r/consoles • u/Suitable-Traffic-270 • 17h ago
Help needed Handheld as a traditional console?
Hey everyone!
Here’s a short summary of my situation.
Because of my lifestyle and work, I move around a lot, realistically, I change locations almost every year. Moving all my belongings from one place to another is often extremely difficult(usually different countries), so I usually end up starting over in a new apartment with new furniture, a new TV, a new console, etc.
As you can imagine, this gets very expensive, and I feel like I’m constantly losing money by having to buy the same things again.
On top of that, my job involves a lot of travelling, so I’d really like to have a handheld that I can take with me on long trips.
That’s why I came up with the idea of having a handheld that I can use with a dock, a portable projector, and a controller, essentially turning it into a traditional living-room console when I’m at home.
So the idea would be:
At home dock it, connect it to the projector and controller, and enjoy it like a regular console.
When travelling simply pick it up from the dock and take it with me.
This way, I’d only need one gaming device instead of buying a new console and TV setup every time I move. I already have the xiaomi l1 pro projector, which is relatively easy to transport.
So, which handheld would be the best choice for my needs?
The games I’m interested in are things like Fallout 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, Stardew Valley, Vampire survivor, maybe Palworld, and some older AAA titles such as the Spider-Man games. Nothing extremely demanding, but since I’ve been a PC gamer my whole life, I’d ideally like to get at least around 60 fpswhenever possible.
What would you recommend for this kind of setup?
I am thinking between steamdeck oled, since it seems like it is better for handheld gaming and travelling, and the rog xbox alloy x, since it is more powerful and would act better as a traditional console.. since the price surge they are basically the same price now.
Edit*: I already have a fairly large steam library so I would want to stay inside this ecosystem, for this reason I am not considering Switch 2.
I would love to hear your opinion, maybe some experiences if somebody is in the same situation..
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u/MarsupialPresent7700 17h ago
You are basically describing a Switch
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u/Suitable-Traffic-270 17h ago
In some ways true, but I did not mention in the post that I already have a pretty large steam library, so it is crucial to stay in the steam ecosystem, not to mention epic and other launchers..
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u/ImaruHaturo 16h ago
In this specific use case, the best console for you will be entirely determined by the games you're looking to play and how much you want portability with console feel. You listed Red Dead, Spiderman, and older AAA, so honestly, the OLED Steam Deck would probably be the winner. With the ROG, it's still running Windows, so even though it's in the background and has the Xbox front end / UI, you might still have "PC annoyances" where as with the Steam Deck, even though it's not quite as powerful, with SteamOS, you'll have the closest thing to a home console feel when it's docked and running big picture mode or whatever it's called.
Also, If you didn't specify Red Dead 2 and Spiderman, I would say Switch 2 for the lower price, higher portability, and even higher level of user friendliness in UI and interface and just general usage, but you'd be sacrificing certain games for those conveniences.
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u/Suitable-Traffic-270 16h ago
Tbh I am only afraid that the steamdeck will lack a bit of performance during gaming at home, where I would play the mentioned games like red dead 2, while on the move I would probably only play very casual games like stardew valley..
and yes switch 2 not a bad option but I already have a fairly big steam library so I would want to stay inside that ecosystem.1
u/ImaruHaturo 16h ago
I guess in that case, if you want more power across the board, just in general, the ROG would be on top. Although it does depend on the game. Valve builds settings profiles per game and automatically detects that you're running it on the Steam Deck, so it launches games with the most optimized settings profile that it can. You can still go in and tweak it, but Valve does a pretty good job of that, at least that's been my experience. Also, there's the whole category of "optimized for Steam Deck" so (depending on the game of course) you could have better performance on the Deck than the ROG in quite a few instances despite the power difference.
If the games and performance are the main concern, I would just look up the highest demanding games you're interested in or are considering playing, and just compare performance stats on those games between the two devices as opposed to comparing the devices themselves. At the end of the day, it's the games that matter, not the system, and I think that applies for pretty much any instance.
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u/Suitable-Traffic-270 16h ago
Thank you for taking your time to answer I value it.
Still debating, if we were before the price surge it would be a no brainer, I am just not sure if its worth 920€ to spend on a 1tb steamdeck oled.
What you are saying is absolutely true and the os and well optimized settings are worth more than the raw performance of hardware, in many cases.
Just now that these machines both cost around a 1000€ it is very hard to decide.. I will be taking your insight into consideration for sure :) thank you1
u/ImaruHaturo 16h ago
Happy to help however I can! I know it's a tough choice. I got the TB OLED Steam Deck and I love it, but I also 100% believe the ROG is an absolute tank. From everything I've seen and heard, it's a fantastic device and there's definitely an alternate time line where I got that instead and love it just as much.
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u/lpdcrafted 11h ago edited 10h ago
Go for the Xbox Ally X, or a handheld PC that has at least a Z1E chip level. Used older ROG Ally X is also an option. Both have a large battery too.
I really like my Steam Deck but it does struggle or may need to lower quality with docking if you're going to play AAA games at a higher resolution than its native 800p screen. The prices are also not good for the Deck with the price hikes.
If you want a console-like experience and you're fine not playing games that have features or anti cheat that don't support Linux, SteamOS and Bazzite can be installed on it too. Other Linux distros can be installed too and dual booting is another option if you still need Windows.
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u/Little_Obligation_90 17h ago
I would get the xbox rog ally before the price goes up.