The Steam Deck is really a device full of all the right compromises. This has been an exceptional gaming experience for the money paid, and even if I don’t get absolutely everything in my library due to some anti-cheat/DRM stuff, it’s got more than enough in there to satisfy for years and years.
The build is all plastic, but doesn’t feel first generation. I think due to Valve building out the Steam Controller and the Steam Link, they have a bit of experience with device design, and you can tell they put that experience into the feel. It’s not incredibly premium, but it’s a durable device that leaves me feeling it’ll pass the test of time.
The inputs are solid. Most people mention looking at the size of the device and thinking it’s going to be uncomfortable but a lot of thought was put into the ergonomics. It’s comfortable to hold for an extended period and all the buttons are easily reachable with a pretty reasonable feel to them.
The screen is 7” and mediocre on colour reproduction but supports adjustable refresh rate down to 40hz, has a great peak and low brightness for indoor use, and overall has reasonable viewing angles. The 1280x800 resolution is perfectly crisp for the viewing distance and a fine resolution for the hardware involved.
The spec of the device is plenty beefy to play just about anything new at lower settings, and thanks to the adjustable refresh rate on the screen and the built in FPS limiters, you can get a super smooth console like experience on a portable PC gaming handheld. Built in AMD FSR really lets you tune even the most demanding games.
Lower settings look great due to the smaller screen - Low setting trade-offs aren’t as noticeable.
The default gaming mode is so good that you could never touch the underlying Linux desktop environment and you wouldn’t be missing anything from the core experience. The whole thing opens up a new world of emulators and tweaking, and even allowing the use of the device as a full on desktop replacement. A whole host standard USB-C accessories make it really easy to just plug it into an existing setup and go.
The battery life is entirely dependent on what you’re running. I can get around 2-3 hours in Bioshock or Metal Gear Solid V running along at 60fps, but if I threw on Untitled Goose Game or a Gameboy emulator that battery life grows considerably. Accessible tweaks like refresh rate, power limits, and settings really let you decide how much you want to stretch the battery out.
For a lot of games, the default settings just work. No messing around with config files, just install and start playing.
The portability of the device and the ease of sleeping the device/games lets me pick up a game for a quick half hour or so before bed, or on a lunch break, and then just put it down. It’s made gaming feel a lot more accessible, and I don’t feel like I have to set aside a block of time to it.
I think so far I’m pretty happy with the Steam Deck. It’s amazing how far Linux gaming has come, and with heavy adoption by users it’s only bound to get better. Valve really took what they learned from the Steam Link and Steam Controller and put it to work here building a mature feeling piece of hardware for a great price. There’s bits of me looking at running SteamOS on a mini PC for some 4K TV or monitor gaming, but I don’t think I’m quite at the point where I’m convinced I need that. I do think that I’ll be getting rid of the Xbox, but I’m not in a rush to add TV gaming again.