The best handheld gaming consoles in 2023
The best handheld gaming consoles can keep you entertained anywhere. While the best gaming PCs and consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X are excellent companions at home, they’re inconvenient to bring on a trip, and impossible to actually play while in transit. This is where handheld consoles come in: Moderately powerful, lightweight machines that are easy to stash in a backpack, or even a pocket.
While the best handheld gaming consoles in the past made you choose between limited specs (like a Nintendo Game Boy) and excessive power consumption (like a Sega Game Gear), modern handheld consoles don’t suffer from such restrictions. The gadgets on this list support deep games with gorgeous graphics. You can also play for hours at a time, thanks to strong battery life.
Whether you need to pass the time on your commute or keep yourself occupied once you reach your destination, here are the best handheld gaming consoles you can buy.
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The best handheld gaming consoles you can buy today
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Where once the original Nintendo Switch topped this list, it’s been pretty much completely replaced by the Nintendo Switch OLED. As the name would suggest, this Switch offers an OLED display that’s not only larger than that of the standard Switch but also brighter and more colorful really making some of the best Nintendo Switch games really pop.
Other improvements like a sturdy kickstand, better speakers and an Ethernet port, make the Switch OLED the handheld games console to get today. The only caveat is that if you have an original Nintendo Switch you might not see the biggest of upgrades moving from it to the Switch OLED.
Read our full Nintendo Switch OLED review.
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2. Steam Deck
The best handheld gaming console for PC users
Our expert review:
Specifications
Size:
11.7 x 4.6 x 1.9 inches
Weight:
23.5 ounces
Battery Life:
4 hours
Game Store:
Steam
View at Amazon
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View at Newegg
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View at Newegg
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Reasons to buy
+
Sturdy and light
+
Comfortable to hold
+
Large 7-inch screen
Reasons to avoid
–
Large bezels
–
Doesn’t support all Steam games
The Steam Deck isn’t the first handheld PC on the market, but it’s arguably the first to bring the experience into the mainstream. As its name suggests, the Steam Deck comes from Valve, and lets you access the majority of your Steam library natively. That means you can play almost any PC game that you can buy on Steam — and if you want to try your luck with side-loaded titles, you can do that as well. Steam is the largest and best-known game download platform on the Web, and Valve has done an incredible job optimizing these titles for a non-Windows platform.
The system isn’t perfect, as the battery life is still a little lacking, and not every Steam game works perfectly. But the system also receives frequent updates, and new games are getting optimized all the time. With a comfortable design, a vibrant screen and excellent performance, Tom’s Guide called the Steam Deck “the real deal.”
Read our full Steam Deck review.
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The Nintendo Switch Lite is about two-thirds the size of the regular Switch, and delivers two-thirds of what we love about the full-size model. Like its bigger cousin, the Switch Lite has access to Nintendo’s incredible library of first- and third-party games, as well as a comfortable control scheme and a big, colorful screen. Whether you want to play your fill of Zelda, Mario and Animal Crossing, or Doom, Bayonetta and Assassin’s Creed, the Switch Lite can deliver the same excellent games in a profile that’s easy to stash in a backpack or purse.
There are some drawbacks, though. Due to its smaller size, the Switch Lite has a smaller battery, meaning less playtime overall. The Switch Lite also doesn’t have detachable Joy-Cons, meaning that impromptu multiplayer sessions are much harder to facilitate. You also can’t transfer save data easily between a Switch Lite and a regular Switch, so consider carefully which one you want.
Read our full Nintendo Switch Lite review.
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The Apple iPad Air is one of the best tablets on the market, so it stands to reason that it’s also one of the best handheld gaming consoles. The Apple App Store has some of the best smartphone games on the market, and it usually gets the best titles months before Android does. In addition to perennial favorites like Fortnite, Hearthstone and Minecraft, you can also play indie darlings like Monument Valley, Florence and Threes.
What really sets the iPad apart from Android tablets, though, is Apple Arcade. This subscription service gives you access to more than 100 games for $5 per month. Some of the games are exclusive to the Apple Arcade service; others, you can get on a Switch or PC, but not an Android device. Sayonara Wild Hearts was an early contender for the best Apple Arcade game, but What the Golf, Dear Reader and Lifelike are also ingenious experiences that you generally won’t find elsewhere.
Read our full Apple iPad Air review.
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When it launched in 2017 the Nintendo Switch was a bit of a resurgence for Nintendo giving us a new hybrid console that worked just well as a handheld machine as it did connected to a TV. While Joy-Con drift was an issue, the compelling roster of first-party games made it a must-have for gaming fans. Now some years later it has a healthy library of great games from all manner of developers and is still a brilliant little games console.
The only reason it isn’t higher on this list it’s superseded by the Switch OLED in basically every way. But if you can find the original Switch for a bargain price, we still suggest you snap it up.
Read our full Nintendo Switch Review.
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6. Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro
The best gaming phone
Our expert review:
Average Amazon review:
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Specifications
Size:
6.1 x 2.7 x 0.4 inches
Weight:
8.4 ounces
Battery Life:
15:30 (165Hz), 16:27 (60Hz)
Game Store:
Google Play Store, Google Stadia
View at Amazon
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Reasons to buy
+
Incredible battery life
+
Excellent performance
+
Fantastic speakers and haptic engine
+
Useful software tweaks
Reasons to avoid
–
Costs more than some gaming phone options
The best handheld gaming console is arguably the one you already have on you, and that’s why it’s worth considering a dedicated gaming phone, like the Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro. This excellent (albeit very large) smartphone is powerful enough to run any game on Android, which means you can enjoy both casual handheld titles as well as longer sit-down-and-play experiences.
This monster packs a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, a whopping 18GB of RAM, a mammoth 6,000 mAh battery, new and upgraded AirTriggers, and enhanced cooling options for sustained gaming periods.
The chip alone makes the ROG Phone 6 Pro the most powerful gaming phone to date — it comes close to matching Apple’s A15 Bionic in our testing. While 18GB of RAM is excessive, it’s something to brag about. This handset also has the best software we’ve seen on a gaming phone.
And you’ll be gaming for a while: The ROG Phone 6 Pro lasted an epic 15 hours and 30 minutes on the Tom’s Guide battery test — making it the longest-lasting phone that we’ve ever tested at Tom’s Guide. Change the display resolution to 60Hz and you get an extra hour.
Don’t forget that Android smartphones now have access to a variety of cloud gaming services, from Google Stadia, to Nvidia GeForce Now, to Xbox Cloud Gaming. With the ROG Phone 6 Pro’s large screen and fast refresh rate, you can play many of your favorite console and PC games from anywhere in your home — or anywhere with a strong enough Wi-Fi connection.
Read our full Asus ROG Phone 6 Pro review
How to choose the best handheld gaming console for you
The best handheld gaming console for your needs depends on where you want to use it. If you need something that you can stash in your pocket and play absolutely anywhere, the ROG Phone 5 is the smallest, most versatile device on the list. If you want to split your game time equally between home and traveling, the Nintendo Switch is probably the best option, since you can hook it up to a TV.
Price is also a consideration. The iPad Air and ROG phone are much more expensive than the dedicated gaming handhelds on this list, but they’re also more versatile devices. It’s probably not a great idea to buy them exclusively for gaming, but if you happen to already own one, you may want to see what kind of games you can get before you complement it with a dedicated Nintendo device. Likewise, the Switch Lite is cheaper than the full-fledged Switch, but it also has fewer features.
How we test handheld gaming consoles
Since the best handheld gaming consoles comprise both dedicated gaming hardware and versatile mobile devices, we don’t have a standardized procedure to test them. Instead, we draw from our experiences with these devices after we give them full reviews. A Nintendo Switch and an Apple iPad Air, for example, fill very different roles in the tech world, so devising apples-to-apples tests for them is nearly impossible.
Instead, we evaluate each system’s game library, as well as how well it plays games relative to its hardware. An ROG Phone 5 is more powerful than a Switch Lite, but the Switch Lite can play much deeper, more involved games, thanks to its built-in controllers and Nintendo pedigree.
To earn a spot on this list, a system simply has to play excellent games, and be small enough to transport easily. For anything beyond that, we rely on our qualitative judgment.
