(Image credit: Future)

This year has been a bit of a weird one for gaming handhelds. AMD’s mighty Strix Halo chip launched at CES, yet it’s too power hungry and hot to see its inclusion in anything we can actually use right now. AMD’s Z Extreme range is still going strong, though, with the Z1 Extreme making for a good mid-range handheld, and the new Z2 Extreme powering the surprisingly capable Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.

Despite its latest range of desktop chips being a bit of a letdown, Intel managed to put out some fierce mobile chips, too. The Core Ultra 7 258V powering the MSI Claw 8 AI+ seems to be one of the standouts, giving excellent performance. However, the chip isn’t the only thing that makes a device, and our favourite gaming handhelds of this year pack a punch in the look, feel, and battery life departments.

We didn’t see any new iterations from Valve in the hardware department this year, but other companies getting access to Steam OS means more bespoke Windows-less devices also made their way to market. Lenovo’s SteamOS-powered Legion Go S offers great performance, despite being on the older Z1 Extreme chip.

We saw companies like Ayaneo throw their hat in the ring with the Strix Point Ayaneo 3. This handheld comes with a very neat but odd modular control system that didn’t fully win our hearts over. Though not a PC, the implementation of smart DLSS in the Nintendo Switch 2 certainly bridges the performance gap, even if Nintendo is consistently its biggest selling point and its worst enemy.

As they say, cream rises to the top, and we’ve nominated the three creamiest best gaming handhelds of 2025, and we’ll announce which one takes the gold on New Year’s Eve.

Best gaming handheld 2025: the nominees

Each of these three gaming handhelds offers different things at different price points, and they have all earned their nomination. It seems like budget gaming handhelds didn’t really get a word in edge ways this year, which we’re hoping isn’t a trend next year. Nonetheless, only one can take the win, and we’ll let you know who does on New Year’s Eve.

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James is a more recent PC gaming convert, often admiring graphics cards, cases, and motherboards from afar. It was not until 2019, after just finishing a degree in law and media, that they decided to throw out the last few years of education, build their PC, and start writing about gaming instead. In that time, he has covered the latest doodads, contraptions, and gismos, and loved every second of it. Hey, it’s better than writing case briefs.

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