Windows handhelds have a lot of problems, and I'm tired of pretending like they don't. Between sleep issues, tech debt, and buggy overlays, the handheld experience on something like the ROG Ally X is a far cry from what you get with the Steam Deck. There are tools like Bazzite that give you a SteamOS-like experience on other handhelds, but they come with the same downsides as Valve's handheld.

What if you could have the best of both worlds? That's the question Winhanced in trying to answer. It's an application and overlay for Windows 11 that wants to ensure you never have to go to the Windows desktop. It's still early days for Winhanced, and there are a lot of teething issues, as is to be expected out of an early access app. But Winhanced shows a lot of promise in doing what Microsoft has failed to do up to this point.

The overlay doesn't feel like Windows

It feels responsive

I was scratching my head when I first heard about Winhanced. Windows handhelds already have utilities like Armoury Crate on the ROG Ally X and Legion Space on the Legion Go, so it didn't make much sense to me to install a separate app that, in my eyes, did the exact same thing. But that's what already stands out with Winhanced. Utilities like Armoury Crate and Legion Space feel like apps slapped on top of Windows. Winhanced makes your Windows handheld feel like, well, a handheld.

That's not an accident. Even in its early form, Winhanced uses HidHide to restrict your inputs to the app, ensuring that you never have to touch the Windows desktop if you don't want to. Your open applications are also neatly laid out in the overlay so you don't need to swipe up to use the Windows Taskbar. The Steam Deck nails the handheld experience by offering a controller-focused interface that you never need to back out of, and you can already see how Winhanced is trying to achieve that same experience.

Make no mistake; Winhanced isn't anywhere near that experience in its current form. It still fights with Windows, the overlay doesn't always scale properly, and notifications still pop up and take over your screen. You can see what the app is trying to do, though, and I'm hopeful it gets there soon.

You don't need to choose between games and apps

Winhanced can handle both

Stock utilities like Armoury Crate and Legion Space choose a single lane. They're able to run and manage one application, but if you start throwing up multiple apps, things can start breaking quickly. You're able to add non-game apps to your library, but they aren't integrated into the interface. Winhanced takes a smarter approach. Whenever you open the overlay, you're given a Windows-like taskbar that allows you to quickly select apps while you play a game.

In the early build I tested, this functionality was focused on Discord. There's a dedicated Discord tab in the overlay, allowing you to quickly swap over to the app to answer a message or join a voice chat. It's barebones right now, and it doesn't always work. But it's nice having access to my open apps without swiping through icons I don't need or pulling up the Windows Taskbar. Maybe in the future, Winhanced could support a handful of apps in the overlay directly like Discord and Spotify.

You can actually sleep your device

Without crashing your game, too

My biggest issue with Windows on a handheld is sleeping the device. There are ways to suspend your game and put your device to sleep with third-party apps, and you can roll the dice on letting Windows handle suspending your game. But more often than not, you'll resume with a crashed game and lost progress, and Winhanced has an elegant solution to solve this exact problem.

In the overlay menu, you're given several options when playing a game, including an option to pause the game. This suspends the app and allows you to put your device to sleep, and every time I tried it, I was able to return to my game without issue. It even works with games that don't support pausing, like Elden Ring or Monster Hunter Rise.

There are still some issues with the suspend functionality. Some devices won't resume properly, and sometimes the overlay will register that a game is paused when it isn't. It's already a better solution than what I've seen on Windows handhelds up this point, though, and hopefully the plentiful bugs in this early build will be squashed in short order.

Winhanced still needs a lot of work

It's new, and it's buggy

The version of Winhanced I tested is v0.15, which should tell you how early on in development the small team is. If you want to try out Winhanced for yourself right now, you'll run into a lot of issues. That's just the reality of development, but it's important to point out. The idea behind Winhanced is to make your Windows handheld experience easier, and that certainly isn't the case right now -- even if there's a lot of promise that Winhanced will get there in the future.

I ran into plenty of issues myself. My initial attempt to install Winhanced on the Lenovo Legion Go S didn't work, for example, and the default scaling in Windows meant that UI elements inside Winhanced were unreadable. In addition, I had to use the command prompt to install a community-made power profile, which reduces the power when you sleep your handheld so it doesn't die within a couple of hours. I didn't experience any crashes, but looking through the change log, I would expect some of those, too.

Compatibility is also a weak point right now. Only a few devices are officially supported -- the Steam Deck, Legion Go, and ROG Ally family -- so you'll likely run into issues on something like the Ayaneo Slide. In addition, Winhanced only supports Steam and the Xbox app right now. Other storefronts like the Epic Games Store won't work, and you won't find DRM-free games in your library. Support for more platforms should come in future builds.

None of this is surprising. The first build of Winhanced was posted on February 21. We're not even a full month into the public development process at the time of publishing, and I expect there will be plenty of issues that the development team has to work through as new builds come out. As someone who likes to get his hands dirty with pre-release software, I'm loving Winhanced. But it still needs a long time in the oven before it's ready for a wide release.

Winhanced shows promising signs, but it's too early to download

Microsoft has made some small attempts to improve the handheld experience of Windows, such as Compact Mode in the Xbox app, but problems remain. Winhanced, once it's fully fleshed out, could change that story. It's not there yet, between a long list of bugs and features that only half-realized. You can see where Winhanced is headed, though, and that's enough to get me excited.

It's shocking how far the app has come in such a short amount of time. It's buggy, sure, but the core functionality already gives utilities like Legion Space and Armoury Crate a run for their money. Winhanced is trying to do something similar, but the developers tell me it's trying to push the app further. They've toyed with the idea of adding Lossless Scaling into the app, as well as game library managers for emulators. They even hinted at in-app Discord access, similar to what you'd find with a console. What gets me most excited is a shell version of Winhanced, which the developer says would allow the app to launch by default when you boot up your handheld.

Currently, this is all potential, and I hope the developers can realize their vision. I wouldn't recommend most people install Winhanced right now, but after a little time cooking in development? Well, that's a different story.