The Problems with Ultra Cheap PC Handhelds, Pre-Orders and SteamOS

I fully support future rant videos about bad ordering experiences. Bob rants as good as anyone without it being his whole personality. $11 shakedown 😅

I absolutely love this style of review. The honesty, purchasing experience and realistic look at price to performance ratio was awesome.

I am DYING for a company to release a flavor of Linux/SteamOS on a handheld. The worst part about DIYing it yourself is dealing with the weird bugs with buttons or the screen or whatever, so having a vetted version by the manufacturer would be 👌 Also, Ayaneo walked back their statement again regarding HoloISO. The Next Lite is just shipping with Windows now. I think they're still offering a vetted version of HoloISO that you can download for those who want to install it themselves though.

I had a similar experience with my preorder. I don't have Bob's patience and eventually just refunded and they tried to charge me a $22 fee for cancellation when they couldn't fill my specific order. Never again with this company.

One of the dangers with pre-orders when it was announced I’m sure it made sense. picked up a used 64gb steam deck from GameStop for $235 + tax a few weeks back. Pretty sure the steam deck has at least $6 more worth of performance.

the digits at 4:33 being filled with different 2023 games was a nice touch

The idea that reviewers give full disclosure on their relationship with these companies is a level of integrity I appreciate. Beyond that. I bought the Odin1 pro black Friday past. No issues. Got it in 2 weeks. Im happy with it until I realize the play store is lacking compared to steam and Nintendo. But live and learn.

This is one of my favorite videos of yours. I love hearing about general thoughts pertaining to the space and the process around these devices as opposed to just narrowly focused reviews on a single device.

This is why I watch bob. Highlight the actual process he goes through and explains when he’s getting special treatment. Not many other reviewers would be this in depth on the pain.

The craziest part about this situation is the fact that it was the indegogo pre-order, I waited until the Loki Zero was actually on sale by AYN from their website. $250 (+$40 for shipping) and a week later it was at my doorstep

The "I hate mobile orders" killed me. You're so creative.

still trying to understand the message of so many videos starting with him sitting

Thanks for sharing your buying experience. This stuff is incredibly important

I really appreciate the discussion about biases, it certainly makes me trust you more.

Even at $224 I couldn't justify this device. I would rather pay that for the original Odin and have more games run better at the end of the day. Sure I can't play old windows games but I would rather emulate better than have more compatibility at that point. Odin 2 Pro plays everything like a dream for $300. At least everything that runs on Android.

12:00 That game was my jam. It gets so difficult towards the end for no reason.

The secret sauce of steam deck is the pre-caching shaders, I'm interested to know if Holo OS version does this. If not then windows with big picture mode is the way to go

I just wanna get a handheld device out of the box that just works

I swear, the beginning of this video just makes me feel second hand "Buyer's Remorse" lol.

I saved up for an bought a GPD Win 4 7840, 64GB RAM, and 4TB SSD in November. It was painstaking to get the device from payment online to my doorstep. I love it and I get to play World of Warcraft on my couch and laying in Bed, and when I need to do high stakes group content, I dock it into my setup. I used Droix, which have great sales year round, and okay customer service, but it is still daunting to drop that much money on something. I want a magnifier for the screen like they had for the gameboy, and maybe better grips, but man it is a marvel to play WoW on high settings at 60 fps in group content in my hands. The kid in me is shook every time I boot it up.