Happy birthday, son. Here is the Switch,
too. 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
going to 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 going to buy you the Segway to our
sponsor, SY. Make sure you stay connected on your next vacation or work
trip with SY's eim plans available in over 200 destinations. You can get 15%
off a plan by clicking our link and using code LTT at checkout.
The reason I'm excited for the Switch 2, it's like a brand new console and it's
really the only console I 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 want to play that sometimes.
If I'm going to see my cousins, I'm bringing a handheld. Battery life would
be kind of important, but if I can also just bring a charger and charge it while
I'm playing. So, so it's not like a deal breaker. It's not a deal breaker for
sure. You're going to get me to try eight consoles in an hour and decide
between one of them. Yes. Let's start with the 800 lb 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 SteamX 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
crossplatform and available on all of our systems. Any initial impressions?
This mouse pad is so cool. Yeah, the
dual trackpads 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.
Uh they also have momentum, so you can kind of throw them, and you'll you'll
feel them vibrate. They're very configurable. And if you want to play
something like, you know, 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
like 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
want to play around with Steam OS at all? Steam OS? What's Steam OS? Steam OS
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. That I like that. 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 going to 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.
1,000 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 going to be much laggier than the Switch One,
but it's not going to hold a candle to the Switch 2. However, what do you think
of the display? It's very bright. It's 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's inefficiencies. Well, as long as we
ignore battery life in lighter 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 going
to 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 Hz. 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, uh, change your performance mode. You won't get
much battery life out of the higher performance modes, but uh hey, it's
really fast. Okay, let's try turbo.
You're going to 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 want to run it on that. Oh. Oh, now it's
so slow. What if I told you there was an Ally, but with better battery life? I
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 40watth
battery to an 80Wh battery. They
literally doubled the capacity of the battery which results in at least 2
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. Uh oh, we actually made a small mistake on the RAM speed. So,
they increased the speed of the memory from 6,400 mega transfers per second to
7,500 mega transfers 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. Seem 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 Ally X
that aren't great. It still has the same display as the original Ally, 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 in
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? Uh, 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. Uh, 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 cuz
it's so heavy, you wouldn't want to hold it. Uh why don't you fire up uh 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.
Oh, FPS mode.
That becomes a mouse. But that's something. That's their
overlay. So, you can see performance and you can change your modes and all that.
This menu is laggier 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 60fps
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
one's B?
Not really a PlayStation house. Never seen a PlayStation. I don't 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 AB.
Well, which one confirms and which one goes? Can't remember. Okay. Look at the
visual fidelity, though. Okay. you haven't actually tried the Switch 2 yet,
but here it is. 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 cuz 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 IO3, 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 were 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 a 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. Uh, yeah. You haven't even fired anything up yet. That's
Yikes. Oh, do you want to try out the modular interface? Yeah. There we go.
One click pop up.
That's pretty cool. Not going to lie. Now, is it in the
configuration that you'd prefer? Yeah. Okay. Uh, 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 the other ones, but it's 120
Hz, 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 8 in display and
reasonable fan noise. In terms of battery life, it's between the Ally and
the Alli X, but closer to the Alli X, 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 want to see
how it compares to these. Still in the mix is the RGIX, 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
because all of these have 120 Hz plus displays, but this is the more
performant 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 toable.
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 in. So, smaller than the
Legion Go, but just shy of the claw.
Wow. It also has a 120 Hz display, and
it supports HDR, just like the Steam Deco LED. Yeah. Why don't you fire up
Breath of the Wild cuz that's the game that you've been playing on the others. Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. Uh, yes. For
an extra $15 Canadian, 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 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 other Switch. Yeah, it's especially nice
when you remove the Joy-Cons and you're using them in Joy-Con controller mode.
Like, it's actually kind of usable. Also, this is sick. The JoyCons are
magnetic now. 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, uh, just Yep. Well, 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 JoyCons have as much drift as
the Switch One? We don't know yet. They might be okay, but they're not Hall
effect, so they might not be okay. Yeah, all of our JoyCons drift really bad.
Wow. This seems way better than the other one.
Wow.
It's way better than the other Switch. The quality is higher. Refresh rate's
higher. The sound is so much better.
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. 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 going to look better dayto-day.
Although, 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, okay. Do
you want to play Mario Kart? Let's play Mario Kart. Oh, these are actually big on the Switch one. These are tiny and
they're so hard to press. Huge improvement, dude. I'm in 12th. This is
terrible. There's an airplane,
dude. And there's like wave runners and stuff, too. It's pretty sick. There's
another curveball. 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? Um, why don't we have a look at the leaks together? Okay, there's leaks.
Employees just tell the worlds what secrets are being h being made.
I think I have sheltered him. Was it already going to be hard enough without any more curveballs? Yeah. Are you ready
to eliminate anything from the table?
How will all I get all of them? What the? No.
Okay, I'll put this one back. Why'd you put that one back? I put it back cuz
it's really heavy and would tire my arms quick. That's fair. Uh, 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
Alli 2. Kind of like an Alli X, but you
can see it has more like a uh 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.
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. What? That's life. Well, no, that's not life. That's content.
Here's our options. Big moment. Switch 2, 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, too? 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 One 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 hundred Canadians 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? What? Rocket money. How much do
you think you're spending on subscriptions? Chances are it's more
than you realize, especially if there's one from a couple months ago you forgot
to cancel. But wait, don't leave to do that yet. Why not let Rocket Money do
the heavy lifting for you? Think about it. No more calendar reminders, no more
surprise charges on your card, and best of all, no more 20 question opt- out
surveys. Rocket Money can help you ask those subscriptions in just a few
clicks. And that's not all. They can even negotiate better rates for you on
things like your phone or internet bill. With all that money saved, it's time to
sign up for one extra thing then, right? Wrong. Rocket Money can also help you
budget your hard-earned cash so you can work toward getting that new computer
upgrade or you can finally start patting out that savings account. So, don't
wait. Get started for free today at rocketmoney.com/LTT
or you can click the link in the description to find out how you can unlock even more features with a premium
plan. If you guys enjoyed this video, uh 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. Oh, I
don't know off camera. Can I just like have two of them? No.
Do I have to decide today? Yeah. Uh, okay.