The Odin 3 Portal combines extraordinary power, a gorgeous 7-inch OLED and superb ergonomics. I put AYN's finest handheld yet through its paces, from classic consoles to modern PC games, and speak with the developers behind Eden, ARMSX3, GameNative and DroidDeck.
Totally - Android is ok for emulation, but it is lacking all the PC-exclusive releases that every gamer has in his steam library. The glory the Steamdeck is that you can simply play what you already own without buying everything again.
If you read the review you’d see they mention x64 emulation through things like GameNative. You can play lots of steam games on android devices now, the major limiting factor is the power of the hardware on android devices and driver support.
@KatherinaReichelt No no, it’s not that. I’ve seen some work to port a sort of WINE or something over to Android and get some Windows titles working for example. But that doesn’t fix the fundamental problems.
Android, iOS, and even Windows Mobile now are all just… wrong for gaming. The systems they use are simply not built for it and their nature makes them not very adaptable. (Like with Linux I can swap out systemd for OpenRC for example, but there is no equivalent of this sort of thing for Android.)
There’s more input latency, more output latency, the coding languages and APIs are inefficient and ridiculously limited and use way too much battery power even for simple 2D pixel art games, etc etc.
Indeed the Steamdeck is much closer to the right balance — because of the OS.
I’m fascinated by running “not typical phone games” on android. Something about up cycling old tech really speaks to me. I’m using an older android phone in one of those gamesir controllers as a makeshift Switch and I think its fantastic. Even a mid range phone from a few years ago will have a high refresh rate OLED screen and there are plenty of frontend apps to make it feel like a real console.
I’m quite sensitive to lag so there’s no bluetooth in my set up, and I cant perceive any of the issues you speak of. In running 3D games (currently playing Chants of Senaar, Twilight Princess recomp) I don’t have any problems with the battery life, which is particularly impressive given the age of the hardware. Looking at Droid Deck videos on high end Snapdragon processors suggest that they’re quite capable.
I have a steam deck and the heft and weight of the device means whenever in pick it up, I just want to put it back down again. The cooling needed for x86 systems is awful for a portable system. I wouldn’t consider a steam deck 2 unless its ARM. I’m really hoping Valve go in that direction following the steam frame.