The Alienware Handheld is the latest portable gaming reveal coming out of America, just after the Analogue Pocket in fact. Revealed today at CES 2020 in Las Vegas the “Concept UFO” wants to bring PC gaming to your fingertips. Alienware has been keeping a close eye on the incredible sales of the Nintendo Switch, portable gaming is exploding and they want a piece of the pie.
What this Alienware Handheld offers is like no other handheld on the market, yes, Nintendo are smashing it, but this handheld wants to put every PC game you own in your pocket… if your pocket are the size of the Hulk’s that is. If anyone can do it it’s Alienware, but with great power comes great responsibility and this is where we start to wonder if it can actually become a reality or not.
The Alienware Handheld has yet to reveal the CPU, RAM or even battery size behind it but all of this powers the giant 8″ 1220p screen alongside the controllers which slide off the handheld itself, just like the Nintendo Switch. On the back of the Alienware Handheld you have an oversized kickstand, no more will you be holding up your expensive handheld with a Tic Tac, this is a stand for true gamers who may or may not punch their screen on occasion.
Around the Alienware Handheld you are greeted, with lots, and lots of air vents, because this thing is going to get really hot on the go, especially powering your bigger games like Grand Theft Auto, Witcher 3 and so on. The console itself is powered by Windows 10, giving you access to a wide number of PC Games, the Xbox Library and yes, even retro gaming emulators should that be your thing. Yes, you will most likely be able to play your best N64 games and best gamecube games, do not fear!
Like the Nintendo Switch it comes with a controller that you can attach your “joy-cons” to allowing you to play in handheld mode, stand mode, or docked mode, which is most likely going to be revealed further down the line. The Alienware handheld has a very hexagonal aesthetic to it, sharpe lines, steep corners, it reminds us of the Powkiddy A19 on steroids. The Analogue sticks rise out of the handheld by an inch or more, so when transporting without a case it may cause some snagging issues. The white crisp look with the hexagonal illustrations on the back makes this thing look straight out of mars, especially with the light up sticks.
But what everyone is looking at is the battery power. Can this small handheld power at least 4 hours of gameplay without a charge? Our guess is probably not. They’ve been smart with the controllers, they’re incredibly large meaning more space for external batteries, but the console itself, is still fairly thin, so finding a powerful enough battery to run this handheld for long periods of time may be a struggle. This is their biggest hurdle. PC Gamers a renowned for long play sessions, and it’s why no handheld has been close to pleasing them, and unfortunately this is why we think the Alienware handheld may not even come true. As mentioned, it’s a “concept”, so they want to see if there’s hype, if there’s z demand for a two hour handheld that can run Fortnite, Skyrim and even World of Warcraft.
But because we are massive retro gaming fans, powering our Gameboy Emulator or having the ability to play Dreamcast games on the go, or even large PS2 emulators makes us go all gooey inside. Some of the best retro handhelds out there struggle with this, but the Alienware Handheld will have more than enough power to do so, on a huge, 8″ screen with wireless controllers. Just think of that for a second… Now that’s a handheld we can get behind.
Because this is a concept and Dell haven’t release much information there is still no news about processing power or price. But we can imagine this will be a $500+ handheld. Come back tomorrow and we’ll have more information about this incredible product from Alienware and possibly even a release date.
A 29 year old fella that’s had a Gameboy addiction ever since he was a child. Brandon is the founder of RetroDodo and created a YouTube channel with 240,000 subscribers dedicated to retro gaming products. He now wants to create the No.1 site to showcase the latest retro products from around the globe.
