An unusual new Steam Deck rival has just been announced by OneXPlayer, but calling it a handheld might not do it justice. The hybrid design of the OneXPlayer OneGX 2 makes it hard to place, mixing the form factor of a handheld gaming PC with design features we’d expect from a laptop, although the unusual double keyboard added on top is completely original.
The best gaming handheld PCs in the market right now, including big players like the original Steam Deck, largely all have a very similar form factor. The effort here by OneXPlayer to switch things up a little could pay dividends, if the device works as intended. Not only could it be a great handheld, but it could also prove to be a great two-in-one replacement for your gaming laptop, too.
What we know about the OneGX 2 is limited, but the company has released some interesting shots of the exterior of the device in a video shared on Chinese social media site Bilibili. It’s fair to say that it isn’t like any handheld you can buy right now, with a clamshell-style folding case that includes the display, the main keyboard, two analog sticks, some buttons and triggers, and RGB back lights.
OneXPlayer’s video doesn’t provide a good enough view of how this design will work in practice, but there are a few teaser images to pour over. The keyboards seem to work in two different ways, with one a touch-style keyboard accompanied by controller-style thumbsticks and buttons above it and the other has a more conventional low-profile laptop keyboard with seemingly a trackpad sitting in front of it. The latter drops in on top of the latter, acting a bit like the detachable keyboards you often get with mobile tablets.
Interesting form factor aside, this handheld looks like it has several other tricks up its sleeve too. The aluminum body includes USB ports, both Type-A and Type-C, as well as an OCuLink connection. OCuLink allows you to connect external PCIe devices, like graphics cards, and while it hasn’t gained huge popularity yet, it would mean you could use this device with an external GPU. Nvidia RTX 4090 on a handheld, anyone?
Unfortunately, details about the specs for this gaming handheld hybrid haven’t been released yet, and there’s no timescale for a possible release or price. To compete, it’s going to need to keep up with the best handhelds you can buy right now, including offering better performance than the Steam Deck. As our Steam Deck OLED review shows, gamers don’t just want great specs – they want great game and software support too.
Until we see this OneGX 2 for ourselves, we won’t know for sure if it’s going to really be a Steam Deck rival, or if its future lies in the forgotten junk pile of unique, but ultimately failed, product launches. For now, check out our Asus ROG Ally X review to see how a real Steam Deck rival performs right now.