoft finally appear poised to fix that.

Valve is finally bringing its pick-up-and-play SteamOS to other handhelds beyond the Steam Deck, including official support for the Legion Go S and unofficial support for the Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally line. (But as I’ll explain, you might not want to rush out and download Valve’s recovery image just yet.)

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a stripped-down version of Windows for gaming handhelds, one that ditches the desktop in favor of an “Xbox full-screen experience” that will come to various handhelds next year, including the existing Ally and Ally X. It promises to improve sleep, wake, performance, and battery life while making non-Steam storefronts into first-class citizens.

Presumably, any major PC handheld will soon let you choose between Windows and Steam. But that’s not a reason to buy them today.

For one, it seems that both Microsoft and Valve are prioritizing their partners’ flashiest hardware launches first. The new Xbox-ified Windows will first arrive on a pair of “Xbox Ally” handhelds co-developed with Asus this holiday season, which could suck all the air out of the room for rival Windows machines, particularly if Microsoft decides this is the moment to compete with Valve’s Steam Deck on price.

And while you can indeed install Valve’s big SteamOS update on rival Windows handhelds with AMD chips, it only fully supports the SteamOS version of the Lenovo Legion Go S at this point. When I tried installing it on an Asus ROG Ally or even the Windows version of the Legion Go S, it was missing necessary power modes to keep it from unnecessarily draining its own battery and had some bugs as well.

Here’s Valve’s Lawrence Yang to The Verge on the rollout plans:

Currently, the SteamOS model of Legion Go S (dark purple model) is the only officially supported non-Steam Deck device with SteamOS. We are continuing to improve compatibility with more devices, starting with other AMD powered handhelds like the ROG Ally. Features like RGB controls and power management for the Ally are in the pipe, and will be noted in patch notes as we ship updates.

We’re looking at support across AMD powered handhelds, including Legion Go, Legion Go S + Windows, and ROG Ally models.

Even the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S didn’t launch 100 percent baked: I keep seeing the tiny trackpad stop working properly (Valve tells me it’s investigating), and there’s no official way to control the RGB lighting.

Speaking of fully baked, it seems even Nintendo launched its Switch 2 with notable issues. We’ve heard reports of crashes and freezes, an issue that has its own Nintendo support page, and some (including me) have found intermittent issues getting a system to stay connected to wired ethernet. Many are having trouble getting content to display properly on a TV without washing out or oversaturating.

It’s not clear when the biggest issues facing today’s gaming handhelds will get fixed, or how evenly distributed the fixes might be. I’m not saying that’s a reason to stay away for long — nobody’s expecting a Steam Deck 2 or a Switch 2 OLED anytime soon, so I don’t fear that particular flavor of buyer’s remorse.

But knowing what I know today, I wouldn’t rush to buy a handheld now. I’d wait a month or three until Switch 2 and Steam Deck OLED supplies return — or at least until the future of Windows and SteamOS get a little less fuzzy.