No handheld can beat the Steam Deck because of one big problem

New gaming handhelds are a dime a dozen these days, but one thing is holding them all back from being real Steam Deck competitors: Windows 11.

New gaming handhelds are coming out left, right, and center. With the MSI Claw, Ayaneo Flip, and rumored ROG Ally 2 all being rumored for launch this year, something needs to change. I’ve used dozens of handhelds at this point, including the Steam Deck OLED and a slew of Ayaneo devices.

But, something needs to change. Ayaneo originally announced the Next Lite handheld as the first device that will ship with SteamOS. This was later walked back as it was revealed to be HoloISO, which is a Linux distro similar to SteamOS. But now, it’s been revealed that the device will ship with Windows 11, instead of HoloISO.

This is a real shame, as using Windows on a handheld is far from the ideal user experience, especially now that I’ve been unable to pull myself away from the Steam Deck OLED for the past couple of months.

Windows has an Achilles heel

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Windows has one massive weakness: There’s no way to easily navigate it on smaller screens. Since the Ayaneo Air 1S was one of my favorites from last year, I used it a lot to play newer releases. But, any time I booted it up, I was met with a very unfriendly Windows user interface. It was only when booting into Steam’s Big Picture mode that things became usable. Windows needs a new front-end for smaller devices, as text legibility remains a concern. It also never feels great to have to use an analog stick as a cursor.

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But, one more pertinent issue is the suspend and resume features of the OS. Windows is a known resource hog, and devices can still be active while in sleep mode, thus destroying your battery life in the process. It’s never worked well, and when translated into a portable handheld form factor, it just gets even worse.

Comparatively, the Steam Deck’s sleep mode is almost flawless, and slick boot animations make the experience feel even better, too.

UX nightmares

Windows handhelds do not have a unified UX aside from the usual Windows experience. That’s why the likes of Lenovo, Asus, and Ayaneo have developed their systems for tweaking the device’s power, brightness, and other settings, as well as built-in launchers.

But, nothing matches up to the sheer ease of use that the Steam Deck manages to offer in SteamOS. With forks like HoloISO, you can also get better control too. So, what’s stopping manufacturers from shipping devices?

Why Windows is so prevalent

Windows has been chosen by OEM manufacturers, possibly due to existing relationships with Microsoft, and support for a wide range of hardware configurations. Getting everything set up in HoloISO would require much more development work than creating a singular front-end tool, after all.

But, it’s also because users can easily install whatever they want on Windows, right down to the kernel level. This means that you can play titles like Fortnite and Destiny, which are currently unsupported by SteamOS.

Access to systems like these could end up being one of the reasons why manufacturers choose Windows. While Linux is an equally open platform, SteamOS just doesn’t play nice with certain titles.

CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney stated that the work to put Fortnite on a platform like Linux might just not be worthwhile enough because of a smaller user base. So, there is some credence to why you might still want Windows on a handheld like this.

More Linux handhelds are a good thing

So, how do we ultimately get mass user adoption for gaming on Linux? Valve seems to have the answer in SteamOS. But, not many devices currently ship natively with it.

Using SteamOS, a version of Linux with several open-source elements, the Steam Deck catapulted the number of users gaming on Linux, but there’s another element at play worth discussing here too: Linux’s gaming translation layer, named Proton.

Proton essentially converts whatever Windows title you are playing, and allows it to run on Linux-based systems. With hundreds of games tested, the list is growing day by day. So, while you might be locked out of some esoteric titles, with no support natively for rival launchers like Epic, for the most part, you should be able to play most modern games using SteamOS, and therefore Linux.

However, SteamOS uses closed-source elements, meaning that manufacturers will not be able to fully replicate it until Valve gets on board.

Valve could learn from the Android ecosystem

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The Steam Deck is a new category of device in itself. It’s not just a gaming handheld, but it’s not quite a gaming laptop either. It sits somewhere in the middle, in terms of performance and power. Valve could capitalize on this current trend of high-powered x86 handhelds by creating an ecosystem of them, which all run using some kind of version of SteamOS.

You could end up having the Steam Deck as a halo device, the best of what SteamOS has to offer, with unique features like verified compatibility. Take one look at the Android ecosystem to see how Google does it over there. Google creates the Pixel, a “pure” experience, which is then retooled by dozens of manufacturers. Valve could do the same with its Steam Deck line of devices.

This could open up the floodgates even more for gaming using Linux, and solve many issues that the current crop of Windows handhelds contend with.

But most of all, if handhelds were to evolve in this way, it just creates better products, meaning that you have more reasons to choose alternatives, over the Steam Deck, which is one of the best gaming handhelds around right now.