As I trudged through MWC 2025 this year, I couldn’t help but notice that the Qualcomm booth didn’t have much in the way of gaming tech. This came as a bit of a surprise, considering that it’s the brand’s Snapdragon chips that power Android devices such as the Asus ROG Phone 9 and the RedMagic 10 Pro, two of the best gaming phones on the market, and last year the booth featured the Ayaneo Pocket S, a fantastic Android handheld. Well, now it makes a bit more sense why MWC seemed so AI-heavy, as Qualcomm was seemingly saving its gaming reveals for GDC 2025.
The tech brand just introduced three new gaming chips on the first day of GDC. There’s the souped-up Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, which you can expect to see in some of this year’s best handheld consoles, plus the Snapdragon G2 Gen 2 and the cloud-orientated Snapdragon G1 Gen 2. However, we didn’t just get news of the new chips, which in itself is only exciting for us real tech-heads, but the reveal of some new handhelds that utilize the latest Qualcomm tech.
Also debuting during GDC, yesterday we saw the big reveals for the Ayaneo Gaming Pad, the brand’s first gaming tablet, plus the Pocket S2, an even more powerful version of last year’s handheld, both of which use the G3 Gen 3 chip. We say even more powerful as Qualcomm promises a 30% CPU and 28% GPU boost compared to the chip inside the original Pocket S, which should make the best Android games run even smoother on the new device. Those games should download quicker, too, with the G3 Gen 3 offering Wi-Fi 7 capabilities.
Then there’s the OneXSugar Sugar 1, an exciting form factor freak of a handheld that looks a lot like the Nintendo DS when unfolded, and that too is packing the G3 Gen 3 processor. Yes, it’s an exciting time to be a fan of handheld hardware.
We also found out after the reveal of the new Qualcomm chips that it’s the G1 Gen 2 powering the new Retroid Pocket Classic, a budget-friendly handheld very much in the style of Game Boy Color. While the G1 Gen 2 doesn’t quite offer the powerhouse performance levels of the G3 Gen 3, it boasts six efficiency cores, which suggests that the Pocket Classic’s battery life should make it the ideal companion for long trips (or, if you’re like me, full days on the couch)
Of course, we’ll have to wait to get our hands on the likes of the Ayaneo Gaming Pad and the Retroid Pocket Classic to see what these new chips have to offer, but they look mightily impressive on paper. Still, if you’d rather pick up a bargain than hold off for the latest tech, you can check out our guides to the best gaming tablets and the best budget gaming phones, with plenty of options to suit all budgets.