I searched and there appear to be no recent threads on handheld devices.

I’m looking to play my GOG games, particularly Heroes of Might and Magic 3, on the go. Don’t have an Android device, and would think an actual windows device would be best for overall compatibility with my vast GOG library.

Used Surface Pros 2-5 are under $200 sometimes, so was leaning in that direction.

I know that Steamdeck can run other installers and perhaps play all my GOG games, but they seem a bit pricey for my casual mostly HOMM3 purposes.

I have a Surface Pro 6 that I occasionally try to play games on, and I don't think it is the best experience. I ended up starting a list of games that work and don't work as so far this has been a very infrequent experiment.

The huge resolution means that some games are difficult to play - for example Banished really didn't like that resolution and even trying to reduce the ingame resolution doesn't help. Kingdom Rush had a launcher no bigger than a postage stamp, although the game itself ran well.

Some games like Titan Quest would play, but only if you switch them to full screen ("real" full screen if I recall) with a much lower resolution. By play I mean having UI elements you can actually read.

And other games (which I don't recall as it was before I started the list) seem to be too slow, I think it was Disco Elysian I tried and it took (relatively speaking) a year and a half to start which was a year and a half too long.

However, some games work perfectly well - Coromon, Settlers 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, Excavation of Hobbs Barrow, Steam World Quest. I tried playing Encodya yesterday and it is a little slow to start and a little slow to transition but otherwise seems fine.

I suspect something explicitly designed for gaming would be a better option than a Surface though. My desktop from 2013 plays _everything_ better than the much more modern Surface.

Options are hovering around a $500 mark for anything x86, at minimum. Plus anything from the major chinese companies are 50/50 as to what will and wont work. You are almost certain to have defects. Just which ones are a gamble. Plus, when the battery is unplugged for any reason, these devices no longer work at all. As in, they do not function from wall outlet power, due to shit quality components. They also lack BIOS batteries, so the OS gets messed up if the battery isnt connected for any reason.

If you feel like gambling, any x86 machine is trash.

Systems:
-Win600
-SteamDeck
-Asus Rog(a joke...their own software is almost always broken, good luck)
....maybe a few others, but all $700+
OnePC and GPD intentionally pull a switcharoo. So whatever is claimed, the dogshit they ship to customers is different...and broken.

Android isnt much better. I suppose Winlator over at github could possible play most low end 2009 games. With trial and error of course.

The best option for android would start at a Snapdragon 8 gen2 chip in whatever makes ya happy. Odin 2 comes to mind.

Why not simply go with a cheap laptop, instead?
Portable, yet with all the amenities a desktop PC would offer (mouse/KB).

Windows? No. I wouldn't, even if for free. Now, Haiku, Linux, even one of the BSD Brothers, sure.

Over the past few years I had a Surface pro 3, Surface 3 (my favorite), Surface pro 4, Surface pro7 and Surface go (in order). Also have a Steam Deck.

My opinion is that a Tablet is very poorly suited to play keyboard+mouse games, a laptop is much more convenient. What I mean is that you cannot have it confortabvly on your lap neither the inputs are suitable for K+M or older games. You may want to treat a tablet as a portable display with processing power embedded instead of a full blown computer.

That said, I played a lot of games on the tablets using the attached keyboard on a table, pen and finger while commuting around and a bluetooth gamepad on the car. There's a freaking metric ton of fun games to play (including emulation) but I cannot for the life of me imagine playing HoMM3, I can test the game on the Surface go if you want.
I made a thread a few years ago about games with touch support on GOG, let me trying to find it.

The Steam Deck is not that expensive considering the performance diference and a family member, recently bought a used one for less than 250€. After some time to get used to, the trackpad (small touchpad) is actually very decent to play mouse games, the touchscreen precision is crap though (not needed at all).
IMHO, is the best option, by far, to play games. If your need also general computing, then a tablet might also be a option.
A laptop is probably the best choice as a general purpose device.

Some random tips:
The Microsoft Surface line is hard to use without the attached keyboard on some ocasions but the on-screen-keyboard is actually my favorite keyboard of any device I've tried and a pen is very helpfull. I mostly use the tablet with the finger and pen most of the time, without the keyboard attached (finger to type and scroll and pen to point and click).
Other than a pen, a wireless mouse is also decent for playing older games, such as HOMM3. Controller for the newer stuff.

Most of Microsoft surface Pro tablets are very hot. I do not recomend the Pro 3 or older and to be honest, any dual core (Pro 5 and below) is considered very underpowered but the Pro 3 specially due the age, even for browsing the web. On the other hand both the Pro 6 and 7 are quad core but still hot as heck. My laptop has the same CPU as the Pro6 and I run the CPU underclocked to 2.4GHz because anytime the turbo kicks in, so does the fan, and good bye battery. The Pro7 does not turbo without charger connected.
The graphics on the pro 3 are very weak and the pro7 and beyond quite decent (still hot though).

I like the passive cooled tablets but of course, they are not as powerfull. I also prefer the 10" screen instead of 12" on the Pro line. That said, is much easier to create usable custom resolutions on the Pro models. The Pro3 have a screen of 2160x1440 and if a custom resolution is created at exactly half the dimentions, 1080x720 is still good enough to see things and read (on games it saves a freaking ton of battery) while the 10" screen with 1800x1200, one get a very meager 900x600.

Older surfaces are not reparable, keep that in mind. Check iFixit website to see what models are "reparable" because with the age, the battery wears and some batteries do swell, sometimes breaking the screen. Take care on used units, make sure to purchase a good unit, wich maybe a little dificult to find.

The Steam deck input is very configurable, with the provided Steam OS and can enable playing with relative confort a unbelievable amount of games.

Edit: sorry for the very long post and feel free to ask any thing, if you want I can try HOMM3 on the surface Go and check how it goes.

Link for the mentioned thread (not updated in years): https://www.gog.com/forum/general/list_of_touch_supported_games_on_gog

You can always look for a second hand Steam Deck LCD. They go for really reasonable prices now on places like Marketplace, and even eBay. You can upgrade the SSD cheaply, and...really they're SO good for GOG.

I have mine set up with Heroic Games Launcher (whose devs even have an official arrangement with GOG themselves where they get a % of the game's price when you buy it through Heroic!) and my GOG games play perfectly on there!

I play ALL my GOG games on the Deck through Heroic, and I swear by it. It's THE way to play for me, portable :)

Assuming that the games you're interested in have full controller support:
* A laptop has an always-attached keyboard, While convenient, it makes it a lot harder to hold in your hands.
* Size: A laptop won't fit in your purse. A small enough handheld, however, might. (Unfortunately, the steam deck does not.)

(Note that the situation is different if you're playing games that expect a keyboard, in which case a laptop is suitable, or a mouse, in which case you probably need a desktop. At least if you want to game without needing to attach extra devices to the handheld/laptop.)

In my case, I ended up going for a controller attachment for my phone. Quite a bit cheaper (if you ignore the cost of the phone itself), and I can fit it in my purse.

Wow, thank you everyone for the great responses! My problem is that I want to have my cake and eat it too, all options have their positives. I’ve had just about every retro gaming device and several tablets in my various carts this past week.

As mentioned, a laptop can be a bit cumbersome.

I’d like to play a bit of everything, but my prime motivation is being able to play HOMM3 on the go. I have the old discontinued iOS version on this iPad Pro, and it’s a joy to play, but it’s pretty vanilla with no expansions or mods.

I was thinking a cheap Surface (or other windows tablet) and Bluetooth mouse would maybe work for HOMM and also maybe other older GOG games. But it’s sounding like I might want to avoid windows devices.

I’ll investigate Android tablet options. Bit maybe I’ll just wait until I can afford a good SteamDeck.

Again, I really appreciate all the input. If you have time and think of it, I’d love first hand impressions of HOMM3 on a Surface @Dark_art_, but don’t go out of your way since I’m leaning away from that option now anyway.

No. Just no, Windows or not.

A handheld running a desktop operating system is just a laptop with even more crammed internals, and laptops are sucky for games to begin with... how much worse an even smaller form factor?

The reason handheld consoles like the Switch thrive is because well, they were designed to play lightweight games or heavily optimized stuff, so that they're lean on the battery and don't turn your device into a handheld oven. Plus of course you run games tailor made for the hardware (or in the worst case unable to actually use the console's full power), on a software environment tailor made by the manufacturer.

Sticking a desktop OS on a smaller laptop with more crowded internals and running games traditionally designed to push the hardware is only a recipe for disaster.




That and it's already a fair bit of work getting regular gamepads to work with a good chunk of regular desktop games without having to resort to third party solutions or mods. (This reminds me of a game I'd need to patch up for gamepad control, ugh.)

The systems would be great for travel though. If they were not made out of knockoff garbage components.

Seen some nice folding keyboards too.

Tried the vanilla game on the Surface Go with Windows 10 and it runs fine as expected, but like many other old games, it seems peg the first core at 100% for no aparent reason, on the GO it's not a issue but a i5 or i7 CPU may drain the battery very fast. (On some games this also can be fixed by playing with the compatibility settings, usually remove compatibility with win95/XP).
HDmod has a option to skip the damn intro and to fix the CPU issue under "tweaks", both work as expected. It's highly recomended but I assume you already know :)

Tech issues aside, the game is surprisingly almost playable with touch inputs only, the taps are registered properly, but there's some caveats like not being able to properly choose in wich hex to attack, because there's no indicator for it and no precision with a finger. On some games it's possible to slide the finger around and it will simulate the mouse pointer but here, is very hard to do.

With the pen the game is perfect. If one lift the pen a bit the indicator appears (and other tooltips as well), like just hoover with a mouse and a tap register fine as a click. It's a delightfull experience, much better than one could get on the Steam Deck and a laptop!

Note that I used a older build of the game, 5+ years but looking at the changelog there's not much that changed.

Although I’ve been playing the game almost monthly since 1999, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t used a computer much since I got this iPad Pro, and the Heroes app for it is almost 10 years old. So I’ve gotten my Heroes fix without experiencing the HD mod and all the other fan-made expansions. I’m jonesing to do so though, hence this post.

I usually play in bed or at work, so a tablet is much preferable to a laptop.

Thanks so much for testing it out! The Surface possibility is back on the menu!