Why Steam Deck Is One of the Most Significant PC Gaming Moments in Years

https://www.techspot.com/article/2620-steam-deck-pc-gaming-moment/

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

452 411 3 years ago

haunter2• 3 years ago

What made me buy one that I can use it as a desktop computer. Dock it and you have ethernet, USB ports, HDMI. It's really really good.

weard_beard5• 3 years ago

Exactly. Its a 500$ gaming computer in the form factor of a chonky nintendo switch.

nicolaslem2• 3 years ago

Gaming computer is a bit of a stretch, the Steam Deck packs as much punch as an ultralight laptop.

wintermutestwin• 3 years ago

Are there any performance tests for a Steam Deck plugged into a hi res external monitor?

giobox2• 3 years ago

Its a 500$ gaming computer in the form factor of a chonky nintendo switch.

Even better, its only $399! I think its a great deal at only 50 bucks more than the OLED switch model personally.

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck

By all accounts, the entry level model with a large microSD card performs just as well in games as installing on a more expensive model with a larger built in SSD. The only other feature you miss out on really is the most expensive config has an additional antiglare coating. The CPU/GPU configuration is exactly the same on all models.

I actually ordered the most expensive config, but with what I know now and having tried a friend's entry model, if I ordered again tomorrow I would just buy the 399 one with a cheap microSD card. Some folks even prefer the extra contrast of the display without the anti-glare coating.

The microSD cards are hot swappable too - you can carry a bunch with different games installed if you wanted, the Deck OS instantly repopulates your game library with the contents of whatever card you just inserted.

pdimitar3• 3 years ago

How are the noise levels while gaming? I'm very put off by jet engines, hope it doesn't sound like one.

noidesto2• 3 years ago

Surprisingly good. It's noticeable with some graphics intensive games, but I've never found it distracting.

stolenmerch• 3 years ago

Early models were loud, but they've released software updates to make it quieter and started switching out fans in later models I believe. I've had mine since July 2022 and don't notice the fans at all for mid to low power games. It kicks on for more processor intensive games but I personally don't find it distracting.

pibechorro• 3 years ago

Not bad. Also if you use headphones you wont even know they are on.

falcolas3• 3 years ago

Echoing what other folks have said. It's quiet enough that I've never really noticed it above the game sound.

stonemetal12• 3 years ago

I picked up one in mid January. By default the fans don't come on at all, you will smell plastic burning before you hear a fan. You can turn on the old fan profile which is much more aggressive about turning the fans on. The fans are quieter than my laptop, but noticeable.

RDaneel0livaw• 3 years ago

Not bad at all even when on full - if you have sound up or headphones on you won't even notice. The one thing that does bother me though about the fans is that sometimes they repeatedly go on/off in rapid succession over and over and over. I think whatever game is running must just be RIGHT at the thermal threshold so it keeps going under/over and triggering the fan to turn on and then shut off. I wish in these cases it would just switch on for good and stay on low rpms instead of all the on/off.

gardenhedge2• 3 years ago

Can you code on it?

sand500• 3 years ago

Just like you can on any other Linux computer and it even has a full desktop mode.

haunter2• 3 years ago

Yes. You exit the Steam mode and then you have the full access to the distro (Arch based) with KDE Plasma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxLB5khCmGo

But you can of course install your own distro or whatever you want. Windows is officially supported by driver, people also confirmed OpenBSD works too. It's pretty much a real computer not just a console.

jcpham22• 3 years ago

Yup always sneaking my kids and docking it. So far it works with an HP Elite and a Dell WD15 dock - just saying. 4k TV resolution pretty snappy too.

markatto2• 3 years ago

I have found that even 2D games (eg Hades) aren’t reasonable to run at 4K, but basic gui desktop with a terminal emulator works fine.

jcpham22• 3 years ago

Agreement with you about games I was speaking mostly of the linux desktop environment - I find it useful for work.

bluescrn• 3 years ago

1280x800 = About a million pixels

3840x2160 = About eight million pixels

People underestimate the performance cost of 4K. The step from 720p to 1080p was a mere doubling of pixel count, but going to 4K was another 4x increase.

The choice of a relatively low screen resolution is one of the main reasons that the deck can run modern games so well.

gabythenerd• 3 years ago

I hope they start distributing it to more countries at some point, I really want to get my hands on one.

For people with big steam libraries it's a no brainer, lately most games come with controller support out of the box, and for everything else the community patches it in.

blakesterz• 3 years ago

The Verge has follow up review that says it's pretty good too:

https://www.theverge.com/23513517/steam-deck-long-term-test-...

  Valve has spent nearly a year and over 100 updates showing that an early access game console can actually be worth money. Valve has finally succeeded in proving doubters wrong about Linux, creating a gadget that’s spent 35 weeks atop the Steam bestseller list and attracted support from Sony, Microsoft and more.

theropost• 3 years ago

Steam Deck is pretty nice, so much better than my Nintendo Switch. It's pretty great to see the iGPU getting love these days, more compact consoles would be great. The AMD 780M hopefully gets a chance at this as well.

weard_beard5• 3 years ago

My one big complaint is battery life. 2hrs for most games. Its a great at home device... but on the go and car trips are a hassle. There are battery extenders but they make an already chonky handheld into a 15lb brick.

mizzack2• 3 years ago

Part of the fun is tuning both in-game and Deck performance settings to squeeze out as much as possible. It's an art of tradeoffs.

Many less demanding games can run with a ~7w TDP limit at 60fps without a hitch at full detail. This yields massive battery life improvements.

For modern AAA games you'll probably have to frame cap 30-40fps and lower detail settings in-game.

Keyframe• 3 years ago

The other is weight and screen isn't as nice.

theshrike7911• 3 years ago

I wish I had over 2 hours of uninterrupted play time :D

falcolas3• 3 years ago

I will say that it's remarkably heavy for a portable system, and the OLED switch screen is far superior.

But they both have a place, side by side, below my TV.

Miraste2• 3 years ago

The software is better than the Switch, and the CPU/GPU is more capable. I'd say the design of the Switch is much better, though. My biggest frustration with the Deck is how huge it is, and second place goes to how poor the screen is vs OLED. Third goes to battery life :/

dcow6• 3 years ago

It’s more powerful than a Switch for sure, but they’re different hardware classes. For a handheld, the Switch is far more portable and has a much better screen and battery life.

That said, I don't get why Nintendo doesn't do a $500 Switch. I get that they’re about the gameplay and graphics come as an afterthought, but seriously their own launch title could not hit a consistent 30fps which is simply unacceptable. They cant keep using the gameplay excuse for being wildly out of touch with hardware reality.

phone86753092• 3 years ago

Why spend the money on R&D and retooling the production line when people will buy your Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games that aren't on any other platform? Most people aren't looking for occasional framedrops - they're there to play a game and have fun.

wilsonnb3• 3 years ago

They cant keep using the gameplay excuse for being wildly out of touch with hardware reality.

They can and they will because it works.

They’ve been printing money since adopting this philosophy with the Wii because they are right.

hakunin• 3 years ago

The key to its success I think is controls. I could never feel comfortable with portable gaming because controls always felt clunky for games I like. This thing treats controls as the centerpiece, allowing seamless sharing of layouts between players: just pick the most popular layout for any game. You can play freaking real time strategies on this thing fairly comfortably.

gpderetta3• 3 years ago

The two games I have played the most on my SD are Stellaris and Oxygen Not Included, which is kind of absurd!

goda902• 3 years ago

I did an entire Civ 6 game on Epic speed on my SD. I did find the touchpad uncomfortable to use with my large hands, so I 3D printed one of these[0] in PLA and it lets me more comfortably rest my thumb on the pad.

[0]https://www.printables.com/model/259733-steam-deck-grip-exte...

the_cramer3• 3 years ago

How do you play these? I tried ONI on steamdeck and it felt clunky compared to KBM...

goosedragons2• 3 years ago

I want a standalone controller with the full Steam Deck layout so bad. I'm amazed nobody has put out anything like it yet besides maybe the old discontinued Steam controller.

yesco• 3 years ago

The Steam Deck is an upgrade to the Steam Controller in my eyes; I own both but just never really liked using the Steam Controller the same way I do the Steam Deck for some reason. I guess the Steam Deck just feels more comfortable?

sylens• 3 years ago

Seconded. I hope they're working on one.

singularity2001• 3 years ago

are there any cases which turn ipads into steam decks, control wise?

arvindhmani• 3 years ago

And those trackpads! I was skeptical until I held mine and got to use them - they're a real joy to use.

bmer• 3 years ago

A lot of games I would want to play have UIs that I think would be extremely tiny on a 7 inch screen. Which makes me think: if they are "available on Steam Deck", they would be a pain to play?

Put differently: unless the game is purpose built from the start as something that works on a 7 inch screen, I am not sure it would be a good idea to play it on a Steam Deck?

weard_beard5• 3 years ago

I would disagree here. Elite Dangerous is a very UI and text menu heavy game. I fully expected to pop it open and nope out with it being unusable and not optimized for the steam deck experience.

300 hours of gameplay with the only frustration being I have to hit "Steam + X" to manually pop open the text editor from time to time says its possible to even play some decade old games.

baggsie• 3 years ago

I occasionally play elite on my phone (with GeForce now) with no problems.

ZeroGravitas• 3 years ago

The closeness of a handheld device makes up for screen size. Try holding up your phone and comparing it with your main Television. It's a lot closer than the raw dimensions would suggest.

htag• 3 years ago

1. It's possible to dock the Steam Deck and use a mouse and keyboard. The specs make a strong case for itself as a gaming PC at it's price point.

2. While not every game is suitable for the Steam Deck, almost every game that was designed to run well on a gaming console will control well on the steam deck, if it's compatible on a software level.

mizzack2• 3 years ago

A lot (most?) games work but will have Deck caveats labeled (on the Steam store product page in the right column there is a "Steam Deck Compatibility" area with details.

Also, the input mapping is fantastic. It's a little cumbersome but the touchpads work for mouse input and the additional L/R 4 and 5 buttons on the back help.

duffyjp• 3 years ago

I guess you could try running your games at 800p on your current system and see what it's like. I actually do a lot of gaming at 1280x800 on an old Macbook. I'm using Parsec to connect to an Optiplex with a 1050ti in the basement.

Timberborn is a favorite of mine and even with tons going on it's a good experience at 800p. I think the Steamdeck is right around 1050/1050ti performance too and that's better than you'd think at 800p. I'm currently playing Doom 2016 at Ultra and the card can pump 110FPS+ (though I'm limited to 60 on the laptop).

thom• 3 years ago

It's possible for this to be an issue. I've been lucky that so far everything I've wanted has been legible, or even better configurable for different resolutions or scaling factors. In some cases I have found the touch screen to be useful over trying to hit tiny UI widgets.

Honestly, every game that's not certified that I've tried to play, I have been able to craft a control system that feels very nice. The sheer number of buttons helps.

izacus7• 3 years ago

Steam has Steam Deck ratings for games that evaluates that. In general, games that a are fully verified have good fonts even on 7" screen [1].

The games that don't, will show yellow "Playable" rating with a notice that fonts might be small and will need magnification. [2]

[1] https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified

[2] https://i.redd.it/y7iramksmij81.jpg

Fire-Dragon-DoL• 3 years ago

Some games are difficult. Depending on the ui elements though, you could work around them. If the problem is small text, there is little you can do, but with steam controls you can create custom uis for input, which makes some unplayable games very playable.

traverseda• 3 years ago

TV scale large UI elements and tiny screen large UI elements are actually pretty similar. If your game supports being played on a tv at couch difference it probably will work on a small screen as well. Most games support TV scale UIs so it's not a problem.

99% of the time it's not a problem. When it is a problem you can bind a screen magnifier to a key. I still wouldn't want to play some games on it, games that require extensive typing (duskers is a game about piloting drones through a command line, wouldn't want to play that without a bluetooth keyboard), but for the most part it's fine. Most games, even text heavy ones, have big old fonts and large UI elements.

elpocko2• 3 years ago

I purchased one recently. After one day of frustration trying to get at least one of my favorite games to work, I sent it back for a refund.

It's a great piece of hardware that still needs a lot of work in the software department. It's not ready. Not even the on-screen keyboard works properly; the final straw for me was when I was locked into the fullscreen main menus of several games with no way out (no mouse, no keyboard, no game controller, nothing), other than holding down the power button.

Look around the internet, you'll find many reviews that say the same things about the device. Don't buy this thing yet if you have a low frustration threshold. Don't listen to the fanbois.

vlowrian• 3 years ago

As a reference point to others: I have a massive Steam library (>300 games) and every game marked as "Verified for Steam Deck" (~20%) worked out of the box. I also played many games marked as "Playable" (e.g. Fallout New Vegas) which also worked perfectly without any specific configuration.

I also had no issues with stability and the Steam Button was a reliable way to get me out of the game whenever I misconfigured something or started a game with "unknown" ranking, which actually didn't work.

neonsunset• 3 years ago

It is more than ready, but it assumes some baseline skills to get the most out of it. It has awesome controls and its on-screen keyboard is alright, it is a game console after all.

In fact, Valve did an awesome job making it extremely usable and pushing so much performance out of such a platform.

jeroenhd2• 3 years ago

Valve wisely filters out unsupported games by default, at least today, because compatibility can definitely be a challenge.

When you get stuck in a crashed game, you can use shortcuts to quit it (hold Steam + B). This likely won't work in desktop mode, but you can configure KDE to do whatever you want if you run into trouble.

There are definitely UI issues to be fixed but if you stick to the normal, supported games and menus, the Deck itself is entirely on par with other consoles in my opinion.

The miserable state in which game publishers release their games on PC is a whole different can of worms that proves that companies expect quite a bit of tolerance of PC gamers.

goda902• 3 years ago

What games were you trying? Valve is very open about what works out of the box, and it does work for those things. If you wish to push it beyond that, you can usually get it quite far, but sometimes it requires tinkering.

blizdiddy• 3 years ago

That was my experience as well. I was sticking to "verified" games (Crypt of the Necrodancer) and controls worked in the game's menu but not the game... using the developers official steam deck controller configuration. I updated the deck, redownloaded the game, same thing. I was holding a nearly $700 piece of hardware failing its first task and it was more tedious than gaming on my linux desktop because I had to troubleshoot with a controller instead of mouse and keyboard.

I am sure it could have worked with more tinkering, but I wanted to play games, not tinker. Truth is, the fanboys like to tinker, they like to balance trade offs and do performance tweaks. I wasn't looking for that at all.

Every time I've mentioned this I hear from fanboys how theirs just works, but the steam forums filled with people dropping into the terminal and editing files leaves me skeptical.

Ended up getting a return and buying a Logitech G Cloud that I love dearly and play every day.

elpocko2• 3 years ago

I would have loved to tinker with my Steam Deck; it just wouldn't let me.

Most of the time I was staring at some game menu, trying to figure out how to get out of there because none of the buttons/combos did anything. Skyrim wouldn't let me create a character - Steam+X(?) for the onscreen keyboard did not work. It also wouldn't let me quit while it waited for me to type a character name and required a power cycle.

dicroce• 3 years ago

You have had the exact opposite experience of me. Everything I have wanted to work has worked.

edude03• 3 years ago

Don't buy this thing yet if you have a low frustration threshold. Don't listen to the fanbois.

I'm sorry to hear your first experience with the steamdeck was so poor (I don't work for valve, I'm just Canadian)

While I believe you, I'm confused how you ended up in that state - valve has a list of games that work perfectly (according to them, I obviously haven't verified them) and then games that may work with some tinkering.

I can only imagine you tried games that were marked as not working (requiring tinkering) and if you have a low frustration tolerance (totally fair) it doesn't make sense why you'd try those games then conclude the device isn't ready?

I have a steamdeck, not a fanboy (in fact I want to sell it because I don't like how big it is) I also have a low frustration tolerance for gaming (I just want to play for a few minutes after work) and yet, I haven't managed to become frustrated with it yet. Where does our experiences differ?

lenlorijn• 3 years ago

I've only had this experience with one game that was marked as not supported at all (Batman: Arkham Asylum). After first setting a different version of Proton for the game as per internet instructions I could not get past the startup menu at all. I tried all the buttons and got quite frustrated that I had to quit the game with the available shortcuts every time.

Then I found out I could just click next on the touch screen :')

I haven't had any issues with games since. Lost of games, even some marked as not playable, ended up working fine.

phendrenad2• 3 years ago

Yeah it seems kind of janky overall.

birracerveza2• 3 years ago

Best money I spent on any device, hands down

ojbyrne2• 3 years ago

One minor but glaring thing for me is it’s really challenging to connect to any Wi-Fi (hotel, airplane) that requires accessing a webpage to acknowledge T & Cs. This seems like a core use case.

jeroenhd2• 3 years ago

I was in a situation where my WiFi hotspot died and I couldn't launch any new games because I didn't have internet. The offline mode button didn't work because... I didn't have internet.

That's an inexcusable problem for a device supposedly designed to be used on the go. I can live with (and grumble at) not being able to get into hotel WiFi without switching to desktop mode (which in itself is an amazing feature on a console-like) but there are still bad problems that need fixing.

Luckily, the Deck team is still pushing out patches, fixes, and features quite quickly so I have faith these problems will be resolved in the future. Competing manufacturers seem to slow down their update cycle significantly once a device has hit the market but Valve is doing well.

flatiron• 3 years ago

switch to desktop mode, connect to wifi, kde should either give you a pop-up or you can just agree to the T&C from a browser. you can even setup the browser to launch directly from game mode, i never did this though so can't walk you through.

ojbyrne2• 3 years ago

When I did that, KDE did not give me a popup, and also there's no browser installed. Had to install Firefox over a phone hotspot. Not a great experience.

theshrike7911• 3 years ago

Works for me, just last Wednesday I logged in to a guest wifi while waiting my kid to come from her hobby.

It just popped up a web ui window where I could click the silly accept button and everything started working.

evo_92• 3 years ago

I've been blown away by my Steam Deck. It arrived about 5 days before my long sought after PS5 and basically the PS5 has sat collecting dust. I pre-ordered the Deck thinking I'd sell or trade it for the PS5, that was basically my interest in the device.

But after a few days it was clear this was something special. Why? For me it's my 'forever console'. Access to my full Steam Library was one thing, but having basically every retro console at my disposal is unreal. Just last night I played a game of M.U.L.E. and StarRaiders on my Atari800 emulator. That was after a couple of rounds of MarioKart on SNES, then Pilot Wings on 64 and then some Resident Evil 4 on GameCube.

I also love that so many older PC games just work on it. I recently replayed the entire Mass Effect Trilogy on it (absolutely the best experience playing that game, something about the controls, the screen and it on my lap was just too fun). Ditto on Dark Souls 1 and 2 which I also just replayed (and yes Eldin Ring runs unreal on it, somehow).

The only real surprise is that Dead Space doesn't run on it, I have a hutch they'll get it sorted out (sorta like they did working with FromSoftware on Eldin Ring).

Lastly, the other major advantage for me is the ability to return games. This is an unheralded Steam feature that's a really great. I buy games I wouldn't even consider on PS-whatever/Xbox because you're screwed if you don't like it. Hell my 2 year old son managed to buy the new COD on PS5 by mashing the controller unsupervised for a few minutes and there is no way to return it, at least not easily; I tried for about 20 minutes before giving up.

Long/short - SteamDeck is something special, it plays a ton of modern games flawlessly including Eldin Ring, and is a retro-gaming dream-machine, plus Steam has a great library and the ability to return games after trying them is the final cherry on-top.

PS: Anyone want to buy a PS5?

baq3• 3 years ago

One word: Bayonetta

grogenaut• 3 years ago

What about it? That you can play it on there via emulator or that you can't because it's not officially available?

robotnikman• 3 years ago

Same! Just finished Bayonetta recently as well

darkxanthos• 3 years ago

My friend has been playing Dead Space on it for the last few days and has been quite happy. I think they released a patch recently. Give it another go if you’re interested!

evo_92• 3 years ago

Oh nice! And thank you, I actually meant to take a look every week at the Steam page, and you're right, they have added the Steam Deck compatible box, and it's been tested / verified now. Amazing.

izacus7• 3 years ago

The only real surprise is that Dead Space doesn't run on it, I have a hutch they'll get it sorted out (sorta like they did working with FromSoftware on Eldin Ring).

And you're right because the 31st Jan Proton update fixed Dead Space and now it runs on Deck as Verified :)

rpigab• 3 years ago

My opinion is the same as yours, plus recently I've installed some Flash games becasue I'm nostalgic, one way to do it and play games in deck mode is this link [1], but you can also just run "flashplayer.exe --some-options game.swf" with Proton and it'll work too. I love good flash games like Sonny 2 and I know Flash has security issues and had to be killed, but I'll never let it go, I'll always have to run it somewhere for retrogaming.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/ytgisk/guide_fla...

becquerel• 3 years ago

Just so you know, there's a Linux-native Flash emulator named Ruffle you might want to try. It's worked pretty well with the things I've tried so far, and it's one less layer of emulation.

https://ruffle.rs/#downloads

andrepd• 3 years ago

Flashpoint is a preservation project for Flash games (and many more: Java, Silverlight, etc). It's honestly mind-blowing: https://unstable.life/flashpoint-database/search/

passwd• 3 years ago

Note, in AUR there's a Flash Player standalone package - flashplayer-standalone I believe. You can use it very similarly, just without a need for proton.

DanCarvajal• 3 years ago

My PS5 is now just a Blu-ray player since I got my SteamDeck.

addisonl• 3 years ago

Agree with your comment, but this is not accurate:

Lastly, the other major advantage for me is the ability to return games. This is an unheralded Steam feature that's a really great. I buy games I wouldn't even consider on PS-whatever/Xbox because you're screwed if you don't like it

You can return games on Xbox, had better outcomes with Xbox returns than with Steam returns.

Derbasti• 3 years ago

Same here. My gaming PC has not seen any use whatsoever (for gaming) since I got the Deck.

The form factor is actually perfect for pre-HD games that were built for small CRT TVs.

I am now rediscovering kid-friendly platformers with my little daughter. It's truly wonderful! (And we were even able to extricate our Stardew Valley save game from the Switch, to continue our journey on the Deck).

It is a wonderful little device!

dkonofalski4• 3 years ago

This is exactly it. As someone who also has a PS5, I've just stopped playing it. Now that Sony is doing their games on PC too, I'm totally fine waiting for their release so I can play on the Deck and on my PC too. I also get to catch up on all the old Steam games that I bought and could never properly get into because of the logistics of being at a PC. On top of that, when the new PS6 comes out eventually, I won't have to be pissed off, yet again, that my old games don't work on it and I have to re-buy them.

flanbiscuit• 3 years ago

I don't own a Steam Deck. I sold my PS4 and I own a Switch.

The one thing that makes me want to get a PS5 is I really do like the PS exclusives[1] like Uncharted, The Last of Us (part 1 now coming to windows though), Horizon Zero Dawn, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian, etc etc.. And it gets enough of the cross-platform AAA games as well that I feel like I have enough of a selection to make it worth it.

I am super interested in the Steam Deck as well though. I know you can hook it up to a TV and play with a controller, I wonder if anyone here uses it that way. While I like the ability to hold and play anywhere, my ultimate preference is sitting on a couch and playing on a TV (most comfortable) and I would most likely try to use it that way

1. https://store.playstation.com/en-us/category/5bb9a9b4-f9f4-4...

theshrike7911• 3 years ago

Uncharted is on Steam and Deck verified: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1659420/UNCHARTED_Legacy_...

HZD is on Steam and Deck Verified: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151640/Horizon_Zero_Dawn...

You can emulate Shadow of the Colossus on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFxnGZ3suV0

It really is the ultimate gaming machine :D

toastercat• 3 years ago

PS: Anyone want to buy a PS5?

I might actually! E-mail me.

mbrochh• 3 years ago

I'm the exact opposite. I got the deck, had a honeymoon period of maybe five days, then I went back to the PS5.

The deck is heavier than the Switch, louder than the Switch (which makes no sound at all), gets hotter than the Switch (which doesn't get hot at all), has a screen that is inferior to the new one on the OLED Switch, and has the buttons in such an awkward position that I get cramps in my hand after half an hour of playing.

BUT YOU CAN PLAY ELDEN RING, you would say now. Yeah nah. All those AAA titles run like ass and/or look like ass on the deck. It's just not a feasible device for anything. For high-end titles, the PS5 wins out always. For indie titles, the Switch wins out, always.

I guess it's a really cool device for hackers who just want to mess around, though.

LocutusOfBorges• 3 years ago

and has the buttons in such an awkward position that I get cramps in my hand after half an hour of playing.

Seconding the ergonomics point - between the weight of the thing and the awkwardness of the buttons/trackpads, it’s easily the most uncomfortable system I’ve ever used. I get hand cramps every time I use mine for any significant amount of time - when I’m playing it in bed, I’ve even got to the point of using an external controller with it to reduce the level of discomfort involved.

I hope that the next major version of the hardware will aim for a lighter/sleeker design. The current model feels like gripping a brick for hours at a time.

soiler5• 3 years ago

buttons in such an awkward position that I get cramps in my hand after half an hour of playing

That is a downside of every console/controller, though, because people have different hands. For me, the Switch is painful to hold for more than a half-hour or so because the joycons are so small. So personally I enjoy the Deck, even though it's heavy, but I recognize that it was clearly made for someone with my body type.

All those AAA titles run like ass and/or look like ass on the deck.

Second this, though. I thought I'd finally finish Sekiro on the train when I got the deck, but the screen is too small for my old man eyes; it was not a good experience.

shagie• 3 years ago

One of the interesting things with the steam deck, as a frequent Mac gammer, is that you can stream from it to the Mac.

This opens up "Ok, I can play Steam deck games" on the Mac and the forgotten games that haven't followed with the updates needed for Catalina.

frostiness2• 3 years ago

I don't even own a Steam Deck and I've been seeing the benefits just from its existence. Now, almost every game on Steam has a quick accessible rating that lets me know if it works fine on Linux. This has led to me being able to buy games confidently that I never would have otherwise. In addition, the effectiveness of Proton for running Windows games is baffling, and something I never could have expected when I first switched to Linux back in 2015.

Back when Steam Machines first came out, the expectation was that there would be a new push to get games working on Linux, which unfortunately didn't end up happening as strongly as expected. However, with how much of a success the Steam Deck was, it seems that the rush to get games ported to Linux actually is happening. I'm excited for the future.

baq3• 3 years ago

Winapi is the stable Linux ABI we’ve been waiting for the whole time. Windows binaries are more cross-distribution-portable than native builds.

The irony.

deelowe• 3 years ago

I think this is the more likely end state. Instead of builds targeting certain platforms, some amalgamation of windows APIs and perhaps vulcan or other special things sprinkled in will become a sort of standard. From there, Linux compatibility will be brought up to the same level as Windows and perhaps other platforms will follow suit. We've seen this pattern time and time again in software.

viraptor2• 3 years ago

That's missing what ABI is and what features can/can't be accessed by the app. Otherwise we'd call nes ROMs an even more stable ABI accessible across all modern systems.

DanHulton• 3 years ago

Windows 10 hits EOL in 2025. I'm really hoping I can just completely convert my gaming PC to a Linux machine by that time, because Windows 11 started out rough and has become less appealing over time.

The Steam Deck is absolutely building that future, and I, too, am excited.

eloisant2• 3 years ago

It seems like Windows is alternating "shit" and "decent" versions.

- Vista: shit

- 7: decent

- 8: shit

- 10: decent

brian_herman• 3 years ago

I've tried upgrading my gaming computer to windows 11 with a fresh install and upgrade both of them fail and I don't know why.

MisterTea2• 3 years ago

I just decommissioned my 2011 Windows 7 machine where I did most of my dev work and all of my casual computing such as web stuff and gaming. It ran all of the software I needed plus the Steam games I enjoyed. I had no technical reason to "upgrade" in all that time. In its place now is a kooky Linux machine.

The replacement started off as a toy turned experiment: a 12 core Gen 1 Threadripper with 64GB ECC and a Radeon Pro W5700. I wound up installed Void Linux Musl with XFCE mostly to see how useful a system-d/glibc free Linux machine can be. Turns out very useful if you install bloated Windows-style "applications" like Steam, Discord, Chrome, LibreOffice, etc using Flatpak. You can also setup a glibc chroot if need be but I have not ran into this need yet.

I can watch Hulu and other streaming services just fine in Chrome (haven't tried FF). I can play older AAA games you would never imagine running on Linux such as GTA5 and Skyrim with ZERO configuration other than checking "run this game using proton". However I have yet to get Crysis running :-( Anything I can't get running with Wine I can toss into a VM. And I can run lots of VM's :-)

And if you really miss Windows or want some familiarity back - XFCE + Chicago95 ;-)

acomjean2• 3 years ago

I have a steam deck and twice after playing a game its asked me how well it worked on the deck. So its great they're collecting that data.

When I used my linux laptop for gaming there is a good online database of compatibility:

https://www.protondb.com/

mmis1000• 3 years ago

Even better, you can get the decky-loader and proton-badges plugin. It can show the protondb rating directly on the game mode ui. Allows you to know will a game(or a program) even run even it is not rated as steamdeck compatible yet.

deckard1• 3 years ago

almost every game on Steam has a quick accessible rating that lets me know if it works fine on Linux

Sure, it's more convenient that Valve runs Steam and can put the rating right there. But let's give WineHQ a bit of credit here. They have a database going back more than a decade now, telling you how games run on Linux.

The effects of Valve getting into Linux gaming are definitely noticeable. But the Wine team deserves a boatload of praise too. I was playing World of Warcraft back in 2007 and it was a flawless experience.

rush to get games ported to Linux actually is happening

I'm not really sure about this. By having Proton/Wine at such a high quality, most devs are just going to target Windows. Because why bother? They will probably ensure their games run good under Wine and that's where it ends. Nowadays I'm totally okay with that. Lutris is great, Wine is actually easy to use. It's the best time to be a Linux gamer.

badsectoracula• 3 years ago

let's give WineHQ a bit of credit here [..] But the Wine team deserves a boatload of praise too.

The Wine team deserves a ton of praise that IMO is often directed to Proton BUT WineHQ has always been a useless experience for me. It needs a massive cleanup since it contains data from ancient versions of Wine, there is barely enough information to figure out what is going on and the whole "bronze, silver, gold, etc" rating is completely subjective with people rating something "bronze" because a pixel is off in some application and something "gold" despite being unable to use some major functionality.

Sadly ProtonDB seems to be going the same way, the main saving grace right now is that it doesn't have all the baggage accumulated over decades (and it is focused on games - Wine still has to get all Win32 APIs for UIs, etc working for regular applications that Proton doesn't have to care beyond whatever little functionality is used for launchers) but still has the whole subjective thing (a favorite case of mine is Rage[0] which has lots of comment about broken textures etc with others saying that the game works fine - and it takes some searching to figure out that the people who are fine have Nvidia GPUs while the people with issues have AMD GPUs - while in a few cases, people recommend the game while at the same time mentioning the textures are broken!).

[0] https://www.protondb.com/app/9200

dataangel2• 3 years ago

But let's give WineHQ a bit of credit here. They have a database going back more than a decade now, telling you how games run on Linux.

But it so often was wrong :P I tried to use wine a lot between 2007 and 2010 and constantly ran into apps that were supposed to work no longer working, because regressions happened a lot. When you play a game on steam deck and exit it periodically asks you, "This game is marked Steam Deck Verified. Is that consistent with your experience?" and they really keep tabs on it.

kaba02• 3 years ago

I'm not really sure about this. By having Proton/Wine at such a high quality, most devs are just going to target Windows

insert win32 is the only stable linux API blogpost

tomnipotent• 3 years ago

But the Wine team deserves a boatload of praise too

About 2/3 of Wine commits are from CodeWeavers, so praising the Steam team (CodeWeavers) is praising the Wine team.

frostiness2• 3 years ago

If you look at the list of top sellers, new arrivals, upcoming games, and games on sale, most if not all of them have native Linux support, which is something you absolutely could not have said just a few years ago. In my experience, at this point bad Linux ports are more of an issue than a lack of them.

I agree though honestly, if Proton works fine and the game runs under it, I'd much rather have that than a bad native Linux port. Plus, I have a lot more trust in Proton to keep things compatible than Windows.

red-iron-pine3• 3 years ago

I don't even own a Steam Deck and I've been seeing the benefits just from its existence. Now, almost every game on Steam has a quick accessible rating that lets me know if it works fine on Linux.

WineDB did this for years, as does ProtonDB now. And both usually have tweaks and how-tos. But I'll concede its nice to see it in Steam itself.

12345hn6789• 3 years ago

Proton was around for years before the steam deck was announced. Linux gaming was already thriving

delusional• 3 years ago

Wine was also quite capable before proton came about. Valve obviously did a lot for the linux gamers, that much is clear, but we must not forget the volunteers (and codeweavers) that worked tirelessly for years to get wine to that point. Wine is a tremendous achievement.

TMWNN• 3 years ago

In addition, the effectiveness of Proton for running Windows games is baffling, and something I never could have expected when I first switched to Linux back in 2015.

Is it true that Windows games run better on Proton than on Windows?

AnIdiotOnTheNet2• 3 years ago

I'm waiting patiently for them to officially release SteamOS 3 for general consumption so I can try it out as an alternative to Fedora Kinoite. I have a feeling that if the Steam Deck and its clones become really popular then it is entirely possible SteamOS 3 will finally replace the rapidly declining Ubuntu as the default Desktop Linux Distro recommendation. Having that experience be immutable base OS + FlatPak + KDE would be huge improvement in my opinion.

suby• 3 years ago

The immutable nature of it might hinder adoption. I'm sure after enough time and resources are invested into immutable desktop bases it'll be fine, I'm just skeptical that it's ready at the moment.

nouveaux• 3 years ago

The steam deck has allowed me to play so much more of my steam library. The sleep feature and portability opens up so many more games. I can now play big, open world games 15-30 min at a time instead of watching a random youtube video or show.

netcraft• 3 years ago

I feel the same way - what open world games have you been enjoying?

theshrike7911• 3 years ago

Mad Max is a bit of a hidden gem, it got released at the same time as some other big game IIRC and people just skipped it.

quectophoton• 3 years ago

I got one Steam Deck and it really has brought back motivation to learn GUI programming (SDL2). It is already a very nice, portable(-ish), easily hackable device (normal linux programs!), with nice physical controls and a screen[1].

Last time I was this motivated was when I learned you could program for a PSP with just C code (only to learn that PSP have been discontinued by then, and quickly losing motivation shortly after).

It is a good device as it is, but for me the cherry on top would be a NanoSIM slot; I would pay extra for one with a NanoSIM slot, just to be able to connect to internet without requiring an existing wifi network.

But I understand it's kinda out-of-scope for a gaming device.

[1] I mention screen here because, for my use case, now I don't have to buy a screen for my RPI, and can instead mess around with the Steam Deck.

birracerveza2• 3 years ago

Just use your smartphone as a hotspot. It's trivial with Android.

rimunroe• 3 years ago

And on iOS as well!

izacus7• 3 years ago

I love the philosophy of steam deck: by default, it's an Switch-like device that hides all the non-fully compatible games in store, has good UI and makes sure everything "just works".

But where it differs from pretty much any other modern software product is that it trusts you as a user - you can install games that aren't verified. It'll tell you why they're not verified (small text, no controller support) but it'll let you install them anyway. And then map touchpads and controllers to emulate keyboard and mouse if you want. You can install games that aren't from Steam store. You can go do desktop mode. It doesn't judge. It will give you good experience by default and then let YOU judge if you want to stray away from it.

It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build - a device that is joy to use by default while still respecting your wishes as a user.

Thev00d00• 3 years ago

"it trusts you as a user" is really great way of putting it.

tomatotomato37• 3 years ago

Not to mention it's one of the few modern platforms that allows modding up to code injection, memory manipulation, and mod managers that'll gleefully pull code from the four corners of the internet. You know, the things that every other platform heavily locks down over the fears hackers will steal grandma's cookie recipe and not because it allows the selling of 14 different microtransactions for something your average modder could put together in a day.

ateng• 3 years ago

Despite the negative dismissal (which gets rightly downvoted), I think there’s a good point here - your phone probably needs to have stronger security requirement than your gaming device?

worble• 3 years ago

100% agree, it's so refreshing to finally get a device that does it's best to be both a great out of the box experience but also respectful the user, reminds me of the olden days of computing, despite what gnome and apple proclaiming such a goal is impossible.

It's also kind of sad this only really exists because Valve are wholly independent and have "fuck you" levels of money.

guhidalg• 3 years ago

Another view point: if you want to compete in the big leagues, you need to have "fuck you" levels of money. You can be happy building indie games for desktops as a career, but if you want to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Meta then you need to take out your checkbook and write lots of zeros. So stop trying to compete with them if you don't have the capital! Build great games that aren't AAA-style FPS, BR, Minecraft/CoD/Halo clones.

moojacob• 3 years ago

despite what gnome and apple proclaiming such a goal is impossible.

GNOME? The great out the box experience... that also allows power users to deeply customize it? It is dishonest to lap GNOME (extremely popular free software) in with Apple (king of proprietary software).

scns2• 3 years ago

Since being a pessimst turned optimist (by years of working) i'd replace "sad this only really" with "great this". Sorry for being obnoxiously posive.

phone86753092• 3 years ago

trusts you as a user

Better - it treats you like an owner (which you are).

ramesh315• 3 years ago

God bless Valve for making a viable linux mobile OS that isn't Android. What's to stop them from making a phone at this point? One can dream.

LeFantome• 3 years ago

I imagine the biggest obstacle is that it has nothing to do with their business. If they are well run, it seems unlikely.

dageshi2• 3 years ago

The same reason that stopped everyone else that tried, the mobile os market is mature and not enough people want or care about another mobile os to make it worth the effort.

NovemberWhiskey3• 3 years ago

I see where you are coming from here; but aren't the stakes a bit different here?

A games console is for games. Although there are probably some tiny fraction of people who have installed other apps on there, the overwhelmingly vast majority of people are just going to use it for games.

A smartphone is likely to have address books, email, your photos, maybe sync with your e-health devices, banking applications ... from my point of view, it's an entirely different risk profile.

flohofwoe2• 3 years ago

There must be a way by now to stash this critical stuff away safely in one half of the phone, while the other half runs all the untrusted stuff. If there would be a will (by Apple) there would be a way.

izacus7• 3 years ago

A smartphone does nothing what a desktop computer (with ubiquitous root access) doesn't and apocalypse still hasn't happened.

Your literal argument was used for game consoles as well (Oh egads, what will happen if we allow freedom to infest our DRM protected systems?!) until Valve proved everyone wrong.

Maybe instead of spewing the same corporate profiteering arguments here, perhaps think on how we could design our software for freedom AND security and whether defending megacorp monopolies is worth the small improvement in security you're getting in return?

acer589• 3 years ago

To be fair, this is not an Apple level device. 2.5 hr battery life is hilariously bad.

ww-picard-do• 3 years ago

What is the battery life of Apple's gaming device?

five82• 3 years ago

At least you have plenty of options to conserve battery. capping framerate at 30 or 40 fps, FSR, configurable TDP limits, underclocking the GPU.

striking• 3 years ago

That's for newer AAA games. Games with simpler or more optimized graphics, especially those running in emulators, tend to do really really well.

I ended up buying one of those Anker laptop USB PD chargers, and they can recharge the Deck twice over, so I could actually spend nearly 8 hours fully utilizing the Deck's power without being tethered at all.

TulliusCicero4• 3 years ago

How long does the iPhone battery last when playing games with high level 3D graphics?

Good mobile battery life with 'intense' graphics is an unsolved problem, Apple is not immune here.

TeddyDD• 3 years ago

From 1.5h to ~6h depending on the game. I'd love to see a bigger battery in the next version, though.

smrq• 3 years ago

What does battery life have to do with Apple's walled garden?

Melatonic4• 3 years ago

Honestly I hate to say it but I think the Switch was actually the big advance. It does not run PC games but it does run a fairly standard OS ( I believe a flavor of android ) and the old Nvidia processor from the Shield.

I guess what I am saying is it is sort of like the Steam Deck but based on a tablet instead - and can pretty easily be hacked into a tablet instead. The Steam Deck is much more locked down but they MUST have been hugely inspired by the success of the Switch when making the Steam Deck.

Personally I think I am excited for when we might get something a bit more of a hybrid of the two - if ARM does indeed take off on Windows and Linux more then we may end up with a device that can sometimes take a full ARM stack with all of its power advantages and then also run standard older OS processes as well.

monocasa2• 3 years ago

It does not run PC games but it does run a fairly standard OS ( I believe a flavor of android )

No, it's a totally custom OS. Custom kernel, custom user space. They run the BSD network stack off on the side, but so did Windows up until Vista.

wbear• 3 years ago

This Steam Deck is much less locked down. It's an x86 PC.

moralestapia• 3 years ago

It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build ...

Yes, but we all know that's a 320B dollar (so far) lie.

anaganisk2• 3 years ago

Apple fans, if Im being honest, apple fans do know that Android exists. No one who understands tech claims it's impossible. Its just not what they want. They dont want to deal with the baggage it comes with. Saying this as an Apple user in the past now switched to Android for more flexibility, but feeling not worth it and going back to Apple after USB-C integration.

TulliusCicero4• 3 years ago

Nah, Apple fans aren't explicitly against sideloading, by and large, they just accept its lack because they care more about the positive features Apple devices have.

ok_dad• 3 years ago

It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build - a device that is joy to use by default while still respecting your wishes as a user.

I never knew I wanted a Valve phone and tablet, but now I do.

j1elo• 3 years ago

it trusts you as a user - you can install games that aren't verified.

It goes much further than that! It allows you to install arbitrary software so one can even set the Heroic launcher up [0] and play your games that happened to be bought in other platforms!

[0] https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

Forgeties79• 3 years ago

The desktop/Steam OS split was particularly smart. You can have a wonderful, catered, safe experience and never leave Steam OS. Or you can go into the desktop and open up a world of emulators and more.

dkonofalski4• 3 years ago

I was with you right up until the end... I have a Steam Deck and it's absolutely incredible. Support, though, even for the verified games and with nothing modified, is hardly at the level that it is for Apple products and actually using it is nothing like using an Apple product.

As soon as someone has an issue with something that's not officially supported by the OS, Steam/Valve is not going to help them. There's a reason why it's impossible to build something like this for Apple. They don't want any devices that they can't support until they're past their life cycle.

balls1873• 3 years ago

Steam Deck's UI is personal preference.

There is an annoying bug that if you play a game using a bluetooth controller, put the steamdeck to sleep, then resume later, controller support is dropped in-game. This basically makes the sleep feature useless.

My wish as a user is that it behaves at least as well as last-gen consoles do. I had no problem putting my PS4 / Switch games to sleep and pick them back up later.

The true magic (imho) is the compatibility layer allowing the hardware to run a large swath of PC/Windows games.

wildrhythms• 3 years ago

There is an annoying bug that if you play a game using a bluetooth controller, put the steamdeck to sleep, then resume later, controller support is dropped in-game. This basically makes the sleep feature useless.

Does this happen when the game is launched thru Steam? Or when the game is launched outside of Steam? Because I assumed the Steam controller/gamepad translation layer could handle that.

noam_compsci• 3 years ago

Damn this is so true. Might get one just to experience it.

Eric_WVGG• 3 years ago

Is that not exactly how MacOS works?

autoexec4• 3 years ago

It looks like a good device, but I wonder about how much data collection is going on.

A look at their privacy policy by Mozilla was something of a mixed review. (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/steam-d...). They said the policy didn't raise any huge privacy concerns, but that the policy was vague, Valve was unresponsive to questions ("We emailed Valve three times with our privacy and security questions and haven’t heard back from them"), and that ultimately Valve reserves the right to collect and share (read sell) "anonymous" data, aggregated or not, with third parties.

I expect them to track what games you play and when, but what about desktop mode? If you run applications or browse the web how much of that activity is collected by Valve? Anti-cheat software works with the steam deck and that too is often highly invasive recording files on your system or other running processes.

The device also comes with two internal microphones, and I'd probably want to remove them (hopefully that's as easy as it is for PS5 controllers) and has bluetooth which is hopefully easily disabled while traveling.

Jhsto• 3 years ago

Do notice that you can also install your own OS.

jolmg• 3 years ago

The main concern raised by that review seems not to be from data collection by them:

Valve does say they can process anonymous data and they may share anonymous data, aggregated or not, with third parties. This is a fairly common practice and doesn’t worry us too much.

But rather that they don't make sure they're providing an ecosystem that, to their standards, protects the user from data collection by others:

Here’s the bad news about the Steam Deck though. We can’t confirm it meets our Minimum Security Standards because we can’t confirm it uses encryption or if Valve has a way to manage security vulnerabilities.

If that's a concern, it would likewise be on any computer, I would imagine. I mean isn't the Steam Deck basically a regular e.g. desktop computer turned handheld? It's not an issue specifically about the Steam Deck unless you compare it to more closed platforms like the Switch instead of other regular computers.

And the user does have the option to harden the system, like they can any computer:

There is a lot written out there on the internet about how to set up encryption on the Linux-based SteamOS yourself. However, we don’t think that users should have to go through that to protect their data.

Like they say, it's a matter of lacking convenience to not have that level of hardening by default.

But again, why is this an issue here, when most people using Steam from their desktop computers probably don't use encryption either.

somat• 3 years ago

A privacy policy does not mean anything. It is not a contract between you and the company, it is not a service level agreement, there is no penalty if it is violated. At worst you may have a violation of some sort of truth in advertising law if the company does not follow it's privacy policy.

At the end of the day it comes down to what the company actually does vs what they say they do.

nailer• 3 years ago

I love the philosophy of steam deck: by default, it's an Switch-like device that hides all the non-fully compatible games in store

As a former Steam Controller user: thank fucking god. The Steam Controller was never supported properly by Valve - games would be featured on the Steam store without compatibility with the Steam Controller, and after 20 minutes of trying different community configs for a new game, you'd get something good but the on-screen prompts would always be wrong.

PRESS X NOW

When you need to press right shoulder or whatever. Yes Steam Controller was revolutionary, but it took the simplicity of console gamepads and added the fun of debugging a broken windows install.

musicale2• 3 years ago

It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build - a device that is joy to use by default while still respecting your wishes as a user.

I can't speak for Apple's fans, but as I understand it some of Apple's main user experience reasons for a walled garden were things like better power efficiency (encouraging native apps vs. battery-draining PWAs), better protection from malicious software and user error (e.g. apps can have their keys revoked, users can't mess with drivers or OS files, etc.), and the ability to enforce app privacy requirements (including non-technical requirements like privacy labeling.) And activation locks make Apple devices less attractive to thieves, and less likely to leak data.

Apple also provides tech support directly to users. Presumably the locked-down iOS devices are easier to support, which saves time for users (and money for Apple.)

You're right though that Apple's model for its gaming handhelds is basically the Switch model and not the Steam Deck model. But I doubt anyone at Nintendo or Apple would have argued that the Steam Deck was impossible to build.

wkat42422• 3 years ago

as I understand it some of Apple's main user experience reasons for a walled garden were things like better power efficiency (encouraging native apps vs. battery-draining PWAs)

Ironically Apple wasn't even planning on offering apps, they thought web apps would be enough. Until Cydia came up and showed users how great native apps can be. And now it's their greatest money maker.

dcow6• 3 years ago

"If you allow 3rd party app stores and other browsers it will ruin my walled garden device and the official app store and threaten the entire ecosystem Apple meticulously curates!!!"

Oh? Really? Do go on...

ngcc_hk• 3 years ago

Why force apple to do that. That business model has android and that is fine. You need a choice. You want a choice. Apple model is a choice. Forced side load allowed close apple. It may not be good. At least some of us has a choice.

stevefan1999• 3 years ago

switch like

steam deck has the size of one and a half nintendo switch(es?).

bratsche• 3 years ago

This sounds really cool. I had never heard of this device before.

kitsunesoba2• 3 years ago

The Deck seems pretty great, but I’m probably going to wait until rev 2 or 3 which will likely use newer hardware to achieve the same performance as the original, which should make it cooler, quieter, and potentially less chunky. Valve has also expressed that they intend to swap out it screen panel to something nicer which to me is also worth waiting for.

atwebb4• 3 years ago

for the price of the base model ($400), I can't imagine you'll lose too much selling it when v2 comes out (and likely fully sells out). If you have a decent stream library, it is really pretty wild how awesome it is.

theshrike7911• 3 years ago

It's not that chunky when you actually hold it. After using the Deck for a few hours the Nintendo Switch feels like a flimsy child's toy.

And OLED display might be a decent upgrade, but I'm not holding my breath for a Steam Deck 2. Plus I'm like 95% sure if an upgrade comes, you can just swap the new display yourself, like you can do with every single part in the Deck right now.

kitsunesoba2• 3 years ago

I'd prefer a high-grade IPS panel over an OLED panel unless Samsung starts manufacturing QD-OLED panels this small, mainly for longevity reasons with how static UI is on-screen for long periods of time with most games.

Heat and noise reduction is mainly what I'm after though. I really, really don't like it when portable devices get hot or make significant amounts of fan noise.

vr462• 3 years ago

My PSP-1000, Vita, DS and GameBoy Advance are relics, but the Steam Deck's openness is amazing and gives me power and control.

Perhaps general-purpose computing has been handed a lifeline because playfulness is its essence?

agentwiggles2• 3 years ago

Ah, the PSP was so much fun back in its day. I only had a few actual PSP games, I was much more interested in that thing for all the homebrew and emulation stuff I could do on it.

I recently got an Anbernic RG351V, which is nowhere near as capable as the Steam Deck but is a fantastic platform for playing emulated games. The AmberElec custom firmware I'm using just runs a RetroArch installation with some nice theming, and the experience of hacking on it reminds me a lot of the good ol' PSP homebrew days.

vr462• 3 years ago

oo how is the Anbernic RG351V for ZX Spectrum games? I might be persuaded.

a13o• 3 years ago

Has anyone messed around with building their own Steam Machine with the OS yet? It's easy to build a SFF PC with state of the art graphics card and still be smaller than a PS5. (But not cheaper.) I've been thinking of building another one to run the Steam OS and leave it hooked up to the TV. Then I'll never need to own a video game console again.

mariusor• 3 years ago

I have[1], but this was during the time of the official Steam machines (ie, 4-5 years ago). I never had the heart to leave just Steam OS on it, most of the time it functioned as a dev machine as it was quite a bit beefier than my laptop.

[1] https://media.metalhead.club/media_attachments/files/106/589...

hddherman• 3 years ago

I gave it a go [0], but there are also other people out there who have installed HoloISO (Steam OS 3 but not official) on various hardware, like ETA PRIME on YouTube [1].

[0] https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2022/12/01/holoiso-steam-deck-exper...

[1] https://youtu.be/rvNS4M3o85o

josefresco• 3 years ago

The new "Big Picture" mode has screwed with my Steam link. While I applaud and drool over the Deck, I wish they hadn't ditched support for Steam Link (hardware) and the Steam controllers. I don't need the Steam Deck UI, I just want my Steam Link to work like it has been for years.

giantg23• 3 years ago

I must be getting old. Most new games just don't excite me any more.

atwebb4• 3 years ago

That's the neat part, you get the entire steam library (not all of the old things do run or run well) but as an example of a good older game, Halo is awesome and all of them are around $15 on sale (total). And the graphics are somewhat improved.

giantg23• 3 years ago

True, but I have my old systems to play on. Even more nostalgia playing Halo on a Duke controller.

freedomben4• 3 years ago

Plus great emulator support so you can play all the retro ROMs you can get your hands on. I do that more than I I play newer games!

pathartl3• 3 years ago

I've been on an extended getaway trying to escape Wisconsin winters, so I brought my Steam Deck. I installed a 1TB SSD and created a 300GB Windows partition. At the end of the work day I can unplug my corporate laptop and plug in my Steam Deck. I'll do some .NET programming for a bit on a side project, and then jump on Valheim with friends. At the end of the day when I just want to sit on the couch or lay in bed I can undock and reboot into SteamOS.

It's not a perfect experience. Some of the Windows drivers could use some work. I would rather be running Visual Studio on my desktop at home. Performance in games like Valheim is maybe around 40FPS average... but I would seriously ask the question what other $400 device with a $150 SSD upgrade could product the same results.

nivenkos4• 3 years ago

Valheim runs natively on Linux btw.

pathartl3• 3 years ago

Yes, but you can't join crossplay-enabled servers with the Linux binary.

seanhunter• 3 years ago

Can confirm. Discovering out how well Valheim runs on steam deck basically killed my productivity entirely when the Mistlands update came out.

aarpmcgee2• 3 years ago

I liked the Steam Deck well enough; I bought one and tinkered for several weeks before returning it. The potential is clear, even if the current iteration is pretty rough in terms of software usability and performance.

What seems less clear to me is if they will ever address the abysmal battery repairability[1], until which I will not be purchasing.

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Battery+Replacement/...

coder5435• 3 years ago

For me, the Steam Deck was just too large, and the screen was truly terrible. It made games that I'm familiar with look visibly wrong with how poor the color gamut coverage was. I ended up selling it. The Steam Deck was also a bad experience for launchers outside of Steam, and I didn't want to get banned from Overwatch or Fortnite for trying to play them on an unsupported operating system, if they were even compatible.

I currently have a Nintendo Switch OLED which is fantastic in many ways, and I also have an AYANEO Air, which has a beautiful OLED screen too. The Air is also an equally good (or arguably even fuller, given Windows 11 + WSL) "desktop" experience compared to the Steam Deck, which so many people around here are touting as a feature. It also uses hall effect triggers and joysticks, so drift should never be a problem, ever. The Air is also the size of a Switch Lite, so even smaller than my Switch OLED, but the Air has a full x86-64 processor and 16GB of RAM running Windows smoothly, which is just crazy to behold.

Whenever I can use the Switch OLED for a game, that is the best available portable experience: whisper quiet, long battery life, never gets hot, the kickstand is incredibly good, and I can always take the controllers off when I want to put the Switch on a table. The only exception is a few titles that had truly terrible ports, but those aren't common in my experience at all. HD Rumble is also a really good implementation of controller rumble. With the Switch, it is also possible to buy physical versions of many games, and sell those when you're done, which really isn't possible on the Steam Deck or the AYANEO Air.

The AYANEO Air is great for using Steam In-Home Streaming or playing some of the titles that I can't play on the Switch (like Horizon Zero Dawn or the various Halo titles), but the battery life isn't as good, the controllers aren't detachable, there's no kickstand, and (like the Steam Deck) it is a much hotter and louder device.

Either the Switch or the AYANEO are small enough to throw in a carry-on bag (important because I don't think I've checked luggage a single time in the past decade), whereas the Steam Deck is like trying to bring a second, chunkier laptop (4x the thickness of my M2 MacBook Air, for reference), which just does not work with the size restrictions on a carry-on bag when you're also bringing a real laptop, clothes, chargers, and everything else needed to travel.

My wish list for Steam Deck 2.0 is basically: it would be physically smaller (but shrinking the bezels would allow the screen to not shrink as much as the device), the screen would be OLED like my other handhelds (and implicitly more color accurate), perfect driver support for Windows 11, hall effect controls, and the screen would support Variable Refresh Rate, which seems like a killer feature that no handheld has bothered to implement.

It's also completely baffling to me that the AYANEO Air has a full 2280 NVMe SSD in a chassis the size of a Nintendo Switch Lite, but the Steam Deck only manages to fit a 2230 in a chassis that's probably twice the physical volume. Given how much more I use my Switch than my Air, I've considered selling the Air, but it does still offer some unique capabilities.

CamperBob2• 3 years ago

The Air sounds like an interesting piece of hardware. How hard is it to run your own homebrew Win32 apps on it?

tstrimple2• 3 years ago

I appreciate the size. I've got bigger hands and they tend to cramp after a short while holding small devices. Even the PlayStation controller feels tiny, but Xbox was manageable.

TheFreim2• 3 years ago

current iteration is pretty rough in terms of software usability and performance

I am interested in the Steam Deck, could you give a specific example or two? I've heard mostly positive things so I would be interested in some specific pain points.

aarpmcgee2• 3 years ago

Sure, I was referring to the UI of the OS itself. I had the device about 3-4 months ago so perhaps it has been improved, but it was pretty janky in my experience at the time. It would often outright freeze on me for 10-20 seconds at a time.

Press a button, wait several seconds for something simple to happen on screen.

Felt like it was all held together with duct tape.

spmurrayzzz• 3 years ago

I discounted just how much I'd use the remote play feature while I'm at home for the extra battery life / performance benefits. Really impressed by the decode speed the AMD APU can spit out. Virtually no discernible input lag at all when I put the deck display next to my monitor to test.

It turns out that a big chunk of my steam library is ideal to play entirely handheld on the couch.

theshrike7911• 3 years ago

My greatest wish is that Apple would put a fraction of their billions into porting Proton to Metal and by extension the M-series CPUs.

That would instantly make the M1-series machines the greatest gaming machines in the world. All that power with an emulation layer in between, allowing every macOS user to play any game made only for Windows.

People have literally stopped developing their Linux-native game versions because the Proton-Windows -emulation is so much better.

kibwen2• 3 years ago

That would instantly make the M1-series machines the greatest gaming machines in the world.

This is a bit of an exaggeration. A laptop running a binary through two separate emulation layers is not going to provide a better experience than any dedicated gaming PC.

theshrike7911• 3 years ago

Bang for buck it just might.

Not if you're comparing it to a fully tricked out gaming PC.

ericpauley2• 3 years ago

Proton (WINE) Is Not an Emulator. And Rosetta is a semi-dynamic translation layer. Both have pretty impressive performance on their own, with many Rosetta-translated programs running faster than a high-spec Intel machine. So there's no reason this combination couldn't exist or provide a good experience.

Someone12343• 3 years ago

I feel like Steam Deck is very successful; the next big milestone, which may be a doozy, is migrating off of x86-64 to ARM64. I understand why Steam Deck 1.0 is x86-64 since something akin to Rosetta or WOW64 is likely as much work again as it was to get the initial Steam Deck off the ground.

However, battery life for a mobile console cannot be ignored. The Steam Deck can last as little as under 2 hrs depending on workload. A switch to ARM64 (e.g. ARMv9.0) would likely over double the battery life at the bottom and top end.

As a side benefit, because high-end ARM64 SoCs are so common in phones, Chromebooks, tablets, steaming boxes, et al., they may be able to bring the prices down, further increasing their competitiveness.

PS - No doubt I'll get a bunch of replies with "But use this One Simple Trick™ to get longer battery life" which, while true, also applies to ARM64.

eloisant2• 3 years ago

This will only happen if Microsoft also pushes game developers towards ARM64.

You're talking about Rosetta but Rosetta is a transition period. If the Steam Deck is the only device to run on ARM64, and game developers keep providing only x86 builds, the drawbacks of ARM will outweight the benefits.

Scaevolus• 3 years ago

Why do you think ARM64 would improve battery life so much? The Steam Deck can draw up to 20W, most of that due to the GPU. Apple's M1 laptops have a higher TDP, larger battery, and a similar 2-4 hour battery life on the most intense games.

If you want more battery life, Steam Deck has a bunch of controls to throttle CPU/GPU performance, including limiting the framerate.

messe2• 3 years ago

A switch to ARM64 (e.g. ARMv9.0) would likely over double the battery life at the bottom and top end.

Only if the games are compiled for ARM64, and even then the performance improvements over x86 are not guaranteed compared to just switching to a better process node. A big attraction of the Steam Deck is the massive back catalog of already existing games on Steam, all of which are compiled for x86. If your ARM CPU is spending its time emulating x86, you're not going to get much of an improvement in battery life.

A Steam Deck v2, still running on an AMD CPU, but on TSMC 5 or 3nm, is more likely than one with an ARM64 processor.

Someone12343• 3 years ago

We've seen with the M range of SoCs that even with the emulation overhead, you can gain battery life even accounting for that. Plus the OS itself would be natively compiled, so that's always an efficiency gain.

nivenkos4• 3 years ago

The issue is the trade-off with performance though, that'd make it even more of a niche device.

And almost all games are x86 only so either you need to do that opcode level conversion too (on top of the Windows / DirectX APIs), or limit yourself to only ARM games (realistically mostly FOSS games). Apple has done it well for M1/2 to be fair, but it's far from easy.

So you could get much better battery life but it'd be very niche.

johlits• 3 years ago

They should just skip the battery altogether imo..

x4m• 3 years ago

FWIW Steam Deck runs 8k transactions per second if you build Postgres there. A nice place to work on open source development, actually. https://twitter.com/x4mmmmmm/status/1620984546216017921

ducharmdev• 3 years ago

Nice, now I can write off a Steam Deck as a business expense!

have_faith• 3 years ago

I had the Steam Deck for a few months and then sold it. The hardware is great and what it's capable of is very impressive. What really let it down was for me personally was:

Software. Buggier than desktop Steam in many ways, frustrating touch/scrolling experience. I expected it to match the feel of perhaps an iPad 2nd generation but it's just janky. I don't have a lot of faith that they'll polish this that much but hopefully they do.

Portability. I just wasn't taking it with me when travelling as it's extremely chunky when packed with cables etc. I'm very much looking forward to a V2/3 that's more slimmed down.

Melatonic4• 3 years ago

Love the Steam Deck but I wish we had been able to get an Nvidia GPU in there. For desktop it does not matter much but Nvidia mobile GPU's are killing it compared to AMD (as far as I know).

Then again I totally get that AMD may have not gone with that setup (since they want to sell their GPU's) but I feel like we would have a much more power efficient Steam Deck with that setup.

Endgame with all of this I think is a device with ARM that can (hopefully eventually) run full ARM on Linux and Windows on ARM and whatnot and uses an Nvidia GPU

ranger2072• 3 years ago

I think the Deck's AMD GPU is part of an APU, so CPU and GPU on one chip. That probably helps thermals a bunch. Also, I wonder how much the decision to use AMD was influenced by terrible Nvidia drivers on Linux

Melatonic4• 3 years ago

I believe the "APU" is mostly marketing - unfortunate but true.

freedomben4• 3 years ago

I would wager the terrible Nvidia drivers were a big factor. I personally won't buy another Nvidia card unless they make sweeping changes (like open sourcing it completely. Their open source announcement earlier is a good step but not far enough to win me back). I do wish the AMD pro driver were open source though.

weatherlight• 3 years ago

I've paired my Steam Deck with nreal light AR glasses and its been an absolute joy to play games on.

I might be in the minority here but I just stopped using my switch and my gaming PC entirely. I'm sure there will be a time when a certain triple A game comes out and I'll go back to using a dedicated gaming PC, but i just get so much utility out of the SteamDeck. I have VSCode running on it, Netflix, Steam, GoG, etc.

I'm ready for what ever Steam puts out next.

freewizard2• 3 years ago

You are not alone. I've been on Deck as desktop for over 6 months, no complains.

I won't streaming much tho as most 4K DRM is limited to Mac and Windows at the moment.

cptcobalt• 3 years ago

I'm a happy Steam Deck owner strongly wishing for a Steam Deck 2 / Steam Deck Pro. I'm playing way more games than I used to; it just eliminates friction from sitting down and playing anywhere.

The form factor is outstanding—the biggest thing it really needs is a higher resolution OLED display. Performance is great (pretty steady 40fps at medium settings) when I play locally, but it's even better when I stream from my gaming PC with a 3090. I don't even use my gaming PC for anything other than streaming to the deck now.

That said, I really hope Valve do the version bump with a synchronous release of a new Valve Index (VR) and Steam Deck, using the same APU. (That'd be a rare sign of organizational maturity from Valve, though.)

stevehawk• 3 years ago

i dont get the impression that Valve will release an updated model for several more years

fnands• 3 years ago

Yeah, probably something along the lines of normal console update times (4-5 years).

But maybe do the Switch thing and release an OLED version?

amne• 3 years ago

I got the dock also and am running two 1440p@144hz monitors with the deck. Shutdown the PC .. do the same thing but using at least 2-300w less. In today's context it's a huge difference.

I wasn't playing any AAA...A anyway so the deck is just what I needed.

GaryNumanVevo• 3 years ago

Personally, I've loved the SteamDeck since I got it. Over this past Christmas holiday, I took my SD to my parents place and tried to run Windows 11 on it to play the latest "Call of Duty" with my eager nephews. I was blown away at how I could buy an external SSD (USB3.2 2x2), install windows on it, and install and run a Triple A title with relatively little fuss.

Of course I had to run the game at "potato" settings to get a good frame rate, but I was able to hold my own with my nephews for a week.

ryzvonusef• 3 years ago

What does HN think about competitors like GPD or AyaNeo?

freedomben4• 3 years ago

AyaNeo looks interesting but too expensive for me, and . I also adore SteamOS and it's Arch underpinnings, so Windows would be a downgrade for me as well.

colinmegill• 3 years ago

Valve nailed it

some-guy2• 3 years ago

I bought one with low expectations, but it has surpassed them tremendously. Proton is most of the way there. In fact, most of the issues I find with some games are the third-party launchers, not the games themselves.

The EmuDeck project allows you to easily add pre-configured emulators with games as part of the UI. I've been catching up on many PS2, PS3, Wii U, and Switch games. It plays AAA games well since it only has to render at 800p at medium / low settings. Many modern games compared to the past scale well too, and their low settings tend to still be bearable.

Steam Cloud works well in case I want to play a game on my beefier PC once in awhile. However, I also have a hidden USB-C charger/dock combo by my couch that has ethernet, and I can do steam link over ethernet with my gaming PC, and it works extremely well for that, and I can get a performance boost in some of the more demanding games.

The main issues of course are battery life, and its docking capabilities. Battery life doesn't affect me too much because I'm usually not traveling or away from a compatible charger for more than a couple of hours. The docking to a TV / monitor is a joke with the standard UI...I have never gotten it to work well, so if I need to dock I have to go into desktop mode. Even there, if I play a controller-based game, you can't always disable the onboard controller for all games. So there's definitely work to be done on that front.

dataangel2• 3 years ago

The docking to a TV / monitor is a joke with the standard UI

Have you tried recently? When Valve released their own dock they updated the software and it works out of the box for me now. I plug in the cable and it pops up on my TV right away. The only issue I still have is if I dock while in the middle of a game -- some games don't deal with resolution/gamepad change well.

atwebb4• 3 years ago

The docking to a TV / monitor is a joke with the standard UI...I have never gotten it to work well, so if I need to dock I have to go into desktop mode.

Really? I'm just using an Anker USB-C dock and it works fine, everything runs great and it allows me to charge as well.

distances4• 3 years ago

I use my Steam Deck almost exclusively docked in to the Steam Dock, connected to my projector and beamed to a whole-wall 190" image. It works great so I'd be curious to hear about your obstacles.

some-guy2• 3 years ago

I don't know if there was an update, but one of the main issues I had was that my TV supports 4K, and the steam deck would natively try to select 4K in big picture mode, except that it would default to 30hz because that's what my dock supported. There wasn't any way at the time to set the TV resolution lower so I could get it to 60hz, but I'm not sure if that has changed.

maineldc• 3 years ago

I really wanted to buy one of these. I created a steam account to buy one, made the purchase, but then I got stuck in their fraud loop. They required me to send a picture of my drivers license and I wasn't comfortable with that. Such a bummer because this is my ideal device! I want this more than any gaming device I have ever encountered.

newobj• 3 years ago

The Steam Deck is my favorite electronic purchase in like 10 years

freedomben4• 3 years ago

Me too, and I was not expecting that. I've ended up spending hundreds on games through Valve's store that I wasn't expecting too, and I regret nothing.

red-iron-pine3• 3 years ago

Man all of the top level comments scream "marketing bots".

Like, I'm rooting for Linux gaming and have put my money where my mouth is before -- but this thread feels non-credible.

the_cramer3• 3 years ago

Why? Because HN people actually like it?

mclightning4• 3 years ago

Go check Steam Deck reviews on reddit, steam forums, reviews, Youtube reviews.

The Internet is full of disgruntled users.

I have been in tech long enough to know, this will be another device forgotten in 2 years and make it to landfill in less than 5.

mclightning4• 3 years ago

I think the same. It may be headline-bias though. I hope dang and the mods are looking into the potential marketing bot army on this thread. Because the opinion here is extremely biased compared to anywhere else. I wanted to buy a Steam Deck myself, and I have never found a barrage of such positive opinion anywhere else, even on Steam reviews and forums.

But then again, I would like to say, it is most likely headline-bias. It is attracting people who like the thing, and pushing away those who hate it.

boring_twenties• 3 years ago

Anyone in the know about these devices care to suggest whether it's worth getting the top-end 512GB model, or is the 256GB one good enough? The SSD itself can be replaced, right? Anti-glare glass sounds nice but not sure it's worth the price difference. Anything else?

Cuuugi• 3 years ago

So, i unboxed a $2000 item on counterstrike, and because of their ecosystem, basically had to keep it in the "Steam Economy" so, i purchased the top end model.

Its been great.

I'm really happy with the antiglare screen. I can't always play in the dark.

It is possible to replace the SSD although i am pretty sure it voids the warranty. Valve's recommendation is that you add an SD card, which is a lot more reasonable these days.

Sorry my answer has been kinda rambling yet non descript. tl;dr i don't think storage is the biggest concern, but the anti-glare glass is great.

gretch• 3 years ago

I got the cheapest option.

It cost me $30 to add 256gb of storage in the form of a microSD card.

I’m very happy with it and I think I got 95% of the satisfaction with minimal cost. There are some moments when I wish I had the better screen or the dock, but not really.

distances4• 3 years ago

A common recommendation is to buy the cheapest 64GB model + SD card. Testers conclude that it's just as fast for games as the top model with the best SSD. So that's what I ended up doing and it's been working very well.

The Deck SD slot has UHS-I support so maximum read speed is 104 MB/s even if your card is faster. So no need to get any top-class extreme card, as long as it's UHS-I it should be good to go.

nfriedly• 3 years ago

I was happy to see the callout of the GPD win series - these days there are a lot of options for handheld gaming PCs, but for a long time, GPD was the only game in town.

I don't have a Steam Deck yet, but I've probably done more gaming on my various GPD devices than on my beefy desktop computer or any other device, with the possible exception of the Gameboys I had when I was a kid.

torginus• 3 years ago

Maybe this is an off-topic question - but has there been a device/vendor that has successfully shipped the traditional desktop Linux stack (Wayland/Pipewire/dbus/Qt etc.) on a comparably large scale before? Car infotainment, kiosks, etc. absolutely count.

If not, then the Steam deck is a historic achievement.

hugocbp2• 3 years ago

I have one and I got to say: I'm blown away.

After I got one, I 100% one game (Vampire Survivors), am close to another one (Hades) and have been playing here and there almost every day.

I bought both a PS5 and an Xbox Series X after 2021 but, despite having them for over 1 year each, I think I already played my Deck in 2 months way more hours.

The way that it instantly boots up in your game, ready to go, is amazing. If I'm frustrated with some programming task at work, for example, I pick it up, fire Hades, play for 1 or 2 stages for 5 minutes and my brain is reset.

It is not perfect, obviously. It is bigger in person than it looks on pictures or videos, specially with the case (it takes 30% of a backpack, for example).The battery lasts very little on demanding games. When putting on a TV or monitor, the lower resolution will show. When plugging it in, you don't really get any boosts.

However, it is such a great experience overall. I was playing very little because I never wanted to go to the sofa, turn the console on, stay seated, wait for it to power, etc... With the Steam Deck, I'm in and out in literal seconds, anywhere.

I bought one truly expecting to barely play it like I was playing my consoles, but the opposite happened.

I truly thing that the Steam Deck is the start of a new era. I can't wait for the Deck 2, the "Linux" console likes and such. I'm sold.

AdeptusAquinas2• 3 years ago

I play PC games because I like having a comfortable gaming chair, a keyboard and a mouse in front of a large screen. I've never understood the point of the Steam Deck - if I want to play 'mobile friendly games' I'll use my switch, but the games are definitely not the sort of games I'd play on the PC.

hugocbp2• 3 years ago

I already spend 8 to 12 hours a day in that "keyboard and mouse" position for work... I ended up never playing any PC games (other than a few Civ games here and there) because of that.

The Steam Deck is great because you can play anywhere. On the couch, a net, in bed.

And the Switch is only comparable to the Deck in form factors. The Deck has way more gaming options and freedom. I bough one in place of the Switch, but I can imagine that if like just the Switch games, it doesn't really make sense to have both.

AdeptusAquinas2• 3 years ago

Sure, each to their own. I'd just argue that comments like the one that concludes the article, 'Could the 2020s become the decade when mainstream PC gaming turns handheld?' sound about as credible as the hype around how the iPad was going to replace the desktop.

tunnuz• 3 years ago

I got myself one recently. I haven't been able to play games for years due to time commitments, unwillingness to look after a gaming PC, etc. I fell in love with The Long Dark during a bout of COVID, and the Steam Deck allows me to play it (and many other games I since then enjoyed) when I'm in bed at the end of a long day. It also allows me to work through a vast library of games that I purchased discounted on various occasions and never had the time to play.

Pros: great hardware, games run seamlessly, allows me to play in places I couldn't play before, Desktop Mode gives you effectively a beefy Linux desktop computer. Cons: I wish SteamOS hadn't been modified in such a way that I can't create multiple desktop users out of the box, which limits my use cases. I would love to do some personal projects on it when in Desktop Mode, but I want to have a user that I can trust to be private (and preferably encrypted).

yellowapple• 3 years ago

There's not a single mention of Wine in that article. Valve's contributions via Proton are certainly a game changer, but it's highly unlikely that they would've happened without literal decades of work before hand.

darthrupert• 3 years ago

As a dumb person with too much money, I avoided Steam Deck and instead went for a slightly more powerful and perhaps 4 times as expensive gaming laptop with AMD CPU and GPU. I installed Nobara Linux[0] on it and everything has been pretty much perfect.

Certainly I have to thank Steam for making all this work so well. Just a year ago things were in a much worse shape. If I was in this situation again, I would certainly save a thousand+ euros and get a Steam Deck instead.

mclightning4• 3 years ago

I hate how headlines shape the bias of the discourse in every given thread nowadays online.

I was thinking of buying a Steam Deck, but my investigations, Steam reviews have shown it is not really that good.

But going through the comments here, it feels like I am walking through a ChatGPT-botnet army.

I believe it has to do with the headline attracting type of person who is happy with Steam Deck and pushes away any other type.

rldjbpin• 3 years ago

i might probably never buy one. but i am glad it exists and what it has done for many otherwise "niche" areas of gaming (low-spec gaming, gaming on the go and linux gaming).

besides all the tech it has promoted, i really hope it also encourages devs to build "low-spec" installs of their games, with reduced disk space by only bundling hd textures.

anti-cheat still remains a big hurdle for some games (looking at you, fifa), but i hope it eventually gets ironed out.

account425• 3 years ago

I'm not convinced that the Steam Deck is relevant for "PC Gaming". Sure, it's not locked down and you can use it as a general purpose PC, but that is not its primary purpose and most people won't.

It's much more of a mobile gaming device with it's own special input different from mouse+keyboard. Sure, having a relatively open mobile device is significant, but it's significant for mobile gaming, not for PC gaming which remains pretty much unaffected by the existence of the steam deck.

cubefox• 3 years ago

This article is nice overall, but it arguably misrepresents the influence of the PSP and PS Vita. Valve was just inspired by the surprise success of the Switch, so they decided to make a Switch-like gaming PC. For some unknown reason GPD (then the largest handheld gaming PC maker) staunchly refused to make a device with Switch form factor.

PSP / PS Vita apparently didn't even influence the design of the Switch itself. The Switch was more likely Nintendo's internal answer to the questions "What if we move the console into the Wii U tablet controller?" and "What if we consolidate our handheld and console divisions and make a hybrid console?"

The piece is also missing a key aspect of the Steam Deck success: Its price. While the cheapest Steam Deck is not too far away from the Switch OLED price, all the other Switch-like gaming PCs cost so much that it makes them irrelevant for the mass market. Even the Steam Deck, despite the initial hype, apparently didn't manage to come anywhere near the early Switch sales, and Valve seems not interested to bring it into stores and to market it more broadly.

Why Steam Deck Is One of the Most Significant PC Gaming Moments in Years

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