Hi all,

Definitely need help to make a final decision which setup to get. Hope you can provide opinions and insight that will help me to finally pull the trigger for one of those option.

Some background: I’m an occasional gamer, prefer single player games (from battle brothers and M&B Bannerlord to Spider-Man and God of War), father of two - only available time to play is when they are sleeping or during breaks and boring zooms (thanks remote work). My goal is to have a reliable handheld solution with ability to fast jump in/out into game with an ability to play on Apple Studio Display in docked mode.

I see my options are: Legion Go, Steamdeck OLED, Ps5+PsPortal - all of them are ± in the same price range from where I can get them.

Pros and cons as I see them (feedback and advices needed):

Legion Go: Pros:

  1. screen - gorgeous 8.8 inch high ppi 2k
  2. windows - cheaper games, all games compatibility, easy mods installation
  3. detachable controllers and kickstand - nice to have while work travels in hotels and planes
  4. easy connection to my Apple studio display thanks to usb4 for docked usage Cons:
  5. windows - as a Mac user I hate windows “tinkering”, updates, bios settings etc. sleep/wake function is not instant as well as I understood.
  6. some reviews show that controllers can be loose and software is steel far from perfect
  7. battery life - windows and 2k screen kills even 50wh battery fast

Steamdeck OLED: Pros:

  1. screen - it’s OLED
  2. steamOS - almost console-like experience with ability to install mods (however even more “tinkering” requiered 3)battery life is better than Legion Go thanks to OLED screen with lower resolution and “weaker” hardware while the battery capacity is the same. Cons:
  3. screen - 7.4 inches seems small and 720p resolution is low (I understand it performance wise, but I got used to retina screens)
  4. steamOS require more efforts to install mods and no anticheat games available
  5. no Apple Studio display compatibility for docked usage

Ps5+PsPortal: Pros:

  1. console experience - just buy a game and play, no “tinkering” required
  2. best ergonomics (I like dualsense controller)
  3. powerful hardware to play any game (it’s a ps5 at the end of the day) Cons:
  4. it’s a remote play, and even if I have a good home network and will be getting good experience playing at home, there are high possibility for connection issues from anywhere else. Also if you have no WiFi - you can’t play (airplane gaming missed)
  5. games are more expensive, also you can’t install games that are not in psstore
  6. no trackpad/mouse option for shooters/strategy games
  7. no connectivity to Apple Studio display, only streaming in 1080p to Mac

Sorry for the long read, but would highly appreciate help and insights.

  • 21shadesofsavage@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    curious, what makes the apple studio display not compatible with the steam deck? i know the ts3+ dock doesn’t work, if you’re using that, but the ts4 one does

    re: windows, i don’t have a legion pro and maybe the software is better but i hated windows on my onexplayer. updating drivers was a pain and the experience was pretty cumbersome. steamos was hands down the smoother experience

    steamos doesn’t require tinkering any more than the other handhelds. you can easily tinker with just the game settings but i largely play games out of the box. if you stick to steam games, the tinkering is mostly qol to squeeze out more battery life or configure controls. if you run other clients then yeah ticketing is involved. compatibility is lower than windows but i don’t play any multiplayer games on the deck. most of my single player games, even non verified works pretty well for me. for the odd few that don’t work, the latest proton version or experimental usually fixes things

    the portal sounds great for minimal work but i hardly touch my ps5 and the other handhelds can easily stream ps5 games. i personally don’t think the portal is worth the money

  • CookieMisha@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    PS portal is definitely the worst of the bunch. You could get a ps5 and any of those above and stream your games there as well

    What is apple studio and why wouldn’t it work?

    Many anticheat games are available, but if you really want to play Fortnite, valorant or call of duty don’t get it, because those do not work, but many more do

      • yhozumi@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Haha I replied in your PlayStation portal post. Apple studio display requires a bit of initial tinkering to work!. Once you do that, display, mic, speakers all work on the steamy deck

    • HuntCrafty8595@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Apple studio is their display, when docking a deck to it, it tries to force the deck to run at 5k resolution and they just dont play nicely together

  • MeetTheRussian@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Ps portal is complete and utter trash. It’s nothing more than a glorified gamepad with a screen. It can’t do anything on its own. And it would require a ton of bandwidth outside of your home. Get either the deck or the LegionGO. I have no idea what the GO is and how it compares to the deck, but I own an LCD deck and it’s pretty darn good.