I’ve had literally 30 different models of retro handhelds over the last four years, Anbernic, Retroid, Powkiddy, etc, and then I got my Steam Deck. Despite the size, I find myself playing on it more than any of the others that I still have, and I’ve started selling a few as a result. There’s just no compromises, I can run whatever games or shaders or enhancements or whatever I can think of, even Switch emulation works amazingly well. Even if I want a fancy Emulation Station interface like the cheaper Linux based handhelds, I can use Retrobat for that(I’m a Windows user).

And then I can turn around and spend two hours faffing about in a modern game like Teardown… even if emulation is your main jam, don’t underestimate the allure of PC gaming in your hands.