How We Test Handheld Consoles

Every ranking on The Handheld Lab comes from the same hands-on process: real consoles, the same benchmark on each one, and the criteria that actually matter when you play day to day. Here is exactly how we reach our verdicts.

We play and benchmark every console ourselves

We do not score handhelds from a spec sheet or a manufacturer's slide. I buy or borrow each console that makes our shortlist, and I play it the way you would: a mix of demanding 3D games, lighter indies, a few hours on the sofa and a few on the move, over at least a week of daily use and, for our long-term picks, a full month. Living with a handheld is the only way to judge the things that decide whether you enjoy it, how the weight feels after an hour, whether the battery lasts a real session, how the software behaves when you just want to resume a game, and whether the fan annoys you. A console that looks good on paper but is tiring to hold or dies in two hours has nowhere to hide once I have carried it around for a fortnight.

The measurements we take

To keep our comparisons fair and repeatable, I take the same set of measurements on every console:

Frame rate, in a fixed benchmark scene. On every PC handheld I run the same demanding section of Cyberpunk 2077 at low settings with FSR upscaling, walking the same route through the same area, and log the average frame rate over a fixed 60 second run using the in-game and Steam overlays. On the Switch, which cannot run that game, I use a fixed scene in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. This is the single best like-for-like measure of sustained performance. In our latest test the figures ranged from 30 fps on the Switch to 58 fps on the ROG Ally X.
Battery life, from full to shutdown. Using the exact same game and settings as the frame-rate test, I charge each console to 100 per cent, set the screen to a fixed 50 per cent brightness, then play until the device shuts down, logging the elapsed time. This is a deliberately tough, worst-case figure. Our results ranged from 2 hours 10 minutes on the Legion Go to 5 hours 20 minutes on the Switch OLED, with the Steam Deck OLED the best PC handheld at 3 hours 50.
Standby drain. I leave each console in sleep mode overnight, for a fixed 12 hours, and record how much charge it loses. This matters more than people expect, because a handheld that drains in standby is flat when you pick it up. The most efficient units here, the Steam Deck OLED and MSI Claw 8, barely moved; some Windows devices lose far more.
Screen, thermals and noise. I judge the screen by eye against a reference, note the panel type and refresh rate, and check brightness indoors and near a window. I feel the chassis for hot spots after 30 minutes under load, and I listen to the fan in a quiet room. None of our consoles ran uncomfortably hot or loud, but the SteamOS units were the coolest and quietest.
Weight and ergonomics. I weigh each console on a digital scale and hold it for extended sessions to judge comfort, grip and button feel. Weight matters more than the spec implies: our group ranged from 420 g (Switch OLED) to 854 g (Legion Go), and that difference is the gap between a console you happily hold on a train and one you rest on your knees.

How we turn measurements into scores

Each console is scored on three axes, each from 1 to 5: performance (the sustained frame rate and how steady it is), battery (life under load plus standby drain) and portability (weight, size and how it feels in the hand). Those three scores feed the overall rating you see on each review. Crucially, a high score is not about being the most powerful or most expensive console; it is about being the best device for the player it is aimed at. A £419 budget handheld can score well for someone on a tight budget, and a £900 flagship can lose marks for being overkill. We always say who a console isn't for, not just who it is.

How we use manufacturer specifications

Specifications are a starting point, not the verdict. A spec sheet tells us the chip, the screen resolution, the battery capacity and the operating system, all genuinely useful. But it does not tell us the frame rate a console actually sustains, how long the battery really lasts under a demanding game, or whether the software is pleasant to use. So we treat the spec sheet as a hypothesis to test rather than a result to report. Where a console lives up to its specification, we say so; where it runs slower, drains faster or feels clunkier in practice than the numbers suggest, that gap is exactly what our hands-on testing exists to catch. The rating you read reflects what the console actually does in the hand, not what the box promises.

The role of owner reviews

We read widely around each console, including the experiences of ordinary owners, because some things only surface over months: a stick that develops drift after a year, a fan that gets louder with dust, a launcher update that breaks compatibility. A pattern of owners reporting the same niggle tells us something a fortnight of testing cannot. We weigh that alongside our own measurements rather than instead of them: a flood of five-star reviews does not earn a console a place on its own, and a handful of complaints does not automatically disqualify one. The aim is a rounded picture, our hands-on judgement informed by the lived experience of people who have used these consoles for years.

Our independence

We are not paid by manufacturers to feature or favour their consoles, and no brand can buy a place or a higher position in our rankings. The order is decided entirely by how the devices perform against our criteria. The Handheld Lab is funded by affiliate commissions, if you buy through one of our links we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, but that funding never influences a verdict. If the best console for you is the cheapest one, that is what we will tell you. The full detail is in our affiliate disclosure.

Keeping our rankings current

The handheld market changes fast as new chips arrive, models are revised or discontinued, and prices move. We review our rankings regularly, update prices and availability, and swap in newer consoles where they earn a place. If a console we recommend is discontinued, we say so and point you to the closest current alternative. We would rather show a shorter list of devices we genuinely stand behind than pad the page, so a console only stays on our list as long as it remains the best choice for its player. To see our latest picks, head to the best handheld console ranking, and read more about us on our about page.