Handheld describes something designed to be held and operated in your hands while you use it. A handheld video game console like a Nintendo Switch fits in your hands so you can play anywhere. A handheld radio or walkie-talkie lets you communicate while moving around. Scientists use handheld GPS devices to record precise locations in the field.

The key idea is portability combined with control: handheld devices are small enough to carry and designed so your hands can work them without needing a table or mount. A smartphone is handheld, but a desktop computer isn't. A handheld mirror lets you check your reflection, while a wall mirror stays fixed in place.

Before handheld technology became common, many tools required you to stay in one spot. Early computers filled entire rooms. Telephones had cords connecting them to walls. The development of smaller, more powerful batteries and circuits made truly handheld devices possible, changing how people work, play, and communicate. Now you can hold more computing power in your hands than existed in the largest computers of the 1960s.