The best hand-held gaming consoles
There’s been a welcome revival of portable game systems over the past few years. Even though phones and tablets already do a fine job of playing tons of great portable games, dedicated devices can provide unique features, exclusive games or extra power to do things your phone can’t. It almost feels like a return to the mid-2010s era of the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita.
As summer is winding down, it’s time to look into CNET’s favorite handhelds to get you through the colder months.
BEST HANDHELD: NINTENDO SWITCH
The Nintendo Switch is 5 years old now, but Nintendo has indicated that no true successor is coming right now. A Pro model has been rumored for a while, but in the meantime, the existing Switch remains extremely capable, full of great games and pretty affordable considering its hand-held/TVconnected dual function.
The OLED-screened Switch, released last fall, is the best Switch and our recommended pick. The more vivid and larger display looks fantastic, its rear kickstand works better for tabletop gaming, and both of these upgrades are worth the extra $50. The original Switch (or the V2 version), at $300, works similarly and is also still fine. The smaller, handheld-only Switch Lite is a great value pick at $200 for anyone who just wants a basic portable game system, but it lacks any ability to connect to a TV, and its controllers don’t detach.
BEST NEWCOMER: STEAM DECK
Valve’s big and powerful Steam Deck is a marvel: It can play a wide variety of PC games surprisingly well, and is the dream portable for any hardcore Steam fan, or anyone who has a big library of PC games. The Steam Deck can get expensive for the larger storage tiers, but for what it’s capable of, it’s not a bad deal. Wait times on preorders are still pushed out by some months, but more people seem to be receiving theirs. The ability to play PC games or stream cloud-based games, and to connect to a monitor, keyboard or other accessories puts the Steam Deck in a class of its own.
BEST FOR COLLECTORS OF OLD GAMES: POCKET
ANALOGUE
The Analogue Pocket looks like a totally remade Game Boy, and it is, in a sense. Analogue’s gorgeous handheld can play original Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges perfectly, and can even play Sega Game Gear games using an adapter (Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket and Turbografx-16 adapters are coming soon). It has a high-res color screen and USB-C charging, and there’s a separately sold dock for TV play. But the Pocket doesn’t play emulations or ROMs, and there’s no game store for buying games.
It’s strictly a system to enjoy real physical cartridges in amazing quality, although there’s a growing library of Pocket-compatible software on indie gaming channels like itch.io that can be sideloaded to a MicroSD card, too.