Handheld gaming PCs have improved rapidly in performance and usability, but their rising prices risk making them difficult to justify. The writer argues that a developing RAM shortage could worsen this problem, potentially slowing the market and making powerful portable devices less accessible.

The Steam Deck made it easier to play existing PC games on the move, although demanding titles often required low settings and delivered around 30–40 frames per second. Newer devices such as the Xbox Ally X and MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ offer stronger performance, but the latter costs $1,799; meanwhile, AMD’s Z2 Extreme brought only incremental gains, with the Legion Go 2 sometimes slower than the older ROG Ally X.