A Handheld History Review

While I’ve owned more than a couple of handheld consoles, I’d be the first to admit that I haven’t even seen all of them, let alone used, much less owned. That’s where A Handheld History comes in, a book full of information and photos about every handheld game device, from Game & Watch through WonderSwan, to the N-Gage up to modern day’s Steam Deck.

Presented in a chunky hardcover, each matt-printed heavy-gauge page is covered in words or photos, sometimes artwork, oftentimes a mixture. The presentation is very nice and crisp, using up each page without filling it to the brim. For instance, you can find one page dedicated to photos of 12 random PlayStation Portable UMDs with names and release dates printed along the bottom section of the page. Some pages boast snippets of additional information in the header or footer areas, usually when the name and image of something aren’t quite enough information.

While each console has its own dedicated write-up detailing when they were announced, prices, how many units sold, etc., there are also essays from a bunch of writers for several of the handhelds, talking about certain games or how a handheld impacted their life. There are 32 devices covered throughout the 272 pages, but most of them only have the barebones information page. In fact, A Handheld History seems to have started life as a book dedicated to Nintendo handhelds.

Honestly, it wouldn’t have been so noticeable that literally over half of the book is about Nintendo, if not for the seemingly arbitrary ordering of each device. The first 141 pages are about Nintendo, starting at Game & Watch and ending with the Switch. Then the PlayStation Portable, Vita, and Game Gear. The Neo Geo Pocket Color and Analogue Pocket both get some extra photos, though no essays, and the final 18 handhelds are in an order I just cannot comprehend. It’s not release date or alphabetical, as Steam Deck is after TurboExpress but before N-Gage. At one point I thought that I’d worked it out, and there were a couple of two pagers for every four pager (with extra photos), but then I realised that there was a six pager followed by a four pager!

I’m sorry to go on about this, but the book is called A Handheld History, and it’s neither in chronological order nor is it particularly easy to hold. I’ve picked it up multiple times and only been able to read a few essays before needing to rest my wrists; it’s so chonky.

All of the console information and the essays are pretty well done, going into a decent amount of detail. There is the odd exception, such as one that goes eight paragraphs before actually talking about handheld gaming, but on the whole, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read. That is to say, I’ve not read through all of them because A Handheld History is a coffee table book, and not designed to be read from start to finish. I’ll get through it eventually, once I’ve built up some muscle mass in my forearms most likely, but it’s designed for grabbing to look up some information or when you have a few minutes to spare and want to avoid doom scrolling social media.

A Handheld History is a great resource to have at hand, full of factual information as well as more personal views from people who actually owned each handheld console. These people didn’t play Metal Gear Acid via emulator; they played it the week of release! Come to think of it, I also bought it when it came out, because most of the stuff in this book was released in my lifetime. Still, I can admit that I didn’t know quite as much about the Dreamcast’s Visual Memory Unit when I owned one (okay, four), as I do after reading this book.