If you don’t own a PC handheld and want one this is not a bad time to jump in at all, especially if you’re on a budget.

I don’t expect you’ll see a refresh on this thing again for a couple of years at least. Given how accessible the prices for the Deck are I don’t know if waiting that long makes sense. I mean, there will likely be a Switch 2 at some point in that interval, so if you only want the one handheld that may be something to wait-and-see for, but handheld PCs are PCs, there’s always gonna be a big new thing to look forward to.

That is literally FOMO.

You are “missing out” on nothing and technology gets better every couple months at this rate. I don’t want to put myself at the mercy of ASUS for support, but their handheld is REALLY nice. Similarly, Aya and GPD have been doing this for the better part of a decade and are largely what the Steam Deck was based on. And GPD in particular have some very interesting form factors

Most of the devices out there are geared toward Windows (which plays with Gamepass). In large part because MS have put a lot of effort into touchpad/touchscreen support whereas Linux is… gonna Linux. But there are increasing third party efforts to make linux distros and Valve seem to want to push for SteamOS as a distro (and I think Aya have said they want to use it?).

At the end of the day: if the price is right and you think you’ll use it, get it. If not? Fuck it. Buy something else.