The number of players in the handheld gaming PC space seems to grow by the day, and Gigabyte has shared that it’s considering crafting its own portable powerhouse. Intriguingly, the company is in no hurry to simply follow in the footsteps of rivals, big and small, and says its own design must stand out from the crowd.
Eddie Lin, CEO of Gigabyte, told outlet PCWorld as much in an on-camera interview during CES 2026. In their conversation, Lin declared his belief that “a handheld gaming PC is not hard to build,” highlighting the prevalence of Chinese manufacturers as an illustration of relative manufacturing ease.
As much as the brand could easily produce a handheld, the company is still considering how it can separate itself in an increasingly crowded space. Lin asks, “What kind of differentiation can we have? I don’t want to produce a ‘me too’ product; it doesn’t make sense. We are Gigabyte.”
Interpreting Lin’s comments at face value, it seems we’ll be waiting a while for any kind of Gigabyte handheld. That’s no bad thing, as I agree with his perspective that any device in this space absolutely must come with a unique selling point in order to truly succeed.
However, it’s difficult to see what kind of niche Gigabyte could fill. Running through just a few of the would-be handheld’s many competitors, Asus’ ROG Xbox Ally X offers a controller-like experience, Lenovo’s Legion Go 2 gives us detachable controllers and an OLED screen, while MSI’s Claw 8 AI+ offers a surprisingly strong alternative to AMD APUs via Intel Lunar Lake.
That’s not forgetting the Steam Deck OLED, of course, which aims to provide the best bang for your buck, pairing less-powerful specs with a more-affordable price. Could we be waiting so long for a Gigabyte handheld that it goes toe-to-toe with a Steam Deck 2? Time will tell.
In any case, I’m excited to see what direction Gigabyte takes its handheld ambitions, particularly if it can translate some of its expertise in the world of gaming laptops, as you can see in my Aorus Master 18 review, to this new format. If we’re lucky, Lin could be obfuscating how far along development of a Gigabyte handheld, and we could optimistically hope for a PC powered by a Panther Lake GPU.
While there were no new handhelds announced at CES, I suspect we’ll hear more about any new devices later this year following the announcement of Intel’s new Panther Lake handheld processors. To make sure you don’t miss any developments, set Club386 as one of your Google Preferred Sources and head over to Google News and drop us a follow.
