Using Windows 11 for this just seems like an awful idea. They’re using an already shaky OS that Microsoft has a tendency to force updates to that cause problems on desktop PCs - who knows what it’ll do on something like this? Windows is also a resource hog, not what I’d choose for a presumably light-weight machine.
Windows is also not particularly great about sleeping / hibernating and resuming while games are running… that’s really the greatest feature of the Steam Deck, in my opinion - just like a handheld console, you can turn it off at any point and resume your game flawlessly, in almost all cases.
Hopefully they’re at least building a custom front-end for it. If they’re expecting users to navigate using the normal Windows interface (or Windows’ tablet interface, maybe), that’s another huge problem.
I bought an ROG ally and returned it the next day because windows in a handheld like this is straight trash. With all these announcements of new windows handhelds it makes me wonder if Microsoft is working on a handheld focused version of windows 11.
I wonder if they’re also quietly making deals with other companies making handhelds to keep them on Windows, maybe to kind of promote that as the ‘standard’ mobile gaming OS instead of Linux?
Or maybe these other companies just don’t know Linux/aren’t comfortable enough with it to create their own system with it perhaps?
As far as updates go, a machine like this might have less problems than a PC. Because it’s a fixed set of devices, MS and Lenovo can test any updates before they’re released, and iron out any bugs.
Whether they actually test them is another question though…
Using Windows 11 for this just seems like an awful idea. They’re using an already shaky OS that Microsoft has a tendency to force updates to that cause problems on desktop PCs - who knows what it’ll do on something like this? Windows is also a resource hog, not what I’d choose for a presumably light-weight machine.
Windows is also not particularly great about sleeping / hibernating and resuming while games are running… that’s really the greatest feature of the Steam Deck, in my opinion - just like a handheld console, you can turn it off at any point and resume your game flawlessly, in almost all cases.
Hopefully they’re at least building a custom front-end for it. If they’re expecting users to navigate using the normal Windows interface (or Windows’ tablet interface, maybe), that’s another huge problem.
I bought an ROG ally and returned it the next day because windows in a handheld like this is straight trash. With all these announcements of new windows handhelds it makes me wonder if Microsoft is working on a handheld focused version of windows 11.
I wonder if they’re also quietly making deals with other companies making handhelds to keep them on Windows, maybe to kind of promote that as the ‘standard’ mobile gaming OS instead of Linux?
Or maybe these other companies just don’t know Linux/aren’t comfortable enough with it to create their own system with it perhaps?
As far as updates go, a machine like this might have less problems than a PC. Because it’s a fixed set of devices, MS and Lenovo can test any updates before they’re released, and iron out any bugs.
Whether they actually test them is another question though…