This handheld gaming PC is crazy

This Mini Gaming PC is Nuts!  

Handheld gaming PCs are growing in popularity, so much so that even Valve has decided to enter into the fray with their upcoming Steam Deck system. While searching on Amazon, we recently found a variety of handheld gaming PCs that utilised Intel’s latest mobile processors, offering users Intel’s Xe integrated graphics and up to four Tiger Lake CPU cores. 

One of the systems we found, the One Notebook OneGx1 Pro, offered users a 7-inch 1200p IPS screen, two Switch-like detachable controllers, a 12,000 mAh battery, WiFi 6 support, and Intel’s Tiger Lake Core i7-1160G7 CPU. These are great specs for such a small PC, but for prices upward of £1,000 on Amazon, this system isn’t exactly cheap…

Mini PCs like this have a  lot of utility, especially those with integrated keyboards. While the device is small, it can be used for work if necessary. That said, we recommend using a mouse with this PC if that is your intention. Thanks to this PC’s USB-based charging mechanism, users of this system can use portable battery packs to keep this handheld charged or extend the system’s better life. With many public transport options now, including USB charging services, on-the-go PC gaming can be made even more straightforward. 

With support for Windows 10, this gaming handheld can support most modern PC games. All you will need to to use the right graphics settings to get decent framerates from the notebook’s mobile SOC. With 16GB of 4266MHz LPDDR4X memory, this laptop offers users plenty of memory capacity and bandwidth. That said, Valve’s upcoming Steam Deck system is getting ready to kick mini-PCs like this to the curb. 

You can have a look at One Notebook’s OneGx1 Pro Mini Gaming PC on Amazon. 

  
  
Valve has made systems like these almost irrelevant

Valve’s Steam Deck has it all, a low price, a semi-custom SOC, and the backing from one of PC gaming’s largest players. With a starting price of £349, Valve’s Steam Deck appears to be an incredible system for handheld PC gaming. 

With a quad-core AMD Zen 2 processor, 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and an integrated Radeon RDNA 2 GPU, Valve’s Steam Deck is a powerful handheld. It features more modern graphics technology than the One Netbook mentioned above, more memory bandwidth and a screen resolution that’s better suited to the 7-inch handheld form factor. Not only is the Steam Deck stronger than the above handheld gaming PC, but it is also cheaper and more reasonably designed. 

Yes, Valve’s Steam Deck has a 1280×800 screen, which is lower res than the OneGx1 Pro’s 1920×1200 screen. Even so, at 7-inches, the Steamdeck’s smaller pixel count isn’t a major factor. If anything, the Steam Deck’s 1280×800 screen will allow handheld gamers to get more out of the system’s GPU. Would you rather have a higher resolution screen with a weaker graphics chip or a lower resolution screen with a more potent graphics chip? Valve has acknowledged that handheld hardware has its limits, and that is why they haven’t gone crazy with their screen specifications. Perhaps the Steam Deck 2 will have a 1080p screen? 

As it stands, Valve’s Steam Deck system is preparing to make other PC gaming handhelds almost irrelevant. Yes, some competing options have higher resolution screens, keyboards and other valuable features. Still, Valve’s alternative has pricing that is incredibly accessible and specifications that are tailor-made for gamers, not for low-power laptops. The Steam deck isn’t a compacted laptop with the word gaming added to its title; it’s a gaming system designed to make PC gaming more mobile than ever before. 

You can join the discussion on today’s crazy mini gaming laptops on the OC3D Forums.