Been thinking about getting a steam deck. Talk me in or out of it. I’ve got a desktop, but thinking something handheld would be good when I want to sit on the couch. What are your favorite and least favorite things about your steam deck?
Been thinking about getting a steam deck. Talk me in or out of it. I’ve got a desktop, but thinking something handheld would be good when I want to sit on the couch. What are your favorite and least favorite things about your steam deck?
Favourite:
Battery life. While not as good as a phone or even a NS, its still incredidle how long the battery lasts considering that the deck is a full PC playing PC games. For context the battery lasts aprox. 4 h when playing a quite demanding game and up to 6 h in less demanding games.
The emulation potential. Apart from beeing able to play PC games you can also emulate a lot of retro or even newer stuff. For example yuzu (a NS emulator) runs most games at a steady 30 fps and the simmilar controller layouts make it easy to controll.
The improvments to linux gaming. The steam deck is bringing more attention to linux as a gaming platform. Thanks to the ease of use of tools like Proton I was able to move to linux on my PC.
The touchpads. I generaly can’t stand playing on a controler in first person games, the touchpads realy help with controls in games built without controler support.
The sleep mode. I can just press the power button to put my deck to sleep without loosing progres in games.
Least favourites:
The phisical feel of the device. I’m not sure how to best describe it but for some reason my hands don’t realy like the matt finish of the deck.
The size. While still small for a full pc its quite large for a handheld console. Unlike something like the GB or DS the steam deck is not realy pocketable.
The noise. While i understand that a device as powerfull as the steam deck needs active cooling, the fan noise can be quite annoing espetialy in more demanding titles.
Oh man, your “least favorite” #1 makes it a total no-go for me. “My hands don’t really like the matte finish of the deck.” My whole body was repulsed by the feel of the touchpad surfaces of the Steam Controller. Like I got physically ill putting my fingers across them. However good Valve might make their devices, they are absolutely shit at picking surface textures.
You can just buy a case or skin if the feeling bothers you. There are also touchpad covers available. It is a different material than the steam controller touchpads though.
Just to clarify: For me its nowhere near as bad. Its not that i get repulsed at the feel of the device but rather that if i play for a longer time my hands get sweaty and oily (BTW this dosen’t happen with other controlers.)