Steam Deck rival Onexplayer Mini launches in January

By Emily Morrow Published December 15, 2021

While PC gaming fans avidly await the arrival of the Steam Deck, the original December arrival date of which was pushed back by supply chain delays, another portable PC gaming handheld has entered the picture. (No, it’s not the Nintendo Switch.) Chinese technology company One-Netbook has announced the Onexplayer Mini, a smaller, even more portable version of its Onexplayer gaming device.

The Onexplayer Mini runs Windows 11, which allows users to play games that they would normally experience on a PC. It also has a touchscreen, as well as the usual controller-based inputs, and promises high-end graphical capabilities. The Onexplayer Mini doesn’t have a price yet, but its release is planned for January 15, 2022.

The original ONEXPLAYER handheld. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The original Onexplayer raised over $2 million on Indiegogo, which gave One-Netbook the basis to expand the product line. The Onexplayer Mini is aimed at players who want to bring their PC libraries on the go, but don’t want to lug around a bulky handheld. It has a 7-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1200, which is just above HD. The power comes from its Intel Tiger Lake i7-1195G7 quad-core processor, which works hand in hand with PC-style cooling fans to keep the system running at its best.

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Its gaming battery life is a fairly paltry two hours, but that’s likely the cost of the power it promises. Besides running games, the system can also handle regular PC tasks like making documents and watching videos.

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One-Netbook is putting a lot of stock into the Onexplayer Mini’s ergonomic design. The company claims its design was inspired by Xbox controllers and that its physical inputs are “distributed evenly” across both controllers, making for a more comfortable gaming experience. It’s designed to fit in players’ pockets like a phone, enabling them to game wherever they go.

There is no word on how much storage space the system will have, so it’s unclear whether it will allow users to put their entire Steam or Epic library on the device. However, it does feature several USB ports that will presumably allow players to attach external hard drives.

The Onexplayer Mini launches on January 15, 2022.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Emily Morrow is a games journalist and narrative designer who has written for a variety of online publications. If she’s…

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