Emulation Feedback Gaming Misc Steamdeck OLED or Odin 2?

[ebenleek]

I really like handheld gaming, so I'm thinking of buying a handheld with a lot of potential/good specs. If anyone owns one or both of these consoles, would I be better off getting the Odin 2 or the Steam Deck OLED? The Steam deck is def the more expensive/heavy choice, but is it worth it for the screen and specs? I do like emulation, but I also don't have a PC, only a laptop. I also already have a modded Wii U, DS, and a cheap emulation handheld. Idk if I really need more emulation consoles unless I want to try out switch emulation, but I've heard it's really annoying.
(Tryna get to 5 posts so I'm not considered untrustworthy by the site feel free to ignore!!)

 

[Scarlet]

I’d probably say Deck if you want the most flexibility (PS3 emulation and PC gaming mostly), and the Odin if you want better battery life, a more compact system, and are happy with slightly more limited emulation.

Both are solid systems though.

 

[ebenleek]

I’d probably say Deck if you want the most flexibility (PS3 emulation and PC gaming mostly), and the Odin if you want better battery life, a more compact system, and are happy with slightly more limited emulation.

Both are solid systems though.

Thank u for the feedback!! Honestly since I alr have a PS3 I may just get the Odin 2, but the PC gaming is always what gets me I could always just save for an actual PC though!!

 

[kijetesantakalu042]

Thank u for the feedback!! Honestly since I alr have a PS3 I may just get the Odin 2, but the PC gaming is always what gets me I could always just save for an actual PC though!!

I think that an Odin 2 makes more sense for me, but choose what makes more sense in your scenario

 

[Kioku]

Just get the Deck. It’ll be officially supported longer.

 

[Ondrashek06]

Go with the Deck - out of all the PC handhelds, it has the most support and the biggest community creating guides on how to get stuff up and running successfully.

Some Chinese company making lots of revisions of their handheld is most likely going to stop supporting a device much sooner than literally the biggest PC game storefront company out there with plans to open-source the software and no plans to release a second version "until the tech is there".

 

[Taleweaver]

I'm leaning toward the deck as well. I've got three non-oleds in use: one as handheld, one as pc and one as console. Though it's not without flaws as the latter two, it's easily doable.
Switch emulation is pretty good, even after the recent shenanigans(1). Heck... All emulation is pretty good.

Edit: for clarity: i don't know the Odin, but it uses android. That's a locked ecosysteem. Easier to use for what it is meant to do, but not as flexible. Just yesterday, i used my steam deck for image editing. It uses arch Linux, so any program that supports Linux runs without issue (note that you'll need a dock. Similar if you properly use it as console)


(1): getting the firmware in the correct spot 's a bit of a hassle, i' ll admit that. But you'll only need to do it once

 

[aenertia]

Basically aarch64 is about 10 years behind codebase support. There are just straight up things that don't support aarch64. RP5 is great valuepoint for an aarch64 platform that pretty much does everything userspace you can on aarch64. x86_64 is just miles better from a support/emulation perspective.

 

[komali_2]

Steam Deck, probably OLED version. Odin2 is a fine device but mostly imo best for if you want a portable, relatively powerful emulation device. The Steam Deck is a fully fledged PC running an arch based distro and can play basically every game ever made on every console up to ps3, as well as every PC game ever except for, as far as I know, a couple of the top multiplayer titles. But if you don't care about playing fortnite or whatever, that shouldn't matter.

Steam Deck wins out in repairability and support, even if Valve dies. Not so for the Odin. It has vastly superior control surfaces, including double touchpads which makes for some really interesting gaming options in e.g. first person games or RTSs, city builders, etc. It's also just a linux box so you can use it in desktop mode for cool stuff.

IMO nobody's come close to valve's level yet in that class of hardware space. Everything else is cheap, window's - based, unsupported, unmoddable, proprietary copycat.