YouTuber crowns best gaming handhelds of 2025 with a surprising winner
With 2025 drawing to a close, creators are now ranking their best devices of the year. Earlier this week, Marques Brownlee shared his thoughts on the best and worst smartphones of 2025. Viewed over 3 million times at the time of writing, the video covers numerous 'bests', full details of which we have covered separately.
Now, ETA Prime has chimed in with an equivalent of his own but for gaming handhelds. Specifically, only x86-based handhelds have been considered. While that would have been a given a few years ago, a raft of budget and high-end ARM-based options now exist. For instance, Anbernic still dominates the budget Linux market. Meanwhile, Ayaneo has joined Ayn Technologies in releasing multiple high-end Android handhelds.
Primarily, ETA Prime focuses on devices released this year like the GPD Win 5, which he ranks as the most powerful around thanks to its AMD Strix Halo processors and the MSI Claw 8 AI+ in second place. Meanwhile, the ROG Xbox Ally X is said to deliver the best battery life and ranks second to the Legion Go S (curr. $899 on Amazon) for the most comfortable x86 handheld released this year.
Currently, ETA Prime considers the Steam Deck OLED and Legion Go 2 to have the best displays because of their usage of OLED rather than IPS panels. An honourable mention also goes to the MSI Claw A8 for its design and overall aesthetics. With all that being said, ETA Prime awards his top pick of 2025 to thLegion Go 2 for its 144 Hz OLED display, powerful Ryzen Z2 Extreme chipset and detachable controllers. Alternatively, the Steam Deck OLED remains a top pick for its comparatively impressive price-to-performance ratio. Please see the video above for more details and our Legion Go 2 hands-on video below for a full run down of Lenovo's latest gaming handheld.
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