SteamOS puts the pressure on Microsoft’s Xbox-branded handheld
Microsoft’s combination of Xbox and Windows for handheld gaming PCs can’t come soon enough. Windows on handhelds is in desperate need of some love, and Lenovo’s Legion Go S is the best evidence yet that Microsoft has a big Windows-shaped problem it has to solve on any upcoming Xbox-branded handhelds.
YouTuber Dave2D managed to test the Legion Go S with the new SteamOS version alongside the existing Windows model. The hardware is exactly the same, but the operating systems are totally different, and the results are eye-opening. Games running on the SteamOS model perform better than the Windows version at low or medium settings, by around 5 to 10 percent. These are games that are made for Windows, but Valve’s excellent Proton compatibility layer means they run better with the help of Linux and SteamOS.
The Legion Go S with SteamOS even beats Valve’s Steam Deck performance, and you can get even better performance if you’re willing to sacrifice the battery. Battery life on a handheld gaming PC is a massive part of the experience, and the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S just totally embarrasses the Windows model in Dave2D’s tests.
In Dead Cells, at 60fps, the Legion Go S with SteamOS runs for just over six hours, but on the Windows variant it doesn’t even manage to hit the three-hour mark. That’s half the battery life just for choosing Microsoft’s OS. It’s the same with Hades, where the SteamOS version runs for more than four hours, but the Windows equivalent doesn’t quite reach two.
My colleague Sean Hollister has also found similar performance gaps between the default settings on Windows and SteamOS, and Cary Golomb has pointed out that there are some simple fixes for some of the battery life issues on Windows that Microsoft should really be addressing.
Dave2D concludes that “Windows was the problem all along,” and I think that sums up the PC gaming handheld situation and Microsoft’s big challenges here. A lot of the battery life problems come down to the fact that Windows wasn’t designed for handheld gaming PCs and that games aren’t being individually power-managed to optimize them on this type of hardware.
Beyond the obvious performance and battery life benefits of SteamOS, Valve has also built a sleep and resume system that just works. If you put a Windows handheld gaming PC to sleep, the chances are that a few hours later you’ll have to boot it up again and then manually resume your game. That simply doesn’t happen on SteamOS devices, which properly suspend and resume far more reliably than their Windows counterparts.
Windows also still struggles with power management for sleeping devices, causing them to sip too much power in the background or heat up inside your bag while trying to perform updates. This is a fundamental issue with Windows that Microsoft hasn’t even fully solved with Windows on Arm. If you resume a Snapdragon-powered laptop after a day or two of no usage, it will boot up from a hibernation mode that feels like you’re almost booting from cold. A MacBook simply doesn’t do that — nor should a handheld gaming PC.
Windows also has a ton of things running in the background that most handheld gaming PCs don’t even need, or security features that can impact gaming performance. OEMs like Asus, Lenovo, and MSI have been using a full version of Windows because, up until now, it has been their only choice.
The Steam Deck was a wakeup call for Microsoft a few years ago, and now it’s getting ready to respond by combining the best bits of Windows and Xbox to solve the headaches. I wrote last year that Microsoft was in a handheld gaming PC race, with Valve’s push to get PC makers using SteamOS on their handhelds. “If Microsoft doesn’t act fast, it could soon find itself in a battle to keep Windows relevant on handheld gaming PCs.”
That pressure is even greater now that it’s so easy to directly compare two identical pieces of hardware running two very different operating systems. It highlights all the problems that Microsoft has to solve by bringing Xbox and Windows together, and it shows very clearly that there’s a lot to fix. Microsoft has to nail these fixes, otherwise more and more OEMs will simply choose SteamOS for their handhelds.
That’s probably why we haven’t seen Microsoft’s work yet, as the company continues to chip away at solving these issues for an Xbox-branded handheld it’s working on. I reported earlier this year that Microsoft is working with Asus to develop a handheld codenamed “Project Kennan.” Microsoft and Asus both teased the project just days after reports on Project Kennan emerged in March.
Photos of the device then leaked out earlier this month in FCC filings, showing off the Xbox button that will act as a home button for Microsoft’s new Xbox work on Windows. I was actually surprised to see that Computex passed by last week without Asus teasing the device, especially as the technology show is an ideal place to show off any new PC gaming hardware. Microsoft and Asus are still planning to launch the device later this year, so I’d imagine they both want their own moment to show off how Windows and Xbox are coming together.
We still haven’t seen any leaks of this Xbox interface on Windows, and I’m really hoping it’s a lot more than a big picture mode for the Xbox app. There has to have been fundamental changes to the entire OS so that you never see Windows unless you really want to. Exactly what Microsoft is doing here will be essential for the future of Windows-powered handheld gaming PCs, and there’s a lot on the line now that OEMs have the clear choice of SteamOS.
Even if Microsoft can overhaul Windows so that it’s largely an Xbox-like UI and experience on a handheld, it will still need to convince PC gamers that Steam is fully supported. Windows will still be at the heart of this experience, but I understand that Microsoft has been working on showing games from Steam and the Epic Games Store in the Xbox app on Windows. Microsoft quickly removed a mocked up Xbox UI image earlier this year that included a Steam filter on PC.
This work will turn the Xbox interface on Windows into a launcher for your entire game library, all while Microsoft can try and sell people on PC Game Pass instead. That’s really the main advantage, outside of game compatibility, that Microsoft has over SteamOS for handhelds right now, and I’d imagine the merging of Windows and Xbox will end up putting Game Pass front and center in the UI.
All that’s left now is for Microsoft and Asus to stop teasing their project and show us exactly how Windows and Xbox can compete with SteamOS.
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I’m always keen to hear from readers, so please drop a comment here, or you can reach me at notepad@theverge.com if you want to discuss anything else. If you’ve heard about any of Microsoft’s secret projects, you can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com or speak to me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram, if you’d prefer to chat there.
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