Steam Deck (256gb) Impressions

 

I love my Nintendo Switch. Despite it being under powered, it's still an awesome portable gaming platform with fantastic titles that don't actually look like they are from the PS2 era. Nintendo puts out stellar games year after year and none of them have to be played sitting down. Not to downplay that the Switch's docked mode which is great for when you have guests or want to experience gaming on the big screen. As I've grown up, life just naturally makes it hard to plays games for extended, uninterrupted periods of time. Nowadays, even if I have free time, I get anxious thinking about starting a game thinking that some new distraction will pop up and take me away. But with a Switch, I can always pop open a game and make some type of progress and be able to put it away quickly if something pops up.

So when Valve announced the Steam Deck I got a little giddy. The thought of experiencing all my PC games on the go was rather tempting. Imagine playing the latest AAA game from non-Nintendo developers on the go. It got me pretty psyched. The Steam Deck also touts itself as a mobile PC, which excited me more as well since there are potentially multiple uses for the Deck instead of just playing games. 

I recently received my Steam Deck after waiting for over a year. While the overall impression is positive there are some qualms I have about the system which keeps me on the fence of keeping my unit. I got the mid-tier Steam Deck with 256gb storage. 

Size comparison of the Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and a 15" Laptop

I'd like to point out that I do like Valve's reservation system for Deck. Last year I was able to reserve my purchase which was easy enough and allowed me to feel secure that I would eventually receive a chance to buy one. This also helped weed out any bots that would most likely try to scalp some units.

First off, the system is HUGE. It comes in an interesting rectangular box. The whole thing seemed a bit strange and generic. But when you open the box you're greeted to a bit of personality and humor. One of the first messages you'll be greeted with (even before turning on the Deck itself) is "On the toilet." It's hilarious because Valve already seems to know where you're going to be playing this thing even before you do. 

Valve can read minds...

The packaging is clean and it's nice to have the Deck come with a case already. I think it's a bonus from purchasing the mid-tier version.

Booting up the system is a breeze and after a few splash screens (and a few software updates), the Steam store is right at your fingertips. It's great to just know you can download most well known games and boot them up without much worry. 

The biggest pro of the Steam Deck is the portability of playing Hi-Def AAA PC games and being able to sync your save to the cloud to pick up on your desktop if you so choose. The feature (so far) works seamlessly and without many steps. I took a plane ride with the Steam Deck and after a week of being on airplane mode, I came home to sync my save and continue my progress on the desktop. Nice.

While that alone can be enough to justify the purchase, it doesn't mitigate a lot of the negatives that come with gaming on the go. The Steam Deck will try to chug through any game you give it, which means that any resource heavy game will drain the battery life like it's nothing. Elden Ring  locked at 30fps only lasted me halfway through a 4 hour flight. Now your mileage may vary (pardon the pun) on other less intensive gaming, but most of those indie games that will preserve battery life can probably be found on the Switch as well. The redeeming factor is that if you already have the games in your Steam library, you do not need to repurchase them. 

Despite the qualms, it looks pretty good.

The Steam Deck can get hot. And I mean hot to the touch. Thankfully the heat is isolated to the middle back of the system. This means your hands won't probably be touching this portion while gaming. However, if one were to touch the back (behind the screen) it may burn a little. My system got so hot, I made sure to wait a few minutes for it to cool down before I put it back in its case. Definitely something I might have to complain to the Valve about. 

There are also a lot of small minor glitches that have occurred like...right out of the box. The first time I booted up Elden Ring I had to hard reset the system. Thankfully it worked the second time and I didn't have too many issues since. 

The fan on the Steam Deck is loud but not super distracting. But it is noticeable when compared to an OLED Switch. Not as bad as the other cons of the system, but could be an issue if you're in a quiet environment. 

Also the button layout is kind of...wonky? I had to make sure to change the button inputs so I could shield properly in Elden Ring. The joypads are symmetrical but takes a lot of getting used to. I don't necessarily like it. Also some of the buttons are hard to press. The B button seems to be riding over the edge of the device. Also the "STEAM" and "..." buttons are really hard to push.

I'll keep trucking along with my use cases with the Steam Deck, but to be honest, I'd tell most people to wait for a Steam Deck update or a Steam Deck 2. There is a lot more functionality in a Steam Deck that I haven't explored yet. Unlike the Nintendo Switch, the Deck is running on a Linux OS and the "desktop" can be accessed and things can be downloaded onto it. I haven't explored this area very much but it could easily be a redeeming factor that lets the Deck stand tall next to the Nintendo Switch.