I used to sit on the floor and play video games on the TV for hours. I remember one Saturday morning I was sitting on the floor playing the stealth demo for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker while chewing on the C-stick of my GameCube controller, like some kind of fiendish gaming rat. Hunched over, legs crossed, eyes fixed.

Fast forward to today, and I can’t sit on the floor for very long, and I don’t have much time to play games. An hour here and an hour there, but most often than not, I’m getting my gaming done in 15-minute chunks in between projects, or moments before the baby wakes up.

That being said, the how of playing video games is often more important than the when. I can’t just whip out the old PS5 while my daughter takes an emergency car nap in the grocery store parking lot. I need something that can come with me wherever I go.

If I wanted to find more time to play games, I needed something I could take with me. Something that could meet me where I was. I needed a handheld. (Need used very loosely here.)

In 1989, the original Game Boy changed the face of gaming. You no longer needed to be tethered to the TV to play games. Sure, you had Game and Watch before this, but the Game Boy introduced cartridge-based handheld gaming to the general public.

Fast forward to today and you’ll see massive PC “handhelds”, new takes on old classics that can still play original cartridges, Android devices in any shape you could think of, one device has a crank on it, and modded original hardware that revamps old consoles for modern use.

There are a ton of options out there when it comes to handheld gaming.

My retro gaming era started with a 3DS and a dream.

At the time, I was listening to a lot of Into The Aether, more specifically their console retrospectives. They delve deep into a console’s library, play tons of games, and talk about which ones they enjoyed.

Their Game Boy Advance episode left me with a long list of games I wanted to check out. So I dug up my New Nintendo 3DS XL and hacked it. This opened many libraries of older games I wouldn’t have otherwise had access to.

The best part of this is the New Nintendo 3DS XL’s form factor. Its pocketable clamshell design means I can slip it in my pocket and throw it in my bag without having to worry about the screens breaking.

Another unsung reason I love the New Nintendo 3DS XL is I can play it like a laptop. If I’m playing an old single-screen game like Pokémon Emerald or Fire Emblem, I can keep the device on the table and play one-handed while I eat my lunch.

There are a lot of devices that have a clamshell design like the Anbernic 35XXSP or the highly sought-after and beloved AYN Thor, but the best handheld is the one you already own.

When I was finally able to buy the Retroid Pocket 5, I was over the moon.

To own a device that could play GameCube games on the go meant everything to me. That console is very important to me, and I haven’t been able to revisit that library is so long.

The RP5 became my daily driver. It lived in my work bag, and on evenings my wife wanted to watch something, I’d play the PS5 via streaming to the RP5.

It’s such a great device. However, after a little over a year of playing most games on it, I missed the New Nintendo 3DS XL.

While I love the RP5, the form factor isn’t something I particularly enjoy. The glass front looks elegant, but makes it something you need to handle with care. Gone were the days of throwing my device into my pocket; hello, carrying around the chunky case. Goodbye playing a game while eating lunch; sup needing both hands to play.

I still love and use the RP5; I prefer it if I’m playing an action game, but for turn-based or slower games, I’m going with the New Nintendo 3DS XL every time.

Would you be shocked if I told you a book’s shape and size makes me read it slower or faster?

I actually thought about writing about this topic because of reading.

Here’s the gist. After our second daughter was born, I read Foundation in a month. It’s a 296-page book, so not long at all, but I didn’t just read the book fast; I actually just read it more often.

There were some days I would read a paragraph or 2. It didn’t matter how many pages I’d read, just that I read.

Today, I’m 80 pages away from finishing Between Two Fires. A 420-some-page book that I’ve been reading for well over a month. I do not read this book as often as I was reading Foundation.

Foundation is mostly people talking, a bit boring. Between Two Fires is horror and action-forward, a bit more exciting.

So what’s taking me so long to read Between Two Fires?

It’s a hardcover book with a plastic cover on it. I can’t put it in my bag; if I open it while my baby sleeps, it could wake her up (no joke, this has happened a handful of times), and it requires two hands to comfortably read it.

Foundation, on the other hand, is a paperback that fits in my back pocket. I can comfortably hold it with one hand.

I am a physical-only book reader. I can’t do audiobooks; my mind wanders too easily. I have to drag my eyes across the page if I want to retain any of the information.

So as part of my goal of reading more often in 2026, I have to consider how I’m reading books.

For many physical books, this can’t be helped. I checked out Between Two Fires from the library, so beggars can’t be choosers.

However, I’m really interested in trying out an E-Reader. The Xteink X4 looks like it could be a great option for a device to help me read more often. It could be the clamshell of devices.

When a device, or a book, has a form factor that meets a person where they’re at, it’s like a breath of fresh air.

You don’t need to struggle with holding it or interacting with menus. It just melds into daily life.

Compare this with a smartphone. A device that’s designed to distract you. How many times have you taken out your phone to do a specific task only to start doing something else?

iPhones are not meaningful. They cover too much ground. They’re the everything device and somehow have become the nothing device. I don’t intentionally take my phone anywhere. It’s just always by me.

My New Nintendo 3DS XL? It feels like it was designed with me in mind. It meets me exactly where I’m at and makes it easy for me to hop in and out of games on a whim. But it’s not compulsive; it’s intentional.

Those are the kinds of devices I seek out. They just do one thing, and they remove distractions from the thing you actually want to do. See Spotify adding video content.

Anyway, that’s all the time I have; I’m going to play Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade on my New Nintendo 3DS XL.