If you want a more expensive, less powerful handheld with worse battery life that is smaller and has an oled screen and windows 11, by all means drop money on an on an indiegogo product from China.
And of course by “drop money” I mean pledge to their indiegogo.
It’s a PC, what do you expect?
By obsolete do you just mean that there might be something even faster around the corner? My current PC was purchased two years ago and it’s certainly not obsolete.
Yeah. Every bit of PC hardware you buy is going to be supplanted by faster within six months or less. It’s different with bespoke hardware like this though.
Here again I note the Steam Machine, which I do own, and how it is a device trapped in time, same as any console. It’s fine if that’s your use case, and for me it was very specifically targeted as a spare PC for schoolwork in addition to a multiplayer PC for the TV. It met my needs at the time, but it sits mostly unused today because it cannot be upgraded easily if at all. Eventually the novelty of the specific use case wears off and you realize it’s more economical to invest in those PC upgrades instead.
Or not bother because it’s still fine. YMMV, and certainly based on how much you can budget and what you do with it.
This may be a better choice for some, sure, but with 1h of battery life, and no real support behind it, this model doesn’t really obsolete anything. It’s just another choice.
In case anyone was thinking of getting an SD card for their Steam Deck, Amazon has the Samsung EVO Select 512GB for $46.99, which appears to be an all time low for this card.
ETA for my Deck is this Thursday!
My deck just got delivered. But I’m now camping out on the coast, won’t be back until Thursday. Boo.
Ordered in Feb. when the reviews started hitting and just got my preorder placed last night. Never been a huge mobile gamer but I love to tinker, so I expect to spend hours and hours adding emulators, apps, utilities, etc then never touching it again.
I do have expectations my wife will end up playing a lot on it. She really wants to play Psychonauts 2 but hasn’t had a gaming pc in years but loved the switch for playing BotW.
Also I found this super interesting, though you can’t get them in the US yet unless you ebay them from a 3rd party international reseller. For ~$400 you can get a set of AR glasses that end up projecting something like a 50’ OLED screen at arms length at 1080p. I don’t think it will be long before we have 4k screens like this we might even be able to use for productivity. That’s my dream, but I have no idea how eye fatigue would work with these.
Thanks, Ordered! My getmydeck percentage is up to 81.25%, so looking good for the next couple of weeks here. (Two weeks ago it was at 45.24%, so the order rate definitely drops off significantly the farther you get from launch…)
Valve really stepped up on the shipping recently, so hopefully you get yours soon. Within the past few weeks, my January order for the 512GB jumped from Q4 to arriving tomorrow (!).
I’m trying to decide what to try out first. Probably Elden Ring for a big game, and some smaller games like Danganronpa and Vampire Survivors.
I’d really like to finally get around to playing the XCOM games. According to ProtonDB, it is “generally playable” with some minor issues, so crossing my fingers for them.
I may (likely) have to sell my Steam Deck, and I’m bummed about it.
The only reason I got it is that in the last year or so I have been spending time upstairs in the evening watching trashy TV with my wife. I don’t always click with the shows that are on, some are more fun than others, so I like to have my Switch with me - which led to wanting a Steam Deck, of course, for more games and better performance on many favorites.
Unfortunately, just like the nice Hori Pro Switch controller I bought last year and had to give to my son, the Stem Deck buttons are just a little too “clacky” and loud for her taste, and that sucks. I can’t be upset - I’m the one invading her space and she’s the one that hears clicks and clacks to her right while she’s trying to enjoy her evening - but I have literally no use for this thing outside of that use case. If I was downstairs I wouldn’t need to use it, I have my actual gaming PC. And the Switch, for whatever reason, makes no noise (no fan noise either) and has never been a problem.
So, that’s a bummer. I had hoped that it was just fast paced games that were a problem, like Rogue Legacy 2 or Hades, but last night playing Slay the Spire she commented on how loud it was, which is also like 4 nights in a row she’s said something. Sigh.
Happy wife, happy life!
Luckily i snore so im sleeping in a separate room and can play games all night .
You might be able to remap the controls so you only use the trackpads and the buttons, those are pretty quiet on my Deck, but it’s going to limit the kind of games you can play, that’s for sure. Bummer.
Also, for anyone still looking to buy, a good SD card is going to be almost as fast as the SSD that comes with the more expensive versions. Get an A2 rated one, and it’s only the initial set up that’s slow.
There might be modification you can do you muffle the sound. Are you comfortable enough to open your Deck up?
My Steam Deck is ready, but held only for 2 days!
Ah, but do i want it, though? I’m sitting on piles of games at this point, all work and no play, ect.
Got mine this evening, got it set up, and installed Wildermyth, and the old Kingdom Under Fire games. Kicked the latter around a bit- ran super smooth, but that’s expected, as they’re PC ports of games released on the OG Xbox 15+ years ago. Still, they rock, and graphically hold up decently, and it’s cool to have them on a handheld. Wonder how smooth they’ll stay on the later levels with hundreds of troops moving around the battlefield.
I’ll follow the instructions to install Edge and XBGPCG this weekend sometime.
Oh, and when is the next sale scheduled? Any idea?
Welcome to the club! Next is halloween iirc, but there’s deck stuff on sale all the time. Here is this weeks with the playable or verified status.
Fanatical has got some good bundles right now. They list if games have a verified status.
Has anyone tried the Steam deck as a mobile strategy game machine? Thinking without mouse + keyboard it will likely not be a great experience.
For something turn-based my main concern is usually readability of text. The Steam store page does a good job of indicating if that’s a problem, though, so you’ll know what you’re getting into beforehand.
In terms of mouse control, the trackpads work as a decent mouse replacement as long as speed isn’t a critical issue. I don’t think RTS works well because speed is important and part of that is often a lot of hotkey usage, both of which can work against the deck (depending on how many hotkeys we’re talking about).
I think a TBS game is a good fit for the device, honestly, as long as readability of the UI isn’t an issue. The mouse part I don’t have issues with.