All the Best Nintendo Switch 2 Alternatives You’ve Never Heard Of

The worldwide masses who jumped through hoops to preorder a $450 Switch 2 before its June 5 launch date prove Nintendo is as strong as ever—if not stronger. You don’t need a crystal ball to predict that the hybrid handheld/home console will be difficult to buy, and we know that the FOMO is going to hit hard when everybody is racing as the cow in Mario Kart World. But there are tons of alternative handhelds that can sate your gaming appetite if you can’t snag a Switch 2. You just need to know where to look.

Whether you’re just learning about the weird and wonderful world of handhelds that have sprouted out of nowhere the past few years or you’ve been waiting for a deal on a cheap handheld, we recommend getting one now before Trump tariffs make them completely untenable.

One of the Switch 2’s big launch features is its access to GameCube games through Nintendo’s $50/year Expansion Pack subscription, alongside a limited run of pricey GameCube controllers. If that’s a big reason you’re gunning for a Switch 2, there are several excellent handhelds that could scratch that itch for a fraction of the new handheld’s price. These devices are usually wrangled together under the moniker of “retro handhelds.” They’re typically capable of playing some modern titles or homebrew games. However, their main appeal is emulation. This relies on apps that recreate older gaming hardware as software. These retro handhelds let you play these homebrew titles, though they also let you play ripped digital files of past games, known collectively as ROMs.

While emulators themselves are, for the most part, safe from legal liability, ROMs exist in a gray area. It takes far more effort to find and download ROMs and emulators than it does to load up a Switch and download a game with the Switch Online + Expansion Pack. That being said, you have a greater variety of titles if you emulate them. There are a ton of smaller, Game Boy-sized devices available that are perfect for pocketable gaming. However, some of our favorite emulation handhelds are good for playing titles from retro gaming’s golden days up through the Nintendo 64 or GameCube era, or even beyond.

Valve’s Steam Deck is a solid handheld as a Switch 2 alternative. The version you want, the Steam Deck OLED, includes a beautiful and bright screen capable of displaying true blacks, and SteamOS is simple and easy to navigate. The big issue is the Steam Deck OLED starts at $550 with 512GB of storage. An LCD Steam Deck with a low 256GB sells for $400. Their value proposition isn’t as good as when they launched, but they’re arguably still the most popular PC handhelds if you don’t want to deal with Windows.

If a Steam Deck is off the table, take a gander at slimmer emulation devices from companies like AYN, Retroid, Ayaneo, and Anbernic.

Anbernic, known for pumping out seemingly endless variants of retro handhelds, announced last week it had started shipping its $250 RG 557 with “U.S. warehouse stock coming soon.” While we wait for that device to hit the scene, one of the most popular handhelds available today is the AYN Odin 2. The portable came out in 2023, but its 1080p display is sharp, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile CPU is powerful enough to play GameCube games at a steady framerate. If you want something a little more sleek, there’s the $330 Odin 2 Portal that sports a 7-inch 1080p and 120Hz AMOLED touchscreen.

🎉 RG 557 is OFFICIALLY AVAILABLE — shipping from China!💥U.S. warehouse stock coming soon — stay tuned!⚡ $15 OFF launch discount for the first 3 days only!🚀 Packed with a powerful chip + stunning AMOLED display 🛒 SHOP NOW: https://t.co/gawpOEhWrU pic.twitter.com/5OIIDssle1

— ANBERNIC (@anbernic_china) April 25, 2025

AYN’s devices run on Android, which gives you access to virtually any mobile game on the Google Play Store, as well as a good number of emulators like RetroArch. You can technically load emulators into Linux, but if you have enough know-how to do that, you’re likely already aware of the entire retro scene. Otherwise, at this price point you could also check out Ayaneo. It’s a China-based brand with a mind-boggling number of products released over the past year. We suggest you look at the Ayaneo Pocket Evo at around $470. It has a nice 7-inch 1080p OLED display, and it’s powered by the Snapdragon G3 Gen 2, a handheld-focused chipset that helps retro games run great.

If you can wait a little bit, there’s a new version called the Pocket S2, with a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 chip and crispier 1440p screen, that’s supposed to come out in May, according to Ayaneo’s CEO (via Digital Trends). We don’t know how much it’ll cost, but hopefully it’s not as much as the $590 Retroid Pocket S with its 1440p display.

But if you really want something that’s high quality for its price, you need to look at Retroid. The prime example of the company’s handheld design is the $220 Retroid Pocket 5. It includes a 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display and has slick Hall effect sticks. The Pocket 5 is powered by an older Snapdragon 865 chip, but that doesn’t matter since it can play games up through GameCube at a solid clip. Retroid just recently launched the Pocket Flip 2 for $230. It’s essentially the same kind of device in a clamshell form with the upsides of compactness and protection for the display.

These handhelds are all solid choices, but they may soon be completely unavailable. Nintendo weathered the initial shock with the handheld’s $450 price point intact. Anbernic, along with Ayaneo and Retroid, all announced they would stop shipping to the U.S. on April 25. Essentially, once the companies run out of existing stock in the U.S., it will be much harder—and likely more expensive—to order one from overseas. In an email to a customer posted to the official AYN Discord (via Android Authority), the company said it will try shipping through “a new channel” on May 5.

Some online stores from Retroid and Anbernic still let you place orders to the U.S., but only the companies themselves know how long that might last. If getting a preorder for a Switch 2 was difficult, we may have an even worse time buying quality handhelds from smaller companies in the future.