Deciding between a handheld gaming console and a smartphone involves weighing the cost, game variety, and overall gaming experience, with smartphones offering a more flexible and potentially superior option due to their high power and extensive game library. Picture: Michael Sherman/IOL
Image: Michael Sherman/IOL
Deciding to buy a handheld game console or just stick with your smartphone is something that I’ve toyed with for some time.
I was hesitant to hand over my hard-earned cash for something like a Nintendo Switch or the Lite version, and instead I bought a really ‘cheapy’.
That’s, of course, one of these dime-a-dozen Nintendo Game Boy-inspired ripoffs that can play all those classic games from the Japanese tech giant.
That little device, which cost me just R200, gave me access to over 1,000 Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) games.
The result? The gaming experience was just fine, but playing games that are mostly 35 years old or older gets stale quite quickly.
That’s why a handheld device like this is more of an entry-level experience, and the natural next step is to invest more money.
Or you would think. That’s where your smartphone comes in. Most smartphones these days are incredibly high-powered, and they are just begging to run a few games, with most of them quite graphically demanding and impressive.
The number of games available on the Google Play or App Store is quite incredible, and there are even plenty of free games that you can spend hours enjoying if you can stomach tons of annoying ads.
When you spend a bit of money on a game, for example, R100 or more, though, that’s where the gap between handheld console and smartphone narrows considerably.
The problem with handhelds is that they will never give you the same experience as a console, and it’s not really worth the investment when you can just use your smartphone and decide with each game how much you actually want to spend - and not outlay a whole heap for something you may never use.