Although handhelds are getting more powerful chips, they still lag behind the hardware that can be found in desktop and laptop PCs. However, one modder has created their own handheld system based on high-end laptop hardware.
Billibilli creator Qingchen DIY (via Videocardz) has a built a portable device that has a huge 12.5-inch 4K IPS display panel. In their video, the custom handheld is shown to be running on Windows 11, while the system settings shows that it contains an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 laptop GPU as well as an Intel Core i9-149000HX CPU. It also contains 64GB of DDR5-5600 memory and 2TB of storage.
It appears that this was a laptop that has been converted into a gaming handheld, with a light green shell containing the usual thumbsticks and face buttons, as well as a number of ports and a cooling vent at the top.
Qingchen DIY also demonstrates the system running Horizon Forbidden West, God of War, and Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K, with the temperature staying at 72ºC, although it is also relying on an external power source to maintain high performance.
Compared to other handhelds available commercially, the largest handheld is the Acer Nitro Blaze, which has an 10.95-inch display. Most handheld chipsets also use GPUs from AMD, except for Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, both of which use custom versions of Nvidia’s Tegra mobile chipsets.
Although the Switch 2’s hardware lags behind PC handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally X, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang previously said that the Switch 2 has redefined portable gaming graphics.
