PC Gamer Hardware Awards_ The best handheld gaming PC of 2023

Steam Deck OLED
The Steam Deck launched handheld PC gaming into the mainstream, but Valve wasn't quite done tinkering with the design. While not quite a Steam Deck 2, the yono all app Steam Deck OLED is a revision of the popular handheld that improves upon the original design in oh so many ways.

The screen receives the bulk of the updates with a sparkling new OLED panel. Obviously, hence the name change. Deeper blacks, rich colours, faster refresh rates, and genuine HDR are all on the cards now, and Tyler came away seriously impressed with the new screen during his review.

Beyond a better panel, the Steam Deck OLED also has a bigger battery, a new carry case, and a new 1TB SSD option. All seriously good quality of life updates on an already impressive handheld device.

Read our Steam Deck OLED review.

OneXPlayer OneXFly
Coming in smaller and lighter than the Steam Deck, the little OneXPlayer makes for a wonderful halfway house between a larger handheld and something like the Ayaneo Air 1S, which is genuinely quite tiny. The OneXFly doesn't massively sacrifice screen space, either, as the lack of bezels across the top and bottom help keep things compact while retaining a 7-inch panel.

Despite its small stature, the OneXFly packs a mighty portable punch with AMD's excellent Ryzen 7 7840U and up to 4TB of storage and 64GB of RAM. That's clearly overkill, and we prefer the cheaper and far more sensible yono all app options, but it's further proof you don't need a chunky PC tower to score top specs. It also benefits from loads of connectivity options, including a full Type-A port and two USB4 sockets that come in mighty handy.

The best blend of screen size and specs, the only thing holding this device back is its price, which is higher than some of the more mainstream options.

Read our OneXPlayer OneXFly review.

Lenovo Legion Go
We've had the Lenovo Legion Go in the office for a couple of weeks now, playing around with its detachable controllers and large 8.8-inch screen. While I'm still yet to finalise my thoughts into a full review, the longer I've spent with the device, the more I've come away impressed with all it has to offer. It's incredibly well-made, and the all-black finish is gorgeous.

At its core remains the same Ryzen 7 7840U processor that powers most non-Valve handhelds today. That's both a blessing and a curse. It's an awesome chip with a surprising amount of CPU performance under the hood, though admittedly it only just has the GPU grunt to deliver at 1080p. Often it requires upscaling to really reach playable frame rates for a frame rate aficionado like me, and that does make me wonder why Lenovo bothered sticking a QHD+ resolution panel in this device. Nonetheless, that panel actually scales down to 1200p exceptionally well.

Lenovo has clearly thrown a lot at the Legion Go to stand out from the crowd. Some things, like the QHD+ panel and novelty FPS mode, seem like more bullet-point benefits for marketing than practical use, yet it remains that this device is mostly superb, including the software. Considering it's also one of the cheaper handhelds today thanks to Lenovo's mass manufacturing might, you can't pass this deal up easily.