Portable Gaming PC Question

[Prior22]

It seems as though new portable gaming pc’s are released on a near monthly basis, especially from ayaneo. My main purpose for buying one would be for emulation.

I’m curious if it would benefit me to continue to wait for processors to continue to become more and more powerful. Or if upgrades for new releases over the next year or two won’t be worth the wait. Essentially my question is if the current line of devices will look severely dated in a few years.

 

[weestuarty]

It would depend on what you want to emulate? Id say upto ps2/gamecube then there are some great devices (i personally have odin lite that does all the ps2 and gc ive tried). devices like retroid and odin are amongst the best reviewed. If you want more power then you are looking at steamdeck or rog ally etc. The biggest difference between them is the battery life, the android based ones last much longer on battery but the handheld PCs like steamdeck can do more.

 

[tech3475]

I would suggest looking at what you want to run and the minimum battery life, there are plenty of relatively cheap systems for emulating up to a point.

Another option to consider is just getting/reusing a cheap Android phone and a controller.

Main reason I would look at a PC handheld is if you want to run PC games/software.

 

[Prior22]

It would depend on what you want to emulate? Id say upto ps2/gamecube then there are some great devices (i personally have odin lite that does all the ps2 and gc ive tried). devices like retroid and odin are amongst the best reviewed. If you want more power then you are looking at steamdeck or rog ally etc. The biggest difference between them is the battery life, the android based ones last much longer on battery but the handheld PCs like steamdeck can do more.

I am thinking about either the asus rog or one of the top shelf ayaneo units. So I should expect either of those two to handle anything ps2/wii/GameCube related just fine? What about ps3 and to a much lesser extent Xbox or Xbox 360?

 

[Scarlet]

I am thinking about either the asus rog or one of the top shelf ayaneo units. So I should expect either of those two to handle anything ps2/wii/GameCube related just fine? What about ps3 and to a much lesser extent Xbox or Xbox 360?

I have the Ally and it's definitely fine with GameCube and Wii stuff. There should be plenty of emulation showcases on YouTube if you want to look into it yourself. The 7840U is basically the CPU in the Ally, so any video showing that should give you an idea of what the Ally can do too.

As for PS3, I don't have too many games to test myself with it not being a platform I know too well. I did just boot up Demon's Souls though and unplugged on performance mode (15Wish) it does seem to run fine. Not sure if it's a particularly demanding game, but it's one of the few I know that don't really have a good way to play on PC outside of emulation.

Happy to throw any Wii U or Switch games at it assuming I own them and have them handy, so let me know and I can see how they do.