There are six handheld gaming systems officially available to buy in South Africa in early 2024.
In the past few years, hardware improvements in smartphones and a boom in the mobile gaming ecosystem have somewhat displaced the need for dedicated portable gaming machines.
However, the Nintendo Switch’s dominance in console sales — handily beating its PlayStation and Xbox rivals for several years running — shows that many people are still interested in such devices.
Significant performance and power efficiency improvements in mobile chips from both AMD and Intel have also made portable gaming PCs much more capable.
These offer a much wider selection of games than Nintendo’s popular handheld.
There has recently been an explosion in portable gaming PCs, due in no small part to the Linux-powered Valve Steam Deck launching in 2022.
The second generation of this much-praised handheld will feature an OLED screen, which has already been announced. However, it has yet to launch in South Africa.
The first major PC vendor to release a Windows-based offering in South Africa was Asus, which rolled out the ROG Ally in mid-2023.
While the Steam Deck already supported numerous games through the Proton interoperability, the Ally has native support for all games available on Windows.
MSI is set to roll out the second major Windows-powered portable gaming system to South Africa — the Claw — in April 2024. It will start at R17,999.
MyBroadband compiled a list of all the handheld gaming consoles or PCs available to buy directly in South Africa.
The PlayStation Portal and Logitech G Cloud Cloud were excluded from our list because they are not capable of functioning as a standalone gaming device.
The Portal must be on the same Wi-Fi network as a PlayStation 5 console and use that system’s hardware to render content that is streamed to its screen.
The Logitech G Cloud requires a game streaming like Nvidia’s GeForce Now to play games.
Both are game streaming systems with networking hardware, a screen, and a built-in controller, rather than gaming consoles.
Below we have summarised the specifications and prices of the six handheld gaming consoles available in South Africa.
Asus ROG Ally — Z1 from R9,999 | Z1 Extreme from R11,999 (Asus Online Store South Africa)
Asus ROG Ally Z1 | |
Operating system | Windows 11 |
Display | 7-inch 1,920×1,080 LCD touchscreen with 120Hz refresh rate |
Processor | AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme 8-core, 16-thread |
Graphics | AMD Radeon Navi 3 |
RAM | 16GB (Extreme) |
Storage | 512GB (Extreme) NVMe M.2 SSD |
Battery capacity | 40Wh |
Controller layout | Xbox-style buttons and analogue sticks with 2 rear buttons |
Ports | 1×USB-C with DisplayPort, 1×3.5mm audio jack |
Sound | Dual front-facing speakers with Dolby Atmos |
Network | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 |
Dimensions and weight | 280 × 113 × 39mm (608g) |
MSI Claw A1M — From R17,999
MSI Claw | |
Operating system | Windows 11 |
Display | 7-inch 1,920×1,080 LCD touchscreen with 120Hz refresh rate |
Processor | Intel Core Ultra 5-135H | Intel Core 7-155H |
Graphics | Intel Arc |
RAM | 16GB | 32GB |
Storage | 512GB | 1TB, microSD card up to 2TB |
Battery capacity | 53Wh |
Controller layout | Xbox-style buttons and analogue sticks with 2 rear buttons |
Ports | 1×USB-C with DisplayPort and Thunderbolt 4, 1×3.5mm audio jack |
Sound | Dual front-facing speakers |
Network | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 |
Dimensions and weight | 294 × 117 × 21.2mm (675g) |
Nintendo Switch — From R7,990 (Takealot)
Nintendo Switch | |
Operating system | Custom Linux-based Nintendo OS |
Display | 6.2-inch 1,280 × 720 LCD touchscreen with 60Hz refresh rate |
Processor | Nvidia Custom Tegra X1+ GPU |
Graphics | Nvidia Custom Tegra X1+ GPU |
RAM | 64GB, microSD card up to 2TB |
Storage | 4GB |
Battery life | 16Wh |
Controller layout | Nintendo-style button and analogue stick layout |
Ports | 1× USB-C, 2× USB-A, 1×3.5mm audio jack, 1×HDMI out |
Sound | Dual front-facing speakers |
Network | Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC |
Dimensions and weight | 239 × 102mm × 13.9mm (420g) |
Nintendo Switch Lite — From R4,815 (Takealot)
Nintendo Switch Lite | |
Operating system | Custom Linux-based Nintendo OS |
Display | 5.5-inch 1,280×720 LCD with 60Hz refresh rate |
Processor | Nvidia Custom Tegra X1+ CPU |
Graphics | Nvidia Custom Tegra X1+ GPU |
RAM | 4GB |
Storage | 32GB, microSD card up to 2TB |
Battery life | 13.6Wh |
Controller layout | Nintendo-style button and analogue stick layout |
Ports | 1× USB-C, 1×3.5mm audio jack |
Sound | Dual front-facing speakers |
Network | Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC |
Dimensions and weight | 208 × 91 × 13.9mm (277g) |
Nintendo Switch OLED — From R7,999 (Nintendo Online Store South Africa)
Nintendo Switch OLED | |
Operating system | Custom Linux-based Nintendo OS |
Display | 7.0-inch 1,280 × 720 LCD touchscreen with 60Hz refresh rate |
Processor | Nvidia Custom Tegra X1+ CPU |
Graphics | Nvidia Custom Tegra X1+ GPU |
RAM | 4GB |
Storage | 64GB, microSD card up to 2TB |
Battery capacity | 16Wh |
Controller layout | Nintendo-style button and analogue stick layout |
Ports | 1× USB-C, 2× USB-A, 1×3.5mm audio jack, 1×HDMI out |
Sound | Dual front-facing speakers |
Network | Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC |
Dimensions and weight | 242 × 102mm × 13.9mm (420g) |
Valve Steam Deck — From R11,757 (Wootware)
Valve Steam Deck | |
Operating system | SteamOS 3 (Windows can be installed) |
Display | 7.0-inch 1,200 × 800 LCD touchscreen |
Processor | Custom AMD Zen 2 CPU |
Graphics | Custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU |
RAM | 16GB |
Storage | 64GB | 256GB | 512GB |
Battery capacity | 40Wh |
Controller layout | Xbox-style buttons and analogue sticks with 4 rear buttons |
Ports | 1 × USB-C with DisplayPort, 1 × 3.5mm audio hack |
Sound | Dual front-facing speakers |
Network | Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 |
Dimensions and weight | 298mm × 117mm × 49mm (669g) |
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