Volt Deck review: the handheld that lasts
Not the fastest handheld gaming PC. The lightest, the quietest and the first one we would take on a long flight.
There are now seven handheld gaming PCs you can buy, and most of them make the same mistake. They are fast for 70 minutes, and then they are a warm brick. The Volt Deck is slower than its most expensive rivals, and it is the first one we would take on a long flight.
We used it for four weeks: on trains, on the sofa, and connected to a monitor.
Design
The Volt Deck has a 7.4-inch screen between two grips that are shaped like a good controller. The sticks are full size and use magnetic sensors, so they will not start to drift after a year. There are four buttons on the back that you can set to any key.
The body is matte plastic with a texture on the grips. It does not feel expensive, and it does not show fingerprints. At 612 grams, it is 60 grams lighter than the handheld it will be compared with most. You feel that difference after an hour.
The fan is the quietest of any handheld PC we have tested. At full load, we measured 34 decibels at 30 centimetres. In a quiet room you can hear it. On a train you cannot.
Screen
The screen is an OLED panel with 1920 by 1200 pixels and a refresh rate of up to 120 hertz. It supports a variable refresh rate from 40 to 120, and this matters more than any other feature. A game that runs at 47 frames per second looks smooth here, and the same game stutters on a fixed 60-hertz screen.
We measured a maximum brightness of 610 nits with normal content and 980 nits in bright highlights. It is readable next to a window. In direct sun, it is not.
Performance
We tested five games at the screen's resolution, with the settings a normal player would choose, and wrote down the average frame rate over ten minutes.
| Game | Settings | Frames per second | Battery life |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neon Drift 2049 | High | 71 | 2 h 40 min |
| Hollow Crown | Medium | 48 | 2 h 25 min |
| Pocket Kingdoms | High | 120 | 6 h 10 min |
| Tarmac Legends 5 | Medium | 56 | 2 h 30 min |
| A ten-year-old indie game | Maximum | 120 | 8 h 45 min |
The Volt Deck is about 15 percent slower than the fastest handheld on sale. In a new, heavy game, that is the difference between 48 and 55 frames per second. With the variable refresh rate, we did not miss it.
What we did notice was the battery. At the 15-watt setting, which is the default, we got two and a half hours in the heaviest games. No other Windows handheld we have tested reached two hours in the same test. The 58 watt-hour battery charges from empty to 80 percent in 42 minutes.
The fastest chip would have cost us 50 minutes of battery. We asked 400 players what they wanted, and they chose the 50 minutes.
Hana Ilves, product lead at Volt
Software
The Volt Deck runs its own system, VoltOS, which is built on Linux. It starts in 11 seconds and opens straight into your library. Games from the three large PC stores install from one screen.
In four weeks, we tried 61 games. Fifty-four ran with no changes. Four needed a setting we found in the community notes that the system shows beside each game. Three did not start, and all three use an anti-cheat system that does not support Linux. If you mainly play one of the big online shooters, check the compatibility list before you buy.
Sleep and resume work as on a console. You press the power button in the middle of a fight, and three days later you press it again and you are in the same fight, with four percent less battery.
What is not so good
The speakers are thin. They are loud enough, and there is no bass at all. Use headphones.
There is only one USB-C port, on the top. You cannot charge and use a wired accessory at the same time without the dock, which costs $79 more.
And the 256 GB base model is too small. Three large games fill it. The storage is a standard part that you can replace with one screw, and a 1 TB drive costs about $70, but a buyer should not need to do this.
Scores
- Design: 8.6
- Screen: 9.0
- Performance: 7.4
- Battery: 8.8
- Software: 7.6
- Value: 8.2
Verdict
The Volt Deck is not the fastest handheld. It is the one that understands what a handheld is for. It is light, quiet, and it lasts. If your games are on the compatibility list, this is the one to buy.
