- HP says it is now considering making a handheld game -pc thanks to Valves Steamos
- Steamos will soon be available on other handhelds like Lenovo Legion Go’s
- The reason why HP has not made one yet is due to Microsoft’s Windows 11
Sales of handheld games -PCs are still growing year by year with a steady stream of new releases from Lenovo, Asus and MSI, but a PC producer is missing in action -and the reason why it may not come as a huge surprise.
As reported by NotebookCheck (via an interview with XDA), HP is now considering making a handheld game -PC run by Valves Steamos, as its senior vice president and division president of Gaming Solutions, Josephine Tan confirmed. And if you were wondering why it took so long, it’s because of Microsoft’s Windows 11 operating system.
Tan suggested that she struggled to use Windows 11 and further hinted at the operating system’s lack of simplicity, especially for handheld owners when they resume games – a feature that devices like Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck take advantage of. This meant that there were no plans from HP for a handheld.
But now that Valves Steamos will be available to other handhelds in addition to the steam deck (like Lenovo Legion Go S), Tan made it clear that she is open to the idea of making a handheld game -PC. While Steamos still has some disadvantages, especially its inability to launch games with anti-cheat software baked in, and no official support for features such as framework generation, the user experience is still much better than when using Windows 11 on a handheld.
Microsoft should take this as heads up …
If that wasn’t already clear enough, Windows 11 hasn’t been one of Microsoft’s best releases in recent years: I would say it’s one of the worst I have seen in terms of bugs and seemingly endless problems (specifically with its 24H2 update), and for a handheld game -pc -entus, it’s just not up to the job.
Apart from 24H2’s frustrating bugs, Windows 11 bleaches in comparison with Steamos to handhelds – and while it is understandable that there is no ‘portable’ state for Windows 11 as Microsoft’s focus is on stationary PCs and laptops, it is another reason why many people move away from us.
It has become so bad that I have considered installing Bazzite (a Steamos clone) on my Main Desktop PC – and testing it on my Asus Rog Ally for months suggests that it may not be a bad idea. In the end, this should be a wake-up call for Microsoft. Windows 11, in addition to its current 24H2 editions, just doesn’t work for handhelds, and with the popularity of handheld games -PCs that show no sign of slowing down, it would now be the perfect time for Microsoft to look at making his operating system work better on these devices -otherwise it could really start to miss.
