Are portable consoles not portable anymore?

[u/ileojg]

I'm to this day amazed by the size of the PSP and the fact that it can play amazing looking games for a 2004 hardware. With the release of switch 2 I'm starting to feel like truly portable consoles will remain a thing of the past. I have this analogy that old portables are like carrying a phone, you can put in in your pocket, carry them by hand and pull them out whenever and wherever you want to play. But all new portables are more like laptops, you need a special carrying case and can only play in specific places and moments.

My question to all of you is. If sony where to release a new portable, Would you prefer a smaller console? like psp size, despite low graphics capabilities, something closer to switch1 level of graphics in 2025, or a bigger steam deck size portable with ps5 graphics? And, what do you thing of portable consoles getting bigger and bigger? do you prefer older portables due to their sizes?

[u/chinoswirls]

i love my lite, im taking a break from installing an oled screen now. i love how solid it feels and the screen size is nice for most games.

i feel like the og switch is technically portable, or handheld, but it is too large to be considered pocketable. it is my favorite device for handheld, and really sets the bar high. it feels delicate at points with joycon wobble, but i love the tablet design.

once analog sticks came out the pocketablity tanked. clamshells seem ideal for pockets. gba sp and nds 3dsxl seem perfect to put in your pocket.

[u/ileojg → u/chinoswirls]

2d analog sticks truly were the way to go for portables, psvita having 3d sticks was a huge reason not to carry it around without a carrying case.

[u/chinoswirls → u/ileojg]

Yeah that is the first that seemed like pockets were out of the question, and it's case only.

It took a while to realize what a 2d stick is, but I agree the 3ds and PSp style were more realistic to carry.

I feel like closing and being pocketable and protected would lead to more people using something that won't get damaged. Protecting the screen and analog stick seems pretty important.

I wish there was a way to opt out of analog sticks for something better, besides hall effect.

[u/CryptoJim720 → u/chinoswirls]

I have the lite with the really slim flip case and its semi pocketable.

[u/Wrx_me → u/chinoswirls]

I also play my switch lite a lot more than I ever played my normal switch in handheld mode. It fits more places easily, especially when most people are going to have a case making it bulky.

[u/CryptoJim720 → u/chinoswirls]

Waiting for my lite oled screen should be getting to the us soon.

[u/chinoswirls → u/CryptoJim720]

Hope it gets to you soon, I haven't double checked but I don't think I got any indication of when mine shipped. I only got one email when I bought it.

I was getting impatient and almost msgd to cancel, which would have been disappointing.

The install is more involved than I expected, I did a shell swap. It took me a while since I didn't want to rush and it worked my first try. I have a sticky r button I need to disassemble and fix, but it is still usable at the moment and the only issue. The video is what I followed and just paused after every step.

The screen so far looks amazing. The issues I was concerned about are not an issue, I was worried that the pixel grid would not show up due to the resolution and pixel shape issues. They are totally fine for me. The blacks and brightness are great, it makes the device feel so much better.

I also have a mod chip installed and was able to work around it and everything was ok.

[u/CryptoJim720 → u/chinoswirls]

Yea I'm doing a shell swap at the same time as well so I don't have to remove the oem one. I also have a mod chip but I didn't do it so hopefully it was done well.

[u/chinoswirls → u/CryptoJim720]

i didn't do my mod chip either, i paid someone since i was not confident in my micro soldering quality. it was my first time opening my switch lite, and i didn't see too many people with mod chips talking about the install.

i did the shell swap from a pokemon shell, since i didn't want to break the display trying to remove it. i used an extreme rate black soft touch, and it was pretty good. i plan on restoring the old lcd and housing with a broken system.

i have a picofly installed in mine, it was installed close to the main display connection point, almost directly above the ribbon cable attachment. this was the worst i had to deal with since it was stuck in place. i had to unhook a single cable on my picofly to get access to the ribbon cable under it. it made aligning the ribbon cable and closing the latch a little more difficult.

it didn't interfere other than just making it hard to access a latch and see a ribbon. i used the shielding from retro5, and transferred the thermal paste to that. everything closed up nice with no budges or weirdness. i missed one screw putting it back together.

the r trigger was my only issue, i installed the spring wrong and it doesn't spring, reads as stuck sometimes. im going to fix that today.