ONEXPLAYER- The Best Performing Handheld Gaming PC

One-netbook, the company behind the Onexplayer, has done a good job with the rest of the core specifications, including 16GB of DDR4-4266 RAM, fast PCIe SSDs, an 8.4-inch display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600, parallel controls on either side of the display, the best XYAB button layout on the right, as well as bumpers and triggers.

There’s also a pair of speakers, which are tiny and tinny—they’re not great, but they’ll do in a pinch. If only to combat the noise of the fans battling to keep the handheld cool—a big noisy ask when you’re gaming—plug in some headphones wherever possible.

Because the handheld is powered by Intel’s Tiger Lake CPUs, you’ll have access to some exciting next-generation technology such as Wi-Fi 6 and USB 4.0 support, which means you’ll be free to plug in this straight into a 4K screen or an external GPU port in the future. To be sure, a monitor with a USB dock is an excellent companion for this machine, but we’ll get to that shortly.

The Onexplayer handheld PC also runs a standard installation of Windows 10, so you can use it for anything you’d use a PC for. And, despite its unusual form factor, it runs all the software and games you know and loves because, in terms of software, it’s just a PC.

Small and pleasant

The OneXPlayer Mini is roughly the same size as the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, measuring 4.3 by 10.3 by 1.3 inches (HWD) versus 4 by 9.4 by 0.6 inches for the Switch and 4.6 by 11.7 by 1.9 inches for the Steam Deck. The OneXPlayer Mini, at 21.8 ounces, is quite dense for its size; it’s nearly half a pound heavier than the Switch and less than two ounces lighter than the Steam Deck. Its body is made of plastic and has a matte black finish that feels solid in the hand.

The OneXPlayer Mini features an off-axis dual analog stick, A/B/X/Y buttons in an Xbox layout (A on the bottom), a standard direction pad, and two pairs of shoulder bumpers/triggers. It lacks the touchpads of the Steam Deck, but it does not position the analog sticks uncomfortably high and parallel with the face buttons and direction pad. Similar to the Xbox Wireless Controller, the controls feel solid and responsive.

Aside from the active game controls, the front of the OneXPlayer Mini has five menu buttons: the standard start/select (or menu/view, or options/share, depending on your preferred console) buttons near the top, a multipurpose button at the lower-left corner, and keyboard and game assistant (a feature not yet enabled or explained) buttons in the lower-right corner. Front-facing speakers are located beneath the three bottom menu buttons.

Design and ports: It is extremely comfortable to hold.

During my review, I admired the design of the ONEXPlayer handheld PC. Not necessarily in terms of appearance (though it does look nice), but of how it feels to use. While it’s heavier and larger than the Nintendo Switch (including the new OLED model, which weighs 420 grams), holding it in my hands isn’t tiring, and the weight is evenly distributed, so it feels great. It also feels more solid than the Switch, thanks to the unibody construction that replaces Nintendo’s detachable controllers.

One-Netbook advertises it as being much lighter and smaller than the Steam Deck, which I think is a wise move. That’s the device that most people interested in the ONEXPlayer would want, so it makes sense. While we have yet to test it, the Steam Deck appears to be large and somewhat unwieldy.

Display and sound

As previously stated, the ONEXPlayer handheld PC has a 7-inch display and is designed to compete with the Steam Deck, which has a similar-sized display. The ONE XPLAYER Mini, like the Steam Deck, has a 16:10 aspect ratio, but it has a sharper Full HD+ display with 1920 x 1200 resolution. On paper, that sounds like a good thing, but I think Valve was wise to use an HD+ display instead. Intel-based PCs deplete their batteries quickly, and I don’t believe the sharper screen provides enough benefits at this size to justify the increased power consumption. We’ll talk about battery life later.

In terms of display quality, I believe the 7-inch screen does the job adequately, though I wouldn’t give it any awards for exceeding quality. It works fine, and it’s certainly sharp enough for a Full HD+ display of this size, but it’s not particularly vibrant, and there’s always the nagging feeling that the colors should be a little brighter. However, the viewing angles are fantastic, and the screen looks just as good from any angle. It’s also bright enough to use outside without difficulty.

The ONE XPLAYER Mini’s audio is provided by two front-facing stereo speakers hidden behind the orange speaker grills at the bottom. Similarly to the display, I believe the speakers here do the job. They get loud enough at maximum volume, and they don’t have any flaws, but they don’t stand out as particularly great. When compared to the Switch OLED model, Nintendo’s console was slightly crisper and louder. The ONEXPlayer handheld PC is adequate, though I had high expectations given that it is a much larger and more expensive device.

Portable Gaming PC

Obviously, the OneXPlayer Mini’s gaming capabilities are far more important than its productivity abilities. The system performs abysmally in that regard. The Night Raid benchmark scores 13,016 in 3DMark, while the Time Spy benchmark scores 1,498. This is significantly lower than the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360s’ 16,956 and 1,849 scores, and even lower than the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7’s 18,455 and 2,023 figures. The portable and notebooks all use the same Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, but the Core i7-1260P CPU in the Samsung and Lenovo notebooks is more powerful than the Core i7-1195G7 in the OneXPlayer.

The OneXPlayer handheld PC Mini ran F1 2021 and Rainbow Six Siege for direct gaming performance. The games could be played, but they didn’t stand out on the OneXPlayer Mini. F1 2021 ran at 15 frames per second (fps) at 1080p, which is significantly lower than the Steam Deck’s 22fps. Rainbow Six Siege puzzlingly ran at 38fps on both the lowest and highest settings. This could be a framerate cap, but 38fps is an unusual cap number. We couldn’t test Rainbow Six Siege on the Steam Deck, but the Acer Nitro 5’s Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU outperforms the OneXPlayer Mini with a 162fps frame rate at ultra quality.

ONEXPlayer Handheld PC Gaming Experience

That depends on the game and whether the OneXplayer has the raw performance to handle whatever you’re attempting to do. It’s important to note that you’re using integrated graphics here, which means that even the most recent triple-A games will struggle, especially at the screen’s native resolution of 2560 x 1600.

Horizon Zero Dawn

When gaming, you’ll most likely be running at 1280 x 720 resolution. Although not every game supports it, 1280 x 800 is a better option because it is half the resolution of the screen. You might be able to run at 2560 x 1600, but the lack of dedicated memory on the GPU is what will hold you back the most, which is why we saw errors in games like Horizon Zero Dawn at launch.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Intel’s integrated graphics has come a long way and are at 720p. It can play a wide range of games at reasonable framerates. Shadow of the Tomb Raider averages 35 fps on low settings.

GTA V

GTA V managed 60 fps at the exact resolution on low settings. You can even play GTA V in its native resolution. Though the framerate drops to 18-20fps, which isn’t the smoothest experience.

Dirt Rally

Games designed for controllers perform best, which is a good enough reason to revisit Spelunky, Braid, and Dirt Rally. The fact that these are all older games helps the machine as well. I had no issues with their framerates, especially after a little Dirt Rally setting tweaking.

Other issues include overzealous rumbling from the twin vibration motors in driving games. Dirt Rally began rumbling when I put my foot (or finger) down and didn’t stop until I finished the race. It’s also a crude, first-gen console level of rumble, the kind that assaults your ears as well as your fingers. It’s not pleasant.

Forza Horizon 4

However, Forza Horizon 4 demonstrated that it isn’t just about framerate, as there were glitches in the game regardless of the settings used. Some games will also struggle to run smoothly no matter how much you tweak them—Cyberpunk 2077. For example, did not provide a good experience even at lower resolutions and graphical settings.

Card games

The games, such as Magic the Gathering Arena and Hearthstone, perform admirably. To be fair, MtG Arena recently made its way to phones. So the interface was designed with that in mind, and Hearthstone was also built with touch. But bringing out this machine for a quick game or two worked really well. And it gave me a good idea of why I’d want to use it on a daily basis.

First-person shooters

You can also play first-person shooters on it, which has good performance even on low-end hardware. I’m not going to trade the precision of a keyboard and mouse for console control. So this isn’t something I’d bother with. While you can connect a keyboard and mouse to do so, you’ll soon realize you’re no longer using it as a handheld gaming PC.

Monster Hunter Rise

This game runs smoothly on the OneXPlayer Mini. The game runs at a consistent 60 frames per second even on the lowest graphical settings. At average settings, this drops to around 45fps, and at maximum settings, it drops to a churning sub-30fps. In short, you’ll enjoy playing Monster Hunter Rise on the OneXPlayer Mini. But its performance falls short of that of the Steam Deck (it maintained 60fps60 fps at average settings on Valve’s device).

We test laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file. In airplane mode from full battery power until shut down. With display brightness set to 50% and audio volume set to 100%. Under these conditions, the OneXPlayer Mini handheld PC lasted 5 hours and 44 minutes. This is low for midrange laptops (in testing, the Lenovo Yoga i9 Gen 7 lasted 14 hours, and 53 minutes. While the discrete-GPU-equipped MSI Katana GF66 lasted only 4 hours, and 15 minutes). But it appears to be typical for handheld gaming systems. The Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch OLED Edition have a battery life of up to eight and seven hours, respectively. Playing graphics-intensive 3D games, of course, drains the battery much faster than watching video content or playing simple, sprite-based games.

Post-Steam Deck Is Less Attractive

It’s easy to see why devices like the OneXPlayer Mini have become popular among PC gamers and retro game enthusiasts. It’s a fully functional Windows PC with midrange specifications. Although its integrated graphics processor does not provide a consistently smooth gaming experience. For more recent PC games, it provides more than enough power for retro gaming up to the sixth console generation. These specifications in this form factor are uncommon, making the OneXPlayer Mini an appealing handheld despite its high price.

Final Thoughts!!

The OneXPlayer handheld gaming PC mini is a Windows 11 computer housed in the form of a portable game system with a lot of potential for hacking, retro gaming, and other activities.

For those looking for a handheld gaming PC, the ONEXPLAYER Mini gets a lot right. It has an extremely comfortable design and is not overly heavy or large, so it is still somewhat portable. Additionally, it also has fantastic-feeling buttons, so playing games on it is a joy. OneXPlayer handheld PC can run a few modern games. And the ones it can’t run can always be played through cloud gaming, which works extremely well. The Steam Deck, on the other hand, undercuts its hefty price by far too much to be truly appealing.