Why I sold my Nintendo Switch for a handheld PC

2026/10/11

Last year I sold my Nintendo Switch, which I had for 8 years.

I did not replace it with a Switch 2. Instead, I went with a handheld PC.

This post tries to capture why I made this seemingly illogical decision.

Nintendo Switch retrospective

It seems like a good place to reflect on my experience with the original Nintendo Switch which I had since 2017.

Overall it is my favourite console, despite the very obvious shortcomings it had.

Not only did it introduce me to handheld gaming (I couldn’t afford the PSP, DS and then Vita and 3DS while they were popular), but it also opened the wonderful world of indie games to me.

Hardware

But let’s start with the console itself. I had an original, first generation Switch bought in the summer of 2017 for my birthday. I used it mostly in handheld form, although my wife and I clocked hundreds of hours playing Mario Kart in docked mode.

The console hardware is great, I have no complaints. The JoyCons are sadly the complete opposite.

Over 8 years of moderate usage, I replaced the joysticks 5 times because of the drift. I also replaced one of the side button rows after it failed completely.

Since I’m an engineer, I did it all myself, but a normal person would most likely not do it, and in general having so many issues is simply not okay.

You’d think that this is enough to condemn the JoyCons - but no!

I also had the crappiest wireless connectivity with them detached.

I literally had to sit less than 2 meters away from Switch to get a reliable signal, and god forbid my leg got in the way of signal.

Maybe my pair was somewhat faulty, but it had been like that from the start, and no firmware updates ever helped.

Now at this point you may wonder how, with such issues, it is still my favourite console?

The answer has many parts to it.

Good things

To begin with I love the handheld gaming experience. For most games it is my preferred way to play them. I even bought games on Switch that were available on GamePass, just to be able to play them handheld.

It simply feels great, even at home. Plus it is awesome to be able to play games on a flight and away from home.

Second, the combination of hardware and OS. Instant suspend/resume is just awesome, and I’m very happy to see similar features appearing in the current-generation consoles and SteamOS.

Being able to suspend a game and then resume playing from the same position in seconds, without worrying about reaching a save point before putting the game down is just so amazingly liberating. There are many games I’d never finish if not for the ability to suspend the game mid-level and then return to it in the future.

The OS is lightweight, software updates or reboots take mere seconds, and I had no issues with stability. The only complaint would be a very slow eShop experience.

And third, the games.

As I’ve already said, Switch became my gateway to the world of indie games. I discovered genres like Metroidvania thanks to Switch. Because so many indie games were released for it, and at the same time plenty of AAA games skipped it because of underpowered hardware, it became my ultimate indie station.

But let’s talk first-party games too! No big surprise here - they are mostly excellent, at least those I played. Amongst my absolute highest rated games are many Nintendo exclusives - BOTW, TOTK, Super Mario Odyssey, Kirby Forgotten Land, Mario Kart 8 to name a few. No other console I owned comes close, not the PS3, PS4, or Xbox Series. I never played Nintendo games before (I had only a PC growing up), so discovering their games was a revelation for me. ‘Nintendo magic’ is real.

Bad things

I’ve already mentioned that JoyCons are a complete disaster.

I even ended up buying a 8BitDo dongle and using my Xbox controller with my Switch when docked.

Switch is seriously underpowered too, so even the first-party games like TOTK often had terrible frame rates. And plenty of ports had terrible frame rates and were blurry as hell as a bonus.

But another major issue, which is shared with all traditional video game consoles, is the completely closed off proprietary nature of the experience.

I was appalled when I learned about PlayStation charging extra for the PS5 upgrades of the older games. And of course Nintendo does the same now with the Switch 2 upgrade.

And of course it is not possible to export save data from the Nintendo Switch unless you jailbreak it, or unless the game has cloud-based cross-save, which is rare.

At least Xbox has the PlayAnywhere program, where select games not only have cross-save between Xbox and PC, but you only buy them once and get to play on both platforms.

Not buying the Switch 2

So here you see me saying all the nice things about the first Switch, and calling it my favourite console. And yet I didn’t go for Switch 2.

There are two major reasons for that.

First, I feel like there is nothing particularly exciting in it for me.

As I’ve said, my Switch was first and foremost used to play indie games.

Of course, some of the Nintendo exclusives were outstanding, but for this new generation I’m not interested in anything they released or announced so far.

As you can see, I used the exact same logic to not buy a PS5, and it completely paid off - I don’t miss playing any of the Sony exclusives to date.

And second, and maybe a more important reason, is that I no longer think that video game consoles remain a good option for me.

For years, I felt that the convenience, and the exclusives, are more than enough to justify the locked nature of the consoles, along with the higher game prices.

Now the consoles share all the problems of PC games - under-baked game releases with endless patches, bugs, and crashes. You used to be able to buy a disc, and play the game start to finish without downloading a 100 GB day one patch. Not anymore.

And the migration off PlayStation clearly showed to me just how locked down the whole experience is. I can easily play Steam games I bought 15 years ago. I have no access to any of my digital PS3 titles, nor my PS4 titles. That’s why my Xbox Series S was only used for GamePass.

If not Switch 2 - then what?

I was eyeing the Steam Deck for some time, but now it is a bit underpowered.

Thankfully it kicked off a whole generation of PC handhelds.

In my mind, my ideal handheld should combine the best of both worlds - a PC’s ability to run anything, especially my beloved old titles like Fallout 1 or Arcanum, and the convenience of the consoles, all in a portable form factor.

Since I mostly used my Switch for indie games, this would work even better on the PC where they release first, and many indies never get ported to consoles at all.

My experience with Xbox Series S was great, so if I could get a handheld performing at the level of Series S - that’d be perfect.

So to sum it up, I wanted:

Back in summer 2025, when I checked the market against my requirements, one option stood out: Asus ROG Ally, selling back then for ~€450. That’s exactly what my lovely wife bought for my birthday.

ROG Ally Z1E

My impressions

Hardware

It’s very nice, especially the 120 Hz VRR screen. Buttons and triggers feel similar to an Xbox controller, which is a good thing.

I wish the screen was a tad bigger though.

It is more chunky than Switch 1, but not in a bad way. I 3D-printed better grips, and it is now very pleasant to hold.

It is powerful enough to play almost any game, including most of the recent AAA releases.

The battery life on the other hand is quite bad, although there are aftermarket upgrades available. But for me it doesn’t matter much, just as with the Switch I mostly use it at home, plugged in.

Windows 11 with Armoury Crate

First impression was not great. I spent about two hours just installing updates - Windows, drivers, Armoury Crate. Comparing this to a Switch, where you log in and you are good to go - this experience is atrocious.

After that initial horror, using Win11 with Armoury Crate was actually fine except for one thing - sleep/resume, and games surviving this sleep. For the rest of the experience I have zero issues with the UX. Armoury Crate quick controls are brilliant, and so is native controller support in any game.

As a test, I managed to set up Fallout 2’s controller mapping in no time.

Also Win11 is quite usable with the touchscreen, surprisingly so. I didn’t feel the need to use a keyboard once.

One very annoying thing that I didn’t anticipate is game launchers. Compared to consoles, it is beyond annoying to deal with all this extra stuff when you simply want to play a game. Not only does each launcher (Ubisoft, EA, etc) require a separate login, they also bombard you with ads, and the whole experience of launching such games is not great without a mouse/keyboard or a touchscreen, for example in docked mode with an Xbox controller.

Bazzite

Back in 2025, after using the device with Windows for a few months, I installed Bazzite 42 in dual boot mode, just as an experiment. The installation of course required a keyboard, but outside of manual partitioning it went smoothly.

After adjusting a few things I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.

Absolutely seamless sleep/resume is extremely impressive, just as good as on Switch 1, and way better than Xbox Series S, not to mention Win11.

On the other hand, messing with non-Steam games is significantly more involved than on Win11. However, having a single Heroic launcher for Epic/GOG/Amazon is pretty neat, and lets you avoid dealing with those horrid launchers too.

Wine/proton went a long way. I copied the already patched version of Fallout 2 from the Windows partition, and it only took a couple of minutes to make it work in Steam, neat. And in all the games I played on Linux since then, I never had any compatibility issues.

KDE is less polished with touch controls than Win11, for example the touch keyboard needs to be toggled manually, and is in fact provided by Steam - not cool. Also with Konsole you can’t even paste stuff with the virtual keyboard, and there is no action menu to do it either - very annoying.

I’m also not happy that the whole nice gaming UI (Steam Big Picture) is proprietary. Sure it’s the same with Win11 and Armoury Crate, but I expected better on Linux. At any time Valve can just abandon it, or just make it significantly worse, and the handheld would be way less usable.

Overall I can honestly say that when playing older, non-Steam games, which need community patches and mods, I’m more comfortable with Win11.

In the end, it’s still mostly proprietary software that is used to run proprietary games.

But the sleep/resume being vastly superior on Bazzite makes it a killer feature which determines my choice of OS.

Managing TDP

That’s a completely new experience for me, since on Switch it’s done automagically. Here you have to pick the TDP setting for each game yourself, and it’s easy to either:

Overall, it’s not rocket science, but still an extra thing to keep in mind.

My personal experience

When moving back to PC gaming, my primary goal was to be able to play games that were not accessible on consoles. And the handheld form factor already proved to work extremely well for me, enabling me to play more since I can just pick up the handheld and play for 15 minutes.

I’m happy to say that so far, the plan worked perfectly.

Since I’ve got my Ally (a bit over a year ago), I have played all those excellent PC-only games:

And there is more to come! At very least I plan to:

To sum it up, I’m delighted with my choice of a handheld.

Closing thoughts on handheld PCs

Is the ROG Ally a perfect gaming handheld? Of course not!

Would I recommend it? It depends on who it’s for.

To someone who has experience with PC gaming or Linux - absolutely. All familiar pain points, but a superior handheld form factor.

To a regular console gamer - not really, the Switch 2 is a far, far better experience if all you want is to play new-ish video games.

Even with SteamOS/Bazzite, the experience is quite far from being as polished as on the Switch.

Is it a perfect handheld for me?

Honestly, no.

I’d prefer a bigger screen and a better battery.

But even as it is, it gives me basically exactly what I wanted - the freedom of PC gaming in a portable form factor.

Tags: Video Games Nintendo Switch ROG Ally

Categories: Personal