Happy birthday, son!
Here is the Switch 2 I promised you.
And you can have it as soon as I make sure that you're not making the biggest mistake
of your young life. You see, there are a ton of amazing handheld gaming devices
these days and I think you should at least try them before making your decision.
And the question will be, are you gonna stick with Nintendo's latest
or are you gonna take the plunge into the big boy pool?
Like, because some of the PC competitors are really big.
Not because adults can't enjoy Mario Kart. I like Mario Kart.
So here's the deal. You're gonna try eight different gaming handhelds today.
And if you like one of them, more than you like the Switch 2,
you can take that home instead. But there's a catch. Should you choose something other than the Switch 2,
I'm not buying you a Switch 2. Just like I'm not gonna buy you the Segway to our sponsor.
The reason I'm excited for the Switch 2,
it's like a brand new console and it's really the only console I know about.
The new Mario Kart sounds pretty fun. Also the upgraded versions of Breath of the Wild
and Tears of the Kingdom. The backwards compatibility is important
because even though Mario Kart World might be better than Mario Kart 8, I might still wanna play that sometimes.
If I'm going to see my cousins and I'm bringing a handheld, battery life would be kind of important,
but I can also just bring a charger and charge it while I'm playing. So it's not like a deal breaker.
It's not a deal breaker for sure. You're gonna get me to try eight consoles in an hour
and decide between one of them? Yes. Let's start with the 800 pound gorilla, the Steam Deck.
While it might not be the most powerful of our choices today,
there is a reason that is the most popular. Steam OS is slick as heck,
not to mention just plain more efficient than Windows.
And Valve's understanding of gaming shines through in every aspect of its design.
Its only drawback is that it has a limited game library,
but that's only compared to Windows handhelds. Compared to Big Red,
the Steam Deck's game library is expansive, not to mention way more affordable
because you can play most of the games
that you can get on Steam. We've got a couple of games preloaded, but the most important one is probably split fiction,
not because I think it'll be your favorite game ever, but because it is cross-platform
and available on all of our systems. Any initial impressions?
This mouse pad is so cool. Yeah, the dual track pads on this thing,
actually very cool. You can use them for mouse aiming with some practice
and they have haptic feedback as you noticed already.
They also have momentum, so you can kind of throw them and you'll feel them vibrate.
They're very configurable. And if you wanna play something like
a strategy game on the go, they're useful for that as well.
It's very big. Yes.
Is that a problem? Depends if I'm traveling somewhere
and my suitcase is full. In terms of the ergonomic advantages,
a lot of people really like that about the Steam Deck, but no, it's not as packable as something like a Switch.
The D-pad's kind of small. It's hard to individually choose one
rather than go diagonal. I don't think it's a size issue, but no, the Steam Deck's D-pad is not known to be amazing.
Do you wanna play around with SteamOS at all? SteamOS?
What's SteamOS? SteamOS is the operating system that Valve developed
for the Steam Deck that only basically runs Steam.
Okay, sure. You can use it in desktop mode with other applications,
but it's actually Linux-based. It is not Windows or Nintendo.
It is their own thing. So you've got the Steam button here, which allows you to access all of Steam.
And this little three dots here
gives you access to all of your system settings. That's very quick and useful.
I like that. It is way better than the implementation
on Windows handhelds. It also gives the Steam Deck excellent efficiency
if you're running lighter games like David Diver and it will instantly suspend and resume
like something like a Nintendo rather than taking a while to boot up like Windows.
There are drawbacks though. It's one of the least-performant out of all the handhelds we're gonna look at today
and the screen, honestly, not amazing by today's standards.
Of course, there is another.
Meet the Steam Deck OLED. Is this the same as that one?
Well, not quite. The difference is right in the name.
It's a Steam Deck, but with an OLED display and it is beautiful.
A thousand-nits peak brightness, perfect blacks, HDR,
they've done an outstanding job with this thing.
If this is the same as the other Steam Deck but it just has a better screen, is it just better?
Yes, it's also a little faster. Okay. And to show off just how much performance is on tap here,
we actually loaded up the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, a Nintendo exclusive game,
in an emulator so you could try it and see what the experience is like.
I would tap it. Realistically, I don't think it's gonna be much laggier
than the Switch One, but it's not gonna hold a candle to the Switch Two.
However, what do you think of the display? It's very bright, it's a lot better than the other one.
Gets really laggy when I hit it for a second. Yeah, but the battery life is even better
than the original Steam Deck. Okay, why don't we move on?
If more performance is what you're after, this may be your poison.
This is the same thing you have, so if I wanted to use one, I could just ask you to borrow it.
Okay, that's hacking. Hacking is not allowed. Back to the script.
You may be familiar with this one.
It's the one I use at home. Obviously, he's familiar with it,
but for the rest of you, the main draw of the ROG Ally
is the inclusion of AMD's Z1 Extreme Processor, a chip that is so much more powerful than the Steam Deck
that it easily overcomes any of Windows' inefficiencies.
Well, as long as we ignore battery life in later games
and ignore the kind of cludgy general experience
of navigating Windows on a handheld device, Microsoft has some work to do.
By the way, this and all of the devices that we've got today are gonna be linked
in the video description. This one, the story for the screen is a bit more complicated.
It's 1080p, so higher resolution compared to the Steam Deck,
but it's not OLED, but it can do up to 120 Hertz.
So for supported games, it'll be smoother, kind of like your monitor at home.
Oh, also, the interface for changing things, right there.
So you can adjust your brightness, change your performance mode.
You won't get much battery life out of the higher performance modes, but hey, it's really fast.
Okay, let's try Turbo. You're gonna get like an hour of battery life
if you're lucky on that mode. 48 minutes.
48 minutes? Yeah, on that battery mode, yeah. No, you don't wanna run it on that.
Oh, now it's so slow. What if I told you there was an Ally,
but with better battery life? That would be cool. Okay, let's have a look.
Here you go, brace yourself, she's heavier. Not by that much though, when you consider
that it went from a 40-watt hour battery to an 80-watt hour battery.
They literally doubled the capacity of the battery, which results in at least two hours of battery life,
even in the higher performance modes, and as much as a lot more hours.
Is this one just the same as the other one with higher battery life?
In general, yes. Oh, we actually made a small mistake on the RAM speed,
so they increased the speed of the memory from 6,400 megatransitters per second
to 7,500 megatransitters per second, which does make it a bit faster.
It also has a little bit more memory, but in general, it's same-same, but better.
This one's way smoother and higher FPS than the other one we played Breath of the Wild on.
Yes. It's also in the highest mode though, so I don't know.
But what's nice about this is that it has such a big battery
that you can actually run it in the highest power mode for an amount of time.
See like it's lagging a bit right now? I don't know, you tell me, you're playing.
It does a little bit. Emulation is not going to be perfect
unless you have an extremely powerful system. And this is a fast handheld,
but it's not an extremely powerful system even so.
Okay, but why? I don't know.
I was just trying to hit something. I didn't know it would... What did you think an explosive barrel was going to do?
Yet more proof as if you needed it, that no matter how good your gear is,
it's not going to make you a better gamer. Now there are some things about the LIX that aren't great.
It still has the same display as the original LI, which is fine, and it's significantly more expensive.
But given you're not paying for your system, I guess that's a non-factor for you.
Where does this rank for you? Probably at the very top. What if I told you that you could have the performance
of this with the removable controllers of the Switch?
That would be even better. Let's have a look. This time for real, she is a chunky boy.
That's very heavy compared to all the other ones.
The benefit is this is the biggest screen we've seen yet.
8.8 inches and the highest resolution. It does 1440p up to 144 Hertz.
Small drawback. Remember the battery life issues of the first-gen ally?
Yeah. Basically the same. How long would it last for in its highest performance mode?
A little over an hour. Okay. What do all of these buttons on the back do?
Oh, well, those are paddles. So you can bind them to any functions that you want.
In fact, a lot of the ones we've looked at so far do have rear paddles.
One of them, ah, yes, slides off the controllers.
There we go. And this is cool.
Boop, that's a pretty cool use case, right? That's awesome.
Especially because it's so heavy you wouldn't want to hold it.
Why don't you fire up a Tomb Raider?
The buttons are really small compared to some of the other ones, though.
It's not my favorite controller, but one nice thing is that on at least one side of it,
it does have a trackpad. Oh, I didn't even notice that.
That's why I'm here for the tech tips. Papa tech tips.
At this point, seeing all the options that are out there, are you a little less confident
that you want to switch to for your birthday? Or are you still pretty confident?
A little bit. These are all very cool and fast
and a lot better than I expected for such a small device.
This is just a gorgeous game that even a few short years ago,
you would have needed a full-sized gaming PC to run.
And it runs on this. Of course, you won't always be able to just put it down on something,
so you should try it handheld. Okay.
How does it feel? It's very heavy.
If I was to hold this for half an hour, an hour,
I think my arms would get pretty tired. It does have another party trick.
Check this out.
FPS mode.
That becomes a mouse. But that's something that's there overly.
So you can see performance and you can change your modes and all that.
This menu's legier than the game is.
Okay, that's fair. I would like to change gears completely
and go from our heaviest device to our lightest one.
Can I get a longer time trying every single one of them
before deciding? No.
Do I actually have to decide today? Yeah, but you thought I was like
giving you a different answer on camera than- I don't know.
It's, I'm choosing a console. Yeah.
Meet the PlayStation Portal. This is not actually a console,
but the combo deal here is on offer because the price of a PS Portal and a PlayStation 5
is actually less than some of the handheld PCs
that we've looked at today. The joystick's not in a very comfortable position.
That's PlayStation style. You do get used to it, but yes, it is not my preference
either, the symmetrical joystick position versus the asymmetrical Xbox style.
I'm also not a huge fan of their D-pad style, but they do have advantages in their controller
and one is that their haptics are excellent. Also, this is compared to anything else
we're looking at today, the most powerful gaming solution.
It's only 1080p, but it is a locked 60 FPS
with absolutely gorgeous levels of detail.
It's also the least flexible solution in a way that I'll explain in a little bit,
but why don't you give it a shot first? Which buttons A and which ones B?
Not really a PlayStation house. Never seen a PlayStation, I don't know.
Do any of your friends have PlayStations? One of them does. Oh, okay.
Have you ever used it? No. Okay, well, it doesn't have A, B.
Well, which one confirms in which one goes wrong? Can't remember.
Okay. Look at the visual fidelity though. Okay, you haven't actually tried the Switch 2 yet,
but here it is. I'm like, look at the detail level by comparison.
Another great thing about the Portal is Sony's amazing game library, but here's the thing.
While this has the best battery life, also out of anything that we've tested,
the reason is that there's no game console in it.
It is streaming wirelessly from that PlayStation over there,
which means... I need a PlayStation? Yes, not only do you need a PlayStation,
but you need an active internet connection to your PlayStation.
And the closer you are to your PlayStation, the better the experience,
and the farther you are from your PlayStation, the worse the experience
in terms of especially input latency.
That would be really annoying then because bringing a PlayStation somewhere is very hard.
You can play from elsewhere, but the farther you are,
the worse the internet connection. Why don't we shift our attention back to consoles
that are actually consoles rather than streaming devices?
These are our last two. We've got the Ionio 3, which unfortunately didn't perform as well as we hoped,
but has an OLED screen and this super cool modular interface
where you can actually swap this around depending on what games you're playing
and whether you want to be able to reach a D-pad or a joystick more easily,
and same here for the ABXY and the Touchpad.
We've also got the MSI Claw, an unexpected standout.
This ended up being the best performing PC handheld in our roundup
thanks to some recent driver tweaks from Intel. The fans are pretty loud for this one.
Yeah, you haven't even fired anything up yet. That's the yikes.
Oh, do you want to try out the modular interface? Yeah. There we go.
One click, pop up.
That's pretty cool. Not gonna lie.
Now is it in the configuration that you'd prefer? Yeah. Okay, fire up a game.
Those fans are pretty loud. They really are.
Oh yeah, Trackpad's working. Okay, the Trackpad. It's definitely a Trackpad. There's a joystick ABXY,
so you wouldn't be stuck with the Trackpad if you didn't want it.
Just needs more volume.
There, now the fans aren't a problem, right?
Yeah, but I would never play with them this loud.
Okay, fine. Why don't we try the claw?
Does this one have a higher refresh rate than the other ones? It's not higher than all of the other ones,
but it's 120 Hertz, which is at the high end,
and because it performs so well, you are actually getting more benefit
out of that higher refresh rate display. This is very smooth.
It's a lot of performance. It's a chunky package,
but you get a big eight inch display, and reasonable fan noise.
In terms of battery life, it's between the Ally and the AllyX,
but closer to the AllyX, like an hour 40 in even a very high performance profile.
That's pretty good. It's pretty good,
but what it isn't as good as is the Switch 2.
Are you ready to try the Switch 2? Yeah, I wanna see how it compares to these.
Still in the mix is the RG AllyX, the Legion Go, and the claw.
What do you like best and least about each of them? Okay, this one, I like the fast refresh rate
and the big screen. So the performance essentially? Yeah, performance.
Because all of these have 120 Hertz plus displays,
but this is the more performance of the three. What about the others?
This one was battery life and fast, and it's not as heavy as the really big ones.
You don't get as big of a screen, but it's significantly more totable.
And this one, I like the detachable Joy-Cons
in this little mouse pad and the big screen.
But this is a funny thing.
Even though the Switch 2, this is now your first time holding it, I think, right?
Yeah. Even though the Switch 2 is so slim compared to these,
the same thickness as the original Switch and the Switch OLED,
its screen is among the largest that we've seen
at 7.9 inches. So smaller than the Legion Go,
but just shy of the claw. Wow.
It also has a 120 Hertz display, and it supports HDR, just like the Steam Deck OLED.
Yeah, why don't you fire up Breath of the Wild? Because that's the game that you've been playing
on the others. Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. Yes.
For an extra 15 Canadian dollars, you can upgrade Breath of the Wild
to look better and run better. Does it get any other bonus features?
I think so, but like, nothing that's a huge deal.
You get another save slot, I think, or something? I don't know. The big ones are that it's prettier
and that it runs better. I like that it's a lot bigger than the Switch, the other Switch.
Yeah, it's especially nice when you remove the Joy-Cons and you're using them in Joy-Con controller mode.
I think it's actually kind of usable. Also, this is sick. The Joy-Cons are magnetic now.
Oh. So you just... Wow, that's way better.
Do you want to hear any drawbacks yet, or do you just want to enjoy it first?
Just enjoy it first. Okay. That's fair, that's valid.
Obviously, the interface is what you're familiar with, so if you want to adjust your brightness
or volume or anything, just, yep.
Hold it, but sure. No, what? You don't know about the...
Go back in the game, go back in the game. Hold here.
There you go. Oh, I didn't even know you could do that on the other one.
I've let him down. It's not an OLED, but it is an HDR display
and it is pretty gorgeous from my limited time with it so far.
Everything's way brighter and cleaner than the other.
Sure is. Not only do games run at a higher frame rate,
but the screen is a higher resolution compared to the original Switch as well.
Do these Joy-Cons have as much drift as the Switch One?
We don't know yet. They might be okay, but they're not Hall of Facts,
so they might not be okay. Yeah, all of our Joy-Cons drift really bad.
Well, this scene's way better than the other one.
It's way better than the other Switch. The quality's higher, refresh rate's higher.
The sound is so much better.
Let's put the point back to where she's at.
That's so cool. Okay, these ones are so big.
They're like actually the right size for my hands.
And they're magnetic. That's really, really cool. It's so smooth.
It's so much brighter, cleaner, faster than this one.
Well, yeah. And this is even the OLED. And it's-
So this has the benefit of having arguably the better display, but Nintendo didn't put in the work
to implement HDR on this. So this is probably gonna look better day to day.
Although, whoa, that contrast though. But the frame rate blows.
Yeah, so you can really see the color saturation on the OLED, but you get the peak brightness from HDR.
If they do a Switch to OLED, which they almost certainly will at some point,
you would get the best of both worlds, but that doesn't exist yet.
And I'm not promising to buy you one of those. So, do you wanna play Mario Kart World?
Yeah, let's play Mario Kart. Oh, these are actually big. On the Switch one, these were tiny
and they're so hard to press. Huge improvement.
Dude, I'm in 12, this is terrible. There's an airplane?
Dude, and there's like wave runners and stuff too. It's pretty sick.
There's another curve ball. What?
ASUS and Microsoft have partnered up allegedly
on the Ally 2, turning it into an Xbox branded console.
We expect that it will be everything the Ally X is,
but better, and with integration with Xbox and Game Pass.
So then should I rule this one out? Why don't we have a look at the leaks together, okay?
There's leaks. Employees just tell the worlds
what secrets are being made.
I think I have sheltered him. Was it already gonna be hard enough without any more curve balls?
Yeah. Are you ready to eliminate anything from the table?
How will I get all of them?
No. Okay, I'll put this one back.
Why'd you put that one back? I put it back because it's really heavy
and would tire my arms quick. That's fair. That one also has a worse battery life than this one.
Yes, these two both have better battery life than that. This is the most performant,
but with less battery life, and this is the best battery life out of the PC handhelds.
Yeah. Okay, here's the Ally 2. Kind of like an Ally X,
but you can see it has more like a controller style grip.
We also expect that if the specs are what they are supposed to be,
it will probably have the best performance out of all the PC handhelds
and probably the best battery life. But we don't know exactly how much.
Could some of these just not be true and they're just lying?
That is possible, but don't ask me how I know.
They're true. Okay.
When is it going to come out? I'm flying to see it tomorrow morning.
Okay, so should I just not get anything and get that? You have to choose something.
You walk out of here today with something, with a choice.
Do I actually have to choose right now? Yeah.
That's life. Well, no, that's not life. That's content.
Here's our options. Big moment. Switch to, Ally X, claw,
or roll the dice on an Ally 2.
How many new games are coming out for the Switch 2? Lots.
It looks like game developer support is going to be extremely strong.
Plus, of course, there's the back catalog of Switch games.
It is backwards compatible and you can count on Nintendo to release banger after banger.
I'll pick the Switch 2 then. You pick the Switch 2? Yeah.
Okay. I ultimately chose the Switch 2
because of how many big games are supposed to come out for it and that I can still play my Switch 1 games
on the Switch 2 if I want. I do have a desktop and I can already play Steam games,
but if I didn't have one, I would probably choose one of the PCs to get access to all of those.
The games are really expensive. Over 100 Canadian dollars.
Each? Like for a single game?
Do I have to pay for the games? Unless it's a game that I want to play.
Does it have any games already on it? It has Mario Kart World
and you can play your existing Switch games.
$100?
Okay, sure. Yeah. Happy birthday. Thanks.
And happy birthday to our sponsor.
What's... What's... If you guys enjoyed this video,
why don't you check out this other one that my son and I did together?
We don't fake our videos, boy. The answer doesn't change when the camera turns off.
I don't know, off camera. Can I just like have two of them? No.
Do I have to decide today? Yeah.
Okay.