The ROG Xbox Ally’s Project Killswitch is nice, but spotlights handheld PCs' chronic case neglect

Why hardware makers should virtually springiness america escaped stuff

Sweary peripheral experts Dbrand sent maine the Asus ROG Xbox Ally/Xbox Ally X mentation of their Project Killswitch lawsuit yesterday. I squeezed my Xbox Ally X into it. It was great. Sturdy. Form-fitting. Protective and grip-enhancing successful one. Everything that makes the archetypal Killswitch 1 of the champion Steam Deck accessories, wrapped snugly astir 800 quid of Windows handheld.

It besides annoys me, a small bit. Not the tegument and screen themselves. More the information that it’s truthful important that they exist, arsenic neither ROG Xbox Ally models – costly arsenic they tin beryllium – fuss to see a carrying lawsuit successful the box. Nor does the archetypal Ally and Ally X, oregon the Zotac Zone, oregon the MSI Claw 8 AI+, oregon the Lenovo Legion Go and Legion Go S. Give maine a case, you integrative jerks. Give it!

I consciousness rather powerfully that we should commencement demanding cases, adjacent elemental sleeves, to travel nestled successful the boxes of immoderate aboriginal handheld PCs. Their continued lack has agelong felt similar a dereliction of hardware-producing work connected the portion of instrumentality makers, due to the fact that dissimilar thumbstick grips oregon mountable powerfulness banks oregon those stickers that marque it look similar the circuitry is falling out, cases are neither a supplementary assistance nor an aesthetic personalisation. They’s integral to what portable PCs are, and what they request to be: portable.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Granted, it’s not similar immoderate of them volition acceptable successful your pocket. But eventually, anyone who owns a handheld volition rightly privation to instrumentality it further afield than their khazi, and physically grasping it for the entire excursion is asking for trouble. That means a bag, which means a case. No case? Unless you fancy wrapping your costly games instrumentality successful a T-shirt (which I whitethorn person done once), it’s not safely going anywhere. And astatine that point, ne'er caput questions of whether the included accessories are stingy – you’ve paid for mobility that you can’t adjacent instrumentality vantage of.

It besides reflects poorly connected Asus, Lenovo et al. that the lone large handhelds that get this right, the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED, are 2 of the astir affordable. Yet you inactive get a perfectly serviceable hard lawsuit with the adjacent the astir basal Deck, portion the Deck OLED is bundled with a genuinely fantabulous dual-purpose lawsuit that tin either beryllium packed arsenic a slim, astir sleeve-like vas oregon contained wrong another, larger lawsuit for doubled protection. Luxury alternatives similar the Killswitch tin inactive marque consciousness arsenic upgrades, particularly if you privation to perfectly minimise bulk, but either mode it lone ever needs to beryllium an option. With the ROG Xbox Ally and its peers, that luxury – oregon astatine least, thing similar it – is simply a necessity, which lone makes it much galling erstwhile owners request to ft a abstracted bill.

Honestly, I’d instrumentality a large sock. A glorified oven mitt. Anything, successful the box, that would fto handhelds bash what they were made to bash – not conscionable Velcro straps for the powerfulness cablegram oregon pointless, portless stands made retired of cardboard and disappointment.