News Valve Steam Deck coming in December, starts at $399

Ah no, I think they are - I meant if the external drive is occupying the single C port, then there's nowhere to plug in a charge lead.

Thinking about it some more, the Deck battery would also need to power the external drive, so battery life gets squeezed further. Maybe the only way to use an external drive is via the dock (allowing for use of power passthrough to the Deck), which would mean you're limited to Type A on a drive, plus carrying a dock around, which is kind of defeating the portability aspect.

 

I was thinking like..

A USB-C breakout cable with a USB-C port for PD and one for 'using' so essentially a Y jobbie so you can plug in something like a PowerCore III elite (which has 60w PD) to feed the drive and the Deck, or the Deck and the Deck feeds the drive. I did find a cheap nasty looking USB-C cable with that port config, but if it were me I'd want a better brand.

 

That's not a bad shout - forgot about those (there is similar for charging phones and using 3.5mm headphones together). Would certainly be more portable!

 

You can get PD enabled USB-C hubs. One C cable up link and for downlink you have a C port for power, a couple A ports and ethernet, HDMI, etc.
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/uni-Remo...=1626685377&sprefix=usb+c+pd+h,aps,170&sr=8-6

Things like that work with the latest Chromecast with Google TV, it ought to work with Steam Deck running a more fully featured Linux. I think I've read somewhere that you don't need the official dock, it work with any USB-C hubs.

 

Unlike the Switch wich is supposed to be very fussy about alternative docks/cables

 

Valve updated the description of the storage:

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech

 

The different tier pricing along with a horrid resolution pick for the display equals a product I don't want. The majority of people buying this just want it to say they have it. That is what people do these days. You got to keep up with the Jones's. It honestly is sickening. As for 8 hour battery life give me a break. I have very decent laptop to play games on and no way it gets to 8 hours playing anything decent. Also the storage on this thing from Steam is pathetic. Seems each and every company continues to cut corners with this but when this is supposed to be portable you got to try harder. I don't think anyway wants to plug in an external to expand storage with something that is supposed to be simple, on the go use. Finally this product is from Steam who have failed people before with their products. Why buy in for something so underwhelming? Make them bring something more than expected to market.

 

It isn’t for you. That much is clear. I’m not sure why you need to be angry about it.

Linus (LTT) does an absolutely brilliant review at Valve’s offices. He seems genuinely thrilled by it and favourably compares it to the Switch and Aya (?! not sure what it’s name is).

The Valve Index was the top tier VR headset on release. I’m not sure which VR headsets beat it now … They still support it and it’s common knowledge they’re working on the Index 2.

The Link hardware advanced into software and being able to install the Link software app on mobile devices and even Apple TV has the app. The Link hardware works, so not sure it’s a failure as such.

Haptic feedback in a touch control device (their controller - great idea, but fiddly to setup with games built around PS4 and XBox controllers) has been added to the Steam Deck and is an improvement on the controller. The controller was a failure but parts of it live on.

I bought the Steam Deck to complement my Steam library. I already have a lot of games that I will be playing while on the sofa, while also using the social/community features that come with Steam. I’ve not actually told anyone IRL about it because it’ll just slot into my life, and it’s not a trophy.

I’m not trying to convince you that’s it’s good - just good for me

 

Yeah that was a bit of an unnecessary rant, and not to mention quite insulting to people who will actually be buying one.

What's horrid about 720p(ish) on a screen that size? If they went any higher with the resolution they'd just have to use scaling in order for you to actually be able to see anything without a magnifying glass. Sure you can have a 4K screen on your 5.5" phone but what you're seeing isn't a true native 4K resolution; if phones didn't use scaling you wouldn't be able to read anything. Plus more pixels = more graphical power needed = shorter battery life; phones get away with this by not having hardware powerful enough to run Jedi Fallen Order.

Yep. That's why I'm getting one. Totally that reason alone and no other. 'Cos I want to brag. This is sarcasm by the way, just in case that wasn't clear.

This forum has a lot of cynical people on it, but this is by far the most cynical take I've seen here in a long time.

Define "anything decent". Cyberpunk 2077, or some other graphically intensive "triple-aaaaaaaayyyyyy" game, or Stardew Valley?

Srsly, it has already has expandable storage without the need to open it up or attach unwieldy external drives. It has a MicroSD card slot..

People buying in at the £350 tier are not going to be bothered about not having NVMe storage. Just like with the Switch, they'll slap in a MicroSD card slot if they want more storage. People who do want fast high-capacity internal storage are going to go for the higher tiers.... or they're going to say bollocks to the warranty, open it up, and install their own storage device (this is a tech & modding forum, isn't it....?)

@monty-pup already talked about Valve hardware, so there's no need to repeat that discussion.

As for underwhelming... The Nintendo Switch has quite inferior hardware compared to the Steam Deck (or the Aya Neo, or any other similar device), yet Nintendo has sold just shy of 85 million units, and just under 29 million of those were in the last year alone (src). If there's such a big market for what is objectively inferior hardware with a tightly integrated software experience then there's almost certainly a market for a handheld gaming PC with superior hardware and a tightly integrated software experience.

Arguably there is no company other than Valve that could pull off mass-market penetration. That's not to say that the Aya Neo et al are ****, but they're small-scale niche manufacturers who can't achieve economies of scale needed to drive the prices that low. They also don't have SteamOS behind it. Valve are even submitting patches to the Linux kernel to improve performance and power usage on AMD CPUs; that alone tells me that they're taking the software seriously. (Although the software was the main reason that the Steam Machines failed, but at the time they didn't have Proton.)

 

Yeah - seems like DeVilzzz has a bee in his bonnet! I thought it might be one of those schitt-posts just to pad out his count but as he's been lurking for 6 years, I guess that's not the case. I pre-ordered just to compliment my Steam library... it's going to be fun to continue where I left off in bed should the better half decide that she want's to snuggle up on a cold night when I'm not ready to sleep quite yet. I also bought the Steam controller and link which I ended up selling - I never once felt like I burnt my fingers!

 

I’d also like to point out (in my defence of apparently being an arse with a Steam deck waving it under people’s’ noses) … I spent a few good years happily gaming on my iPhone and iPad. But not the last few years. Every time I go to the App Store all I see is the same old games I’ve already played, slightly upgraded, or loot box crud. Apple really loves to push the same old **** because it earns them a fortune.

I’m really looking forward to gaming away from my desktop (again).

 

Thing you got to keep in mind when comparing it to the switch is I can go grab any switch game, pop it in and its going to work reasonably well

That's why people buy consoles I can hand my 6 year old a switch and minecraft and it works without setting display resolutions or controller mapping etc

 

Generally I do agree that you can't really compare a game console and PC gaming, but for a lot of casual or lightweight titles then it really is 'pick up and play' in most cases. Generally even with graphically intense games, the default settings are usually (and I stress usually) pretty good for the hardware.

That software experience is going to have to be really good for this to be a success. I really do want this to be a success; PC gaming has so much more to offer than a console, but unless you're already a PC gaming nerd it really needs that slick user experience you'd get with a console to draw people in.

 

I asked this on the other thread - not sure who's watching what, so I'll add some commentary here too.

Having been a bit surprised that a grand's worth of laptop can't run Gears Tactics at "recommended" settings for more than 40 seconds before shutting itself off, I'm rather wary of expecting my expectations to expect much from an even smaller portable PC, in terms of either performance or time-on-screen. Now admittedly, the laptop was for other duties and thus was only running Intel UHD onboard toot, but Tactics is hardly a pixel/frame-cruncher. And if the settings are "recommended" then shouldn't they be appropriate for the hardware? I wouldn't expect 4K 160fps but for that game/machine, apparently 1k 25fps is shooting for the moon. Whatever - that's a separate issue that my ceebs kicked in on ages ago.

So it would be good to have some first hand bit-user experience if anyone has been lucky enough to find a Steam Deck on their doorstep as of late...

 

Got mine on day 1. 512GB with the good screen. I use the internal storage for Steam library games and an SD card for emulation. I also bought a Logitech Ergo trackball (which is bloody good for palm/wrist comfort) to do Desktop Mode stuff. Haven’t used a keyboard with the Deck, nor attached it to a monitor.

My gaming machine (3090+5950X) plus PS5 have been gathering dust ever since. It turns out chilling on the sofa (propped up by cushions) with noise cancelling headphones on, while the missus watches whatever on the TV really suits me.

I mention the cushions because people have said the weight of the handheld is causing them aches and pains. So picture yourself feet up on the sofa, back at a 45 degree angle one elbow pushed into the sofa back and the other is pushed into a cushion. This appears to prevent me feeling any pains and this is how I play my Deck every night. I’ve never had any aches and pains since getting the Deck.

Next … battery. This is an issue for lots of people … and yet not for me. If I play demanding games then the battery can drain after 2.5 hours. So I bought a 20,000 mAh 65w Baseus power brick. It’s a great device and I’ve used it for charging my Deck, iPad Pro and iPhone - at home and in coffee shops - I can’t stress how useful this is. I’ve actually used it for charging my Apple devices more than the Deck so it turns out a great investment.

Games. Platformers are a pure joy to play which is why Hollow Knight has taken over my life. It feels like it was made for the Deck. Vampire Survivors has been my goto for mindless/tired fun. I managed to manually get the controls sorted for Psychonauts 1 - at the time it wasn’t a supported game, I don’t know if it’s still unsupported (P2 is supported). I’ve lined-up (tested working on Deck) Fallout 4, Skyrim and Witcher 2 to play in the future. All 3 of these games were badly supported on ultra wide monitors or had other quirks and therefore I never really got into them even though I got them on their day one releases. I’m REALLY excited to play them all on Deck soon - especially Fallout 4 because my mother bought it for me for Xmas many years ago before she passed away. It works and looks very good. These games (and others) that don’t like ultra wide monitors will fit the Decks’ screen beautifully and the 1280x800 resolution looks wonderful on such a small screen - for once in my life I’m not necessarily begging for more pixels … and I do love lots of pixels! I’ve tested lots of games and been very surprised how good they look/run.

Emulation. I bought a 1TB SD card to hold emulation stuff but tbh I think I could have got away with 256GB … I guess I might have a some big Steam games in future that hog all that internal storage and I can also use the extra space on the SD for Steam games plus emu. BUUUUT - I failed at emulation. The file system structures, etc is all new to me. I tried hard to follow the instructions for EmuDeck and EmulationStation but computer said ‘no’ … and by that I mean I was **** at it. LOTS of users have got it working no problem. I didn’t spend a long time at it though. I just ran out of time one night and gave up the fight. I’ve been distracted with my Steam library ever since. I WILL GO BACK TO IT THOUGH … I keep telling myself. And I will. I know the devs are heavily patching and improving the software. It’s worth them (and Valve) remembering that 95% of Steam users are Windows users. Emulation is going to be a MASSIVE part of Deck users lives. All my ROMs are currently on my Windows laptop. Apparently 3rd party software will solve the issue of transferring the files … BUT I really want Valve to allow us to plug in our Decks to a Windows machine and have the card storage detected … or something equally as useful to transfer files.

Fan noise. Big issue for lots of people. Apparently there are 2 different fans being used. One noisy. One not so. I use noise cancelling headphones so I’m happy. I was surprised when I asked my missus if she noticed the fan and she said yes “it’s very loud”. But she also then said “but it’s ok, I don’t really notice it now”. She got used to it kinda quick. It’s worth saying she doesn’t sit very near me. The fan is quietest in lovely Hollow Knight, and loud in the final stages of a round of Vampire Survivors when the screen is starting to fill up with lots of monsters.

Improvements I would like to see …
1) More sensitive screen/reactive. It’s usable in the games 10,000,000 and You Must Build A Boat, but it’s not a great experience for touch games. But when we’ve been spoilt with Apple/Samsung phones/tablets for so long, I would love to see that quality and responsiveness in the next Deck.

2) The plastic case could be fractionally better. It’s great, don’t get me wrong here. But I noticed a couple of Vloggers have mentioned the same - it can ‘creak’ slightly. It’s well known that Valve didn’t create an expensive machine in terms of build - the internals and software are incredible considering it’s their first machine. But yeah, it can creak. No biggie.

3) The ‘STEAM’ and ‘…’ buttons are flush to the case. I absolutely hate this. I hated flush buttons on PS4 controllers (screenshot and options I think they were), I hate them here too. Also both buttons give no feedback. Raise them up a little, give them a soft click or whatever, that would be perfect. And when I say perfect - I mean literally every other button is perfect. The positioning, the feedback, the use, it all works really well. But …

4) … the trackpads ‘travel’ when placing and lifting thumbs. This problem is easily demonstrated when trying to use a cursor in Desktop mode. The desktop is in 1280x800 so it’s kinda small on the screen, although very easily readable. Use the trackpad to move cursor - no problem. Press down on trackpad to click an icon - the thumb squashing down on the pad moves the cursor slightly. It’s annoying and it happens too easily. Also lifting and then placing thumb on trackpad will also have the cursor wobble or drift slightly as the trackpad reads every bit of area of thumb. This can be solved quite easily in software and I really look forward to that.

5) Transferring files between Windows and Deck. As mentioned.

6) The Steam store is a bit flaky. A bit buggy. It’s improving. And it’s very usable. But it’s still not the best experience it can be.

7) Quieter fan.

8) More power.

9) Less heat.

Those last 3 are obvious really.

This is truly an exciting start for Valve. So far it’s been the best tech purchase I’ve ever had. It’s a game changer for me to game in comfort in the same room as my missus with a couple of cats laying on me

Oh it’s worth mentioning I’ve had most handhelds from Gameboy, GameGear, Lynx to PSP, 3DS and Switch. The old school stuff I used a lot. The new school handhelds I hardly ever used apart from holidays and travelling. I never really got into the Switch (gathering dust) and in 2 months I’ve used the Deck for many more hours than I’ve used the Switch, also bought at launch day.

AMA. I will do my best to answer anything specific.

 

Very thorough, thank you!