Qualcomm isn't ruling out Snapdragon X2-powered gaming handhelds

Published Sep 24, 2026, 5:47 PM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Summary Qualcomm has hinted that X-series chips could appear in dedicated gaming handhelds. Some existing handhelds use Snapdragon G mobile-focused chips, but not the X or X2 series. Notable hurdles include Windows game compatibility via Microsoft's Prism emulation and anti‑cheat issues in multiplayer titles. On paper, Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X2 series chips seem like a solid fit for a high-end dedicated gaming handheld, given their strong CPU/GPU performance and battery-life efficiency. So far, though, we've only seen Snapdragon G-Series chips in Android-focused handhelds from companies like Retroid, OneXPlayer, and Ayaneo. However, that could change in the future. During a roundtable interview at the Snapdragon Summit, I asked Kedar Kondap, Qualcomm's GM of Compute and Gaming, if there's a possibility we'll eventually see Snapdragon X series chips, like the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, X2 Plus, or X2 Elite, in an ROG Xbox Ally X-like Windows 11 gaming handheld at some point. While Kondap didn't outright say this is something that's actually happening, he emphasized that "the interest is pretty high in terms of gaming devices," hinting that it's something we might see in the future and stating that, from a technical perspective, nothing is preventing a manufacturer from featuring, for example, the 18-core X2 Elite Extreme in a dedicated gaming handheld. "...the good part for us now is that we support various operating systems. It provides the benefit, right? So, for example, today we have multiple handhelds, but not with the X series; we have them with our mobile platforms and our gaming-specific platforms," said Kondap. Several gaming handhelds already feature Qualcomm chips, but not the X2 series Game compatibility would likely be at least somewhat of an issue Kondap then mentioned the Snapdragon 680 featured in the streaming-focused PlayStation Portal and the Snapdragon 720G in the Lenovo Legion Play. "There are [gaming] devices already [that feature Qualcomm chips]. They range from streaming-only devices to devices that can run native games, to handhelds purpose-built for gaming. The first two we already have in market," said Kondap. From a graphics performance perspective, the Adreno X2-90 GPU in the Arm64 Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme is somewhat comparable to Intel's impressive Panther Lake-based Arc B390 integrated graphics, which is featured in the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. Other hurdles remain, including the fact that many x86/x64 Windows games would need to run through Microsoft's Prism translation layer on an Arm64 Snapdragon X2 handheld. That's an additional compatibility barrier the x86-based Steam Deck doesn't face when running Windows games through Proton, or something AMD-powered handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally X have to deal with. There's also the issue of anti-cheat compatibility, which currently prevents several major multiplayer games, including Valorant, Sea of Thieves, and Rocket League, from running on Windows on Arm.