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

The Asus ROG Ally X alongside an archetypal ROG Ally and Steam Deck. | Photo: Sean Hollister / The Verge

I emotion modern handheld gaming, and I urge it to anyone and everyone. Just possibly not today? If you decided contiguous was the time to yet driblet hundreds of dollars connected your archetypal handheld, I mightiness counsel you to wait.

Four reasons:

• The champion handhelds are sold out
• The second-best handhelds conscionable got much expensive
• Third-tier handhelds are riddled with compromises
• The full authorities of gaming handhelds volition amended if you wait

The champion handhelds are sold out

If you're speechmaking this story, I fishy you've been connected the obstruction astir handheld gaming machines - until the Nintendo Switch 2, the fastest-selling crippled console of each time, caught your attention. Perhaps you liked the thought of bigger Mario Kart oregon smoother Fortnite and Pokémon; possibly you liked the thought of taking graphically intensive games similar Cyberpunk 2077 connected the go.

Unfortunately, the $450 Nintendo Switch 2 is sold retired everyplace arsenic of this writing, and its alternatives whitethorn not connection the acquisition you'd hope.

The $550 Steam Deck OLED is the best, astir Switch-like handheld you tin bargain acknowledgment to its pick-up-and-play SteamOS operating system, its likewise decent artillery life, and an eye-popping HDR OLED screen. …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.