Monologue: Don't Buy A Switch 2, Get A Handheld Gaming PC

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.

0:23Hello and welcome to this week's Better Offline monologue. I'm your host, Ed Zitron.

0:35And let's start with one point. Fuck Nintendo. Back in February, Nintendo said that shortages of the Nintendo Switch will not be a problem and came up with a genius, to quote multiple outlets, means of keeping scalpers from buying them all by requiring those buying on Nintendo.com to have at least 12 months of Nintendo online memberships as well as 50 combined hours of Nintendo Switch gameplay. Two weeks before launch, Nintendo America boss Doug Bowser, and yes, that is his name, said that the company believed it would have enough units to meet consumer demand throughout the holidays guess what they didn't make enough and now the nintendo switch 2 is sold out everywhere with scalpers charging hundreds of dollars extra on ebay if you're someone who's going to email saying you're easily able to buy one you're an exception to the rule and you fucking know it fuck nintendo they do this shit every time creating artificial scarcity and then blaming on unanticipated demand that they know will be there they do this every single time they did it back with the fucking Wii.

1:30It happens every time. I despise this company. They have this weird fucked up relationship with consumers where they turn them into pay pigs, where it's just like, hey, we're going to do a new Zelda game. You want to do that? Dance for me, you little piglet. And I say this as someone who's bought a Nintendo Switch. I don't know. I'm just, of the companies I'm most tired of, kind of Nintendo's up there. While they may have their nice ecosystem, wait, I'm not talking about a Nintendo here. I have a better suggestion, a much better suggestion buy a portable gaming pc instead since the steam deck launched in 2022 you've been able to play a remarkable amount of very very good games like elden ring and boulder's gate 3 with better graphics no need to hand cash to a company that fucking lies to you every time they launch a console there's the steam deck and its oled screened upgrade pick there's the msi claw 7 lenova's legion go and one i got actually got sent by asus recently They're ROG Ally X, and I really like it.

2:26One thing, though, there is a downside, other than in the case of the Steam Deck, and it's Windows. Windows 11 is really, really funky with these handhelds. I'm going to do a far more developed episode on the ROG Ally X and others when I've spent more time with it, but Windows really does not like the handheld form factor, and Microsoft has clearly not made much of an effort to make sure that probably the most interesting form factor in PC gaming, if not gadgets, in years, actually fucking works. Now, the reason I've kind of said the Steam Deck is different is they use their own operating system, SteamOS, which is a Linux-based system that really works very well, except for when it comes to anti-cheat measures, but that's just something you'll have to deal with.

3:05I know others are considering doing SteamOS integrations, I really hope so, because I love SteamOS, it's really good, and the reason I don't play my Steam Deck that much is because I just don't like the... It doesn't feel good in my hands, okay? A lot of these things are going to be like that for you. It's why later on I suggest you go and play with one. But across the board there's another challenge. There's a battery life problem. Two to eight hours allegedly, but if I'm honest running a ROG Li-X at full tilt turbo mode is going to drain the battery pretty quickly. I haven't done official battery tests.

3:37I was still able to play for a couple of hours. It was good. I was playing stuff on full tilt too. But this is one case where I'm fully willing to say we're only a few years in. Battery tech and chips will get smaller and these things will last longer. Right now, they fit nicely in the hand, but they're a touch heavy and get a little hot, which is kind of silly for PC gaming. Either way, while I've played with a few of these handhelds, the Steam Deck and ROG Ally X are the ones I've had the most time with, and Asus is really great. It can't really run Doom the Dark Ages very well, it looks like a PS4 or PS3 version.

4:07It's been great for playing Madden 25, Redacted, Hades 2, the new Oblivion remaster, and a bunch of emulation stuff. Both the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally X also use power delivery, which is in a lot of modern charges. Though I will add the ROG Li-X wanted to charge at 90 watts when I plugged in the other day. Kind of weird, but I also was playing something a little bit taxing on it. These things are also not cheap, and while the Steam Deck is$399, it's getting on a bit, and the more recent yet year-old ROG Li-X is$800, though I should add it's more powerful and has a 128Hz screen. I also really like it.

4:40Like, I've just been playing with it a lot. Yeah, I know on this show I'm constantly bitching about stuff such as like one minute ago but i really do like the rock lix the steam deck is just too chunky for me too chunky i don't know if i've got small hands but for my hands they're kind of chubby and just like the rock lix more and i will say there are other options too more powerful options and like the gpd win 4 is like a thousand dollars it's too much it doesn't do enough it's not worth your money the rock lix for 800 bucks i actually really like i think you could you you will be using this thing for years and you'll be very happy with it and you could probably plug it into a battery when you're charging as well so it'll keep going and i'll say this segment is probably the most exciting part of the tech industry for me at the moment and it's also the way i do most of my gaming these consoles work really well yeah they're a little bulky right now yeah they got heating things but there have been significant leaps between generations as far as power and battery life goes i really hope we see more companies get into this space and as they do I'll probably end up playing with their versions too.

5:43I want to do a bigger episode on handheld PC gaming. I've not done my rounds with all of them yet, but if you're somehow in PR for one of these things, email me, easy at betteroffline.com. And I'm looking forward to, on a larger level, doing more gaming stuff. Gamers can be a little bit angry, and I'm sure someone is going to hear me say fuck Nintendo and get really upset. But you know what? Gaming industry needs to look at too. but there are really positive things pc gaming rocks right now there are tons of fun games you can play but also these handheld gaming there's years of games that work on them really really well i mean i play madden 25 because it's like asmr for me but it's nice it works really well i love these things and i think you will too so i really recommend if you can i think like best buy has a lot of them go and play with them pick them up fill them in your hands it's a very personal choice and yeah buy that instead of a nintendo switch 2 you don't need to play the latest version of mario kart mario kart has been the same goddamn game for years you know it and so do i anyway that's gonna get me in trouble too but give these things a go and yeah here you go a semi-positive monologue view for bloody once thanks for listening

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