The new device meta - is a smartphone, laptop, and gaming handheld all you need?

Summary

Smartphones are indispensable for most people, but they do have drawbacks.
Handheld PCs can fulfill most of your gaming needs without breaking the bank.
A laptop is often essential — not just for work, but as a sort of digital home base.

In the gaming world, the term “meta” is slang for a commonly-agreed, most optimal way of playing. In PUBG, for example, the weapons meta might be an Aug for short and medium range, and a Mini-14 for sniping. You don’t need to obey meta suggestions to win a game, and they’re likely to shift over time — but following the meta is usually the safest bet if you’re not deeply familiar with a game’s mechanics.

It’s not hard to see how that concept might apply to buying high-tech devices. In the late ’90s, the meta might’ve been a TV, a VCR, a Discman, a cellphone, a stereo, a console, and a desktop tower PC — with all of those, you were set for work and entertainment. By the 2010s, tech had consolidated so much that you could get away with a smartphone, a PC, and/or a console — but there was still a lot of incentive to buy other things, like a TV or a tablet. To paraphrase David Lynch, it was crazy to watch a movie on a 4.7-inch iPhone.

Many people will still want a TV or tablet for the sake of a large display, but I’d like to propose a new meta for device minimalists — a smartphone, a laptop, and a gaming handheld. I think it’s extremely practical, though there are exceptions worth talking about.

Do you really need to worry about spyware on your phone?

It’s a matter of where you live, what you do, and what your security habits are like.

Smartphones anchor all our lives

Resident Evil Village running on an iPhone.

I don’t think anyone would argue against smartphones being vital to most people. You can live without one if you have to, but it’s how many of us talk, navigate, shop, and keep up with the news. For some people, it’s their main form of entertainment, or how they find a job to pay for everything.

Portability is the smartphone’s greatest asset, but also why you still need other devices.

You can potentially make a smartphone your only high-tech device, especially now that many models have 6-inch screens, plenty of storage, and processor power to spare. You can even connect a mouse, keyboard, or game controller to most phones, and watching a movie on an iPhone isn’t as much of a travesty as it used to be. Certainly, I’d much rather watch Eraserhead on my phone during a flight than listen to a podcast and stare out the window.

Portability is the smartphone’s greatest asset, but also why you still need other devices. A phone can easily be lost, stolen, or broken, and its size is hardly ideal for web browsing or writing a news article, much less formulating a spreadsheet or designing a building. Phones could be fine for gaming, except that most mobile games are low-effort affairs meant to bombard you with ads and transactions, and the ones of any quality are best played with a dockable controller like the Backbone One. Even then, many games might be out of reach — you’ll have to stream something like Doom: The Dark Ages over the cloud.

Two phones side by side with a blue thumbs up.

5 reasons budget phones actually rule now

There are increasingly fewer reasons to blow your cash on a top of the line smartphone.

The surprising value of handheld gaming PCs

Who needs a console or tablet?

The ROG Ally X and the Steam Deck OLED side by side with an Xbox controller.

My wife bought me a Steam Deck OLED several months ago, and it’s legitimately one of the best devices I’ve ever owned. At times, it feels like witchcraft — I don’t understand how something that portable can run a game like Cyberpunk 2077, much less make it look good. If you’re willing to spend a little extra, you can get even more powerful handheld PCs like the ASUS ROG Ally X.

Not everyone cares about gaming, and if you’re included in that group, feel free to omit a handheld from your personal meta. Gaming is an enormous part of pop culture, however, and handhelds are already powerful enough to replace many consoles and desktop PCs, sometimes at a fraction of the price. You are making sacrifices — you can’t expect to play everything, especially not at the highest detail settings — but there’s such a vast collection of titles that run on handhelds that it seems ridiculous to complain. You can still play everything from Tetris through to Balatro and Baldur’s Gate 3.

Handhelds should at least be considered before you buy a tablet, console, or gaming-ready PC.

Being true PCs, modern handhelds are extremely flexible. You can connect a Steam Deck to a TV when you want to play on a big screen, and some people even take advantage of the product’s Desktop mode to get work done, albeit with a boatload of accessories in tow. Most other handheld PCs run Windows 11, so they can often launch desktop apps with minimal fuss. Just don’t expect to run Premiere Pro or AutoCAD.

For all the reasons I’ve mentioned, handhelds won’t complete the meta for everyone. But they should at least be considered before you buy a tablet, console, or gaming-ready PC.

Should you get a laptop, desktop, or handheld for PC gaming?

The answer involves your budget and lifestyle.

Why everyone could use a laptop

A mobile base of operations

Dell XPS 13 (Intel Core Ultra Series 2) on a table.

Contrary to what Apple would have you believe, you probably do need a full-size PC of some sort, not just a tablet. I tend to think of my own as a home base — it has a mouse and keyboard ready to go, access to all the productivity apps I need, and a large display suitable for multitasking. It’s how I manage my offline movie and music libraries, and how I play games my Steam Deck can’t handle. If my PC were to break — knock on wood — I’d want to buy a replacement immediately.

Indeed, a lot of us now depend on a PC to make a living, so it’s almost redundant to say you should buy one. But I will, and I’d specifically suggest that most people should get a laptop. That grants you the freedom to work away from home, which is critical if your power or internet goes out, or if you travel a lot. It also simplifies moving — it’s a lot easier to toss a laptop bag over your shoulder than pack a tower, monitor, and other gear into a cardboard box and hope for the best.

A laptop grants you the freedom to work away from home, which is critical if your power or internet goes out, or if you travel a lot.

If you want to, a laptop can be a complete entertainment center for movies, music, TV, and games. It’s just a question of hunting for the right specs. The main reason I included gaming handhelds in my meta is that you can save hundreds or thousands of dollars if you skip a laptop with a gaming-level GPU — but if you can’t live without more demanding games like PUBG or Monster Hunter Wilds, it’s probably worth spending the cash.

I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for desktop PCs, and I’d still recommend that option for people who want the most performance per dollar, plus the ability to upgrade individual parts. It’s just becoming harder and harder to recommend them to people who aren’t hobbyists.

Tapping on an Apple Watch Ultra 2 while wearing it.

The 7 must-have tech tools for travel I always keep in my bag

If your philosophy is to travel light, these are the seven tech tools that should always be in your bag.

What’s missing from this picture?

Your mileage may vary

Naturally, there could be a lot of devices missing from this arrangement, depending on your lifestyle. My main hobby is weightlifting, and for that reason, my personal meta includes a smartwatch for fitness tracking and gym music. I’m also a film grad, so it’s tough to imagine living without a widescreen TV for movie nights.

In another decade, we might be wearing AR glasses for just about everything.

Other people might demand a mirrorless camera for photography, or an EUC or e-bike for short-range cruises and commuting. I’m not even including cars, which here in North America are taken for granted unless you’re lucky enough to live downtown in a city like Chicago, Montreal, or New York.

I think, though, that the devices I’ve been talking about could easily form the cornerstones of a modern digital life. At the moment — in another decade, we might be wearing AR glasses for just about everything.