Qualcomm’s new trio of chips are developed for handheld gaming machines, right on time to catch the wave as those devices rise in popularity. The first handhelds using Qualcomm’s new silicon, which the company showed off at GDC 2025, will come out later this month.
Qualcomm released the first of its handheld-intended chips, the Snapdragon G3X, for premium handhelds back in 2021, and has released new versions in the years following. Though gaming on phones is still popular, the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck proved the capability of high-end devices for playing on the go, paving the way for similar handhelds to grow into a more mainstream niche, from smaller devices like the Analogue Pocket to premium platforms like the Lenovo Legion Go S.
Qualcomm’s three new chips fit different tiers of gaming devices: the Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 for top-end handhelds, the G2 Gen 2 for standard handhelds and the G1 Gen 2 for devices that mostly stream games. Like their predecessors, these chips are built specifically for gaming, and are designed for different workloads than phones, PCs or other categories Qualcomm releases silicon for.
“The thing that really separates the mobile world from the handheld world is that the handheld is a bespoke gaming device, it’s intended to be picked up and played for a long time,” said Micah Knapp, Snapdragon Gaming Platforms business and product lead. “We’re really designing the whole platform — the software, the hardware, everything around it — to be able to get that peak performance but then also sustain it over a long period of time.”
Qualcomm announced three chips at GDC 2025: the G3 Gen 3 meant for top-end devices, the G2 Gen 2 for mid-grade handhelds and the G1 Gen 2 for handhelds that mostly stream games.
At the top of its new lineup, the Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 has 30% better CPU and 28% better GPU (Adreno A32) performance compared to its 2023 predecessor, supports up to Quad HD Plus displays with 144Hz refresh rate, and its Qualcomm FastConnect connectivity chip enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity.
Qualcomm confirmed three devices that will include the G3 Gen 3 chip. The Ayaneo Pocket S2, a sleeker rectangular device with a 6.3-inch display, will be coming in March. The larger Ayaneo Gaming Pad, with large controller-like handgrips and an 8.3-inch 120Hz display, will be available in May. Lastly, the OneXPlayer OneXSugar 1, the first Android gaming device with dual screens one on top of another (the top one is detachable), will also be coming in May.
The Snapdragon G2 Gen 2, which has 2.3 times better CPU and 3.8 times better GPU (Adreno A22) performance over its 2023 predecessor. It also supports up top Quad HD Plus displays with 144Hz refresh rate and the same FastConnect 7800 connectivity chip with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3.
This chip is for more affordable handhelds that aren’t quite at the level of the Lenovo Legion Go S or Asus ROG Ally X, but aren’t as expensive as those, either. While Qualcomm didn’t name the specific device, handheld maker Retroid Pocket will have a device announced in “a very short time” that runs the G2 Gen 2.
Lastly, the Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 is meant for devices that can play games, but will most likely be streaming them using cloud services like Xbox Game Pass and GeForce Now. Its CPU has 80% better and GPU (Adreno A12) has 12% better performance than the chip’s 2023 predecessor.
The Retroid Pocket PR Classic runs the Snapdragon G1 Gen 2 chip.
Qualcomm’s G-series power the expansion of handhelds
Qualcomm’s three chips are meant for different devices with different capabilities and sold at different prices — and they’re coming at an ideal time. Handheld gaming is enjoying a new era with wildly differing designs, formats and purposes, from cheap pocket-sized devices ordered from online marketplaces to high-end devices like the wedge-sized 8-inch and 11-inch Acer Nitro Blaze that launched at CES.
It’s safe to say that these differing handheld gaming devices — some of which look like shrunken Nintendo Game Boys, some of which follow the central-screen layout of the Nintendo Switch — aren’t just cheap Android phones, and haven’t been for some time. Accordingly, Qualcomm’s G-series chips suit gaming platforms’ needs for longer game sessions at high performance, rather than the shorter, repeated gaming sessions when playing on phones.
That said, Qualcomm’s handheld gaming and mobile chips share some DNA, as all three of the company’s new chips are meant to power Android-based devices. Yet they also use Kryo CPUs, older designs than the Oryon CPUs that debuted on Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile and Snapdragon X Elite PC chips, which boasted performance increases and AI capabilities. The company justified this by saying that its Kryo CPUs are well-suited for powering the many devices that handheld manufacturers are releasing on a faster basis, at least for now.
“Can Oryon help here? Absolutely. And are we looking at it in the future? Absolutely,” Knapp said.
While there are many different kinds of handhelds that run their own bespoke operating systems, from small outfits to the Steam Deck running SteamOS — and even Windows. But Qualcomm’s chips focus on powering devices that run Android, which the company says benefits the portability of a game to run on different platforms, like phones and cars (both of which Qualcomm makes chips for). It also gives handhelds easy access to the many games on the Google Play store.
But there’s been increasing overlap between the Windows and Android space as it becomes easier to port software from one or the other. Knapp pointed to Epic Games, which made the Unreal Engine and has made the process so swift that it can “have a PC game and hit a button and have it running on Android the same day,” he said. As developers have struggled with shifting their game to a touch interface for Android-running devices, handhelds are a great opportunity considering their gamepads and buttons that are easier to port to.
“I do think this new form factor with the handheld and the gamepad is really going to accelerate more PC games moving to Android,” said Dave Durnil, head of gaming at Qualcomm Technologies. “Over time, we’ll start to see [PC games] show up maybe even faster on mobile devices because of this nice bridge that handheld provides from PC to Android.”
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