CES sneakily became a great gaming show amid the AI hype

It’s been a while since I felt a profound case of gadget lust at CES, the tech trade show that takes over Las Vegas every January, but that’s what happened when I picked up Lenovo’s Legion Go S gaming handheld.

I’m already a satisfied Steam Deck owner, but the Legion Go S has a larger and sharper screen with 120Hz refresh rates, AMD’s new Z2 chipset, and—to my hands, at least—perfect ergonomics. It also runs SteamOS, and Valve’s plan to license its software for free to other handheld device makers (starting with Lenovo) was one of CES’s biggest developments. Just like Windows on PCs, it could allow a new gaming hardware ecosystem to bloom.

That’s just one example of how CES stealthily became a window into the future of gaming hardware. Much like last year, the show had plenty of vapid AI hype to go along with the obligatory improvements in TV and home audio tech. But if you care about cool consumer electronics, the real action was happening on the gaming side, with slicker PCs, breakthrough monitors, neat mobile accessories, and yes, even more handhelds.

The war for your hands

The Legion Go S wasn’t the only new handheld gaming PC at CES. Lenovo brought a couple of other Windows ones, including a prototype upgrade to the original Legion Go (with Switch-style detachable controllers) and a Windows alternative to the Legion Go S’s SteamOS model.

Meanwhile, rival PC maker Acer is expanding its own handheld line after announcing the 7-inch Nitro Blaze last year. At CES, the company was demoing both 8- and 11-inch variants with detachable controllers, with the latter being equal parts glorious and comically large. I spied an unused accessory port along its bottom edge, and while Acer won’t spell out its purpose, one could imagine a Surface-style keyboard cover to transform the Nitro Blaze 11 into a laptop for work.

The Legion Go S also served as an early landing spot for AMD’s Z2 chipset, which will come in a few different configurations for handheld makers. We’re still waiting on benchmarks, but it’s notable that AMD is launching new handheld chips for the second time in as many years—a strong show of confidence in the category.

Don’t count out Intel, either. It has a willing partner in MSI, whose forthcoming Claw 8 AI+ will use a Core Ultra 7 258V processor. While Lunar Lake chips aren’t explicitly for handhelds, their Arc 140V graphics and overall power efficiency could make them a solid fit.

Jared Newman / Foundry

This is the kind of gamesmanship you love to see at a show like CES. It’s still unclear if the market can sustain all these gaming handhelds, but who cares? We all win when these companies fight it out by with different shapes, sizes, and spec configurations.

Mobile gaming innovation

Jared Newman / Foundry

Elsewhere on the portable front, device makers are finding new ways to turn your phone into a gaming machine.

After an announcement last year, for instance, BitmoLab brought a working prototype of its Gamebaby iPhone case at CES. The case has directional and face buttons on its bottom half, supporting NES or Game Boy games in emulator apps such as Delta, but you can also flip the bottom half around so the buttons are in back, letting you use your phone as normal. The capacitive controls pass through to the app’s on-screen buttons, so you can play without bulky USB-C attachments or extra batteries to charge.

GameSir had a slightly different take on the idea, with a small Bluetooth controller that clips onto the bottom half of any phone. I didn’t see this one myself, but wish I had after reading Wavelength’s writeup. It should be headed for Kickstarter in the months ahead.

Jared Newman / Foundry

And if you’re not averse to some added bulk, MCON is developing a controller with a pop-out magnetic base on which to mount your phone. It provides a full array of buttons and sticks but is slick enough to fit in your pocket. A prototype at CES looked promising, and MCON is working with magnetic accessory brand Ohsnap to bring it to fruition.

Meat-and-potatoes

Jared Newman / Foundry

Even if you’re not into handheld gaming, CES brought plenty of intriguing updates on the desktop and laptop gaming PC front.

The big news of course was Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs, which are coming in cheaper than expected on the desktop side and sparking a wave of neat PCs on the laptop side. Dell’s Alienware Area-51 laptop brand is back, for instance, with a new cooling system and slick “Liquid Teal” finish, while Razer has shaved its RTX 50-equipped Blade 16 laptop down to just 0.59 inches thick. Meanwhile, Asus keeps doing neat things with eGPUs, announcing a compact dock with Thunderbolt 5 that can turn standard laptops into gaming rigs.

Monitors are getting better as well, with numerous vendors now squeezing 4K QD-OLED into 27-inch panels with 240 Hz refresh rates. If that’s not responsive enough for you, we’re also seeing 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED monitors with 500 Hz refresh rates. Acer is even pushing into 5K with its 31-inch XB323QX monitor, which still manages to achieve 144Hz refresh rates. (Alternatively, it allows for 1440p gaming at 288 Hz as needed.)

It’s easy to be cynical about CES, where big device makers are prone to mindless trend-chasing instead of solving actual problems. But if you look in the right places, you’ll find plenty of reminders of what got you into technology in the first place. Gaming is increasingly where those innovations are winding up.