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What to Consider When Buying a Handheld Gaming PC

Portability & Battery Life

Above all else, a handheld gaming PC is designed to be portable. If you want to play the latest, most resource-intensive games at the highest resolutions, frame rates, and graphical settings, you'd be better off with a watt-guzzling gaming desktop.

A handheld gaming PC trades some of its performance for portability, but it's hard to beat the convenience and novelty factor of a fully-fledged PC which you can use anywhere, whether that be on a plane, train, or just tucked up in bed. As such, for many, the battery life of a handheld gaming PC is of a higher priority than its raw speed.

Resolution & Refresh Rate

Resolution isn't nearly as important on a handheld gaming console as it is on a desktop monitor or living room television. It's much harder to notice a lower resolution on a 7-8" display. Even 720p, a big no-no in today's TV market, will look plenty sharp on a handheld gaming console.

A lower resolution has the added benefit of making games easier to run. A native 1080p resolution (or 1600p in the case of the Lenovo Legion Go), is sometimes too much of an ask for these handheld gaming consoles in modern titles, while 720p may run perfectly fine. You can either drop the resolution of the display itself or take advantage of upscaling techniques like AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution to get the most out of your handheld gaming console.

There's also the refresh rate of the display to consider. A higher refresh rate, with a higher frame rate to match, will result in more responsive, smoother-looking gameplay. However, running games at a higher frame rate will also require more power and, in turn, drain the battery faster. A completely unlocked frame rate will drain the battery flat in not time at all. Buy a handheld gaming console and you'll quickly learn to set TDP limits and FPS caps to squeeze as much battery life out of it as possible.

Performance

Considering they're often limited to as little as 15 watts to maximise battery life, the processors on these handheld game consoles are shockingly capable. When you look at performance figures for the likes of the Lenovo Legion Go and ASUS ROG Ally (both powered by AMD Ryzen Z1 Series chips), they're effectively faster than a PlayStation 4 - all in a portable form-factor. How neat is that?

It's astonishing to see big-budget blockbuster games like Forza Horizon 5, God of War, and Cyberpunk 2077 running on a handheld; you aren't going to find these experiences on Nintendo Switch. Sure, you'll have to tweak settings accordingly, but are you really going to miss the difference between 'high' and 'medium' on a small handheld display?

Storage

When shopping for a handheld gaming PC, you'll want to take into account how much built-in storage it has. 512GB is, as of now, the norm for these devices, but there's models with more or less storage capacity.

Since they're designed to be as space-efficient as possible, handheld gaming PCs tend to employ the smallest 2230 M.2 SSD form-factor. For those looking to upgrade their handheld's storage, we stock some 2230 M.2 SSDs. If you'd rather not open up your handheld and install an internal drive, many of these devices also come equipped with microSD card slots, making it super-easy to boost their storage.

Handheld Gaming PCs at Ebuyer

Here at Ebuyer, we stock the best handheld gaming PCs from the top brands, including Lenovo.

If you want your new handheld gaming PC by tomorrow, next-day delivery is available. We also offer finance packages for added flexibility. And don't forget the Ebuyer Price Match Promise - we won't be beaten on price.