I don’t do much handheld gaming, but I’m going to have some overseas flights and long-ish train rides later this year, and may also be having surgery that will keep me fairly bedbound for about a month. I’m just not sure how much money it’s worth spending on a deck that I likely won’t use much outside of those specific cases - I bought a switch when I got covid in 2020 and used it a ton at the time but I’ve only used it a few times since, though I miiight use a deck a bit more just because I already have a pretty extensive steam library.
Is it better to stick to the cheapest model or is there enough of a difference that it might be worth spending a little more for a nicer one?
I just got my OLED model, and I would get a 512GB version of either type at minimum. You’ll be able to install several things before worrying about SD cards, and you can always upgrade the drive later.
As far as I’ve read, the battery life in-game sometimes is better, sometimes is about the same, but the screen and the weight are both improved over the LCD version. It’s otherwise pretty much the same. I like OLED and have a few games with HDR, so I’m glad I sprung for the newer model.
I was in a similar boat and thought I would use it on occasion, but I haven’t played a game on my beefy desktop thus far, not even to stream a title. It’s super convenient to just pick this up and play in the short moments between doing other things, and I’ve read about other people who bought some for their kids as a replacement for a laptop.
When you throw in tinkering around to add Epic, Amazon, and Gog games via Heroic Launcher, there’s a massive and relatively cheap ecosystem of games you wouldn’t be able to access on a more closed console.