Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and more: all the news about the handheld PC gaming revolution

Australians will finally be able to officially buy Valve’s Steam Deck in their home country — two and a half years after the handheld gaming PC first went on sale, and a year after it arrived in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Australians have been asking for this for years — and Valve promised to make it happen way back in November 2021.

It’ll arrive this November in the same primary configurations Valve sells elsewhere: a 256GB configuration of the original LCD model, or 512GB and 1TB versions of the newer OLED model that also come with longer battery life, a better screen, and more. They’ll cost AUD $649, $899, and $1,049 respectively.

Grand Theft Auto V was one of the top ten most played games on Valve’s Steam Deck handheld this past week. It’s been in the top twenty for at least two years. But as of today, Valve now lists the game as “unsupported” — because developer Rockstar mysteriously broke compatibility with Valve’s handheld for its online modes.

As you can see in the image above, this is the latest fight around Linux anti-cheat: like the developers of Fortnite and Roblox, Rockstar has decided not to support the Steam Deck with its new anti-cheat software for GTA Online — a game that, by all accounts, badly needed to deal with cheaters. (Outside the Steam Deck, better anti-cheat was probably a good move.)

The AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme is the chip inside the Asus ROG Ally X, Asus ROG Ally, and Lenovo Legion Go — and in early 2025, AMD will announce its successor, the Z2 Extreme, for future PC gaming handhelds.

That’s the word from Digital Trends’ Jacob Roach, who heard AMD computing and graphics boss Jack Huynh say it’s targeting a 2025 release on an IFA stage in Berlin; I just confirmed with AMD spokesperson Stacy MacDiarmid that the company plans to announce it in early 2025, though AMD’s declining to say any more about it today.

Acer has so far stayed out of the handheld gaming PC race, but that’s about to change. It’s just announced its first Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally competitor, the Acer Nitro Blaze 7, which looks like it fits somewhere between last year’s Asus ROG Ally and the newer ROG Ally X.

Like Asus — but unlike most rivals — it features a seven-inch 1080p variable refresh rate IPS screen to keep things smooth, one that refreshes slightly faster at 144Hz. (Acer tells The Verge it’s a landscape-native screen.) It’s also got a newer Ryzen 7 8840HS chip, albeit with the same Radeon 780M integrated GPU as most other Windows handhelds.

Microsoft has started testing a new gamepad keyboard layout in Windows 11 that’s designed for Xbox controllers. The gamepad keyboard layout improves the on-screen keyboard in Windows 11, so you can use an Xbox controller to type or navigate around the OS.

The gamepad keyboard is now in testing as part of the beta channel for Windows 11 and even includes button accelerators so you can use the X button for backspace, the Y button for spacebar, and the menu button on an Xbox controller to hit enter. The keyboard keys have also been vertically aligned, so it’s easier to type with a controller.

It’s not clear if Lenovo’s Legion Go handheld gaming PC was a success after its initial rough start last fall and its middling experience by the time I reviewed it this spring — but Lenovo is pushing forward. Not only is it planning a successor, possibly a smaller seven-inch one, but it’s also just revealed an array of new accessories for the console.

The Legion Go will get its own official $65 USB-C dock this August — and in October, a full year after launch, you’ll be able to buy a $50 wedge-shaped “Charging Connector” that lets you turn its two detachable controllers into a single gamepad, keep them charged with a 10.55 watt-hour internal battery, and plug in a single USB-C cable to charge them both at once.

Valve once imagined that every PC maker could have their own "Steam Machine," a PC game console running the company's Linux-based SteamOS. It took a decade for that dream to evolve into the company's own internally developed Steam Deck gaming handheld, but the original dream isn't dead.

The company's long said it plans to let other companies use SteamOS, too — and that means explicitly supporting the rival Asus ROG Ally gaming handheld, Valve designer Lawrence Yang now confirms to The Verge.

Lenovo seems to have unintentionally bolstered rumors of a new Legion Go PC gaming handheld with details published on its own product page in a since-removed FAQ spotted by VideoCardz. The page hinted at a console with a “7-inch or 8-inch display,” an HDMI port, and dual fans — things the original Legion Go lacks — before it was apparently removed.

You can still find the FAQ on The Internet Archive, where I found snapshots as far back as May 4th, 2024, and as recently as yesterday. In addition to those details, Windows Central suggests that the console will be named the Lenovo Legion Go “S,” not “Lite,” as has been rumored until now.

The Asus ROG Ally X is the best a Windows gaming handheld has ever been. It’s got the most comfortable grip, the smoothest gameplay, and the longest-lasting battery — three of the elements that make a PC gaming experience truly portable for me.

Most of this is no surprise: It’s smooth because Asus makes the only handheld that pairs AMD’s powerful Ryzen chips with a variable refresh rate screen, which better syncs up with your game. It’s got longer battery life because Asus now stuffs an 80-watt-hour pack in there, the biggest we’ve seen in a handheld to date. The battery’s so big, you can keep that AMD chip humming at higher power levels for higher framerates.

Nearly five years after Valve discontinued its experimental Steam Controller, a new officially licensed gamepad for Steam is on the way. The new controller is made by Hori, and it’s only coming to Japan (at least for now).

Dubbed the Wireless Horipad for Steam, the PC-centric controller matches the Steam Deck’s menu buttons and has similar touch sensors atop its sticks to activate gyro controls. It also supports Bluetooth wireless and USB-C wired connections as well as a whole bunch of custom programmability using Hori’s software. But while it shares a lot with the Steam Deck, it’s not a Steam Controller 2 — it lacks rumble, a matching set of four back buttons, and the handheld’s signature trackpads.