Handheld gaming consoles are about to get a lot more powerful

Handheld gaming consoles are some of the most on trend products in tech right now. This year saw the unveiling of the fantastic Asus ROG Ally, which packs in a full Windows 11 experience and hardcore specs for top performance.

It's not alone, though. Before that we had the Steam Deck, which is still a great option for users. You could even put the iconic Nintendo Switch in a similar camp – okay, it doesn't offer the same AAA-gaming experience, but it's still a viable option for the right kind of user.

Regardless of which option you prefer, future generations could be much more powerful. That's because Snapdragon have just unveiled their G Series of processors. These are designed specifically to meet the performance and feature demands of handheld gaming devices.

Three chips form the range: the Snapdragon G1, the Snapdragon G2 and the Snapdragon G3. Lets take a look at the benefit of each individually.

The Snapdragon G1 is built to power fanless devices that stream games, whether locally or from the cloud. The key focuses here are lag-free connectivity and battery life. That should enable users to stream their favourite games in the best possible quality for even longer. The G1 Gen 1 chip uses an 8-core Kryo CPU and an Adreno A11 GPU.

In the Snapdragon G2 series, things step up a notch. The inclusion of a Qualcomm FastConnect 6700 system means users get 5G and Wi-Fi 6/6E, for full-featured mobile and cloud gaming. That uses an 8-core Kryo CPU, with the Adreno A21 GPU.

But the knockout product is the new Snapdragon G3x Gen 2. This is the cream of the crop, and offers best-in-class gaming experiences on a wide range of devices. It's built with an 8-core Kryo CPU, but this time features an Adreno A32 GPU. That combo should offer 30% faster CPU performance and up to 2x faster GPU performance, compared to the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1.

It also brings a host of advanced performance features. Users can enjoy hardware-accelerated ray tracing, for the most true-to-life gaming experiences. It also features XR glass tethering, low-latency audio with Snapdragon Sound technology, and impressive wireless speeds thanks to Wi-Fi 7.

It's a fantastic upgrade. While many of the devices on the market aren't short on power, it's always good to have extra options. Snapdragon enjoy a handsome reputation for creating fantastic processors – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 powers most of the best Android phones this year, for example.

It's an exciting prospect for the future of this growing industry.