Steam Deck

I’m curious what’s the opinions on the Steam Deck of those here? A new handheld PC put out by Valve, primarily intended for gaming but is entirely general purpose (I’ll no doubt be primarily programming on it when I get mine, easier then programming via my phone to my desktop over SSH and VNC for sure).

Some of the restrictions on reporters have lifted on being able to report on their review versions recently (the hardware side, the default OS, an arch-based linux, not yet as it’s not finalized yet, though soon, you can install whatever x86 based OS you want on it though, mainly linux or windows, lol) so they’ve started coming out. It looks really fascinating, and for the price it seems unbeatable. I have a bluetooth keyboard I use with my phone so I’ll just keep using it with that no doubt.

Here’s some contextual links:

Anyone else have good links? Or thoughts?

(Maybe this should be turned this into a wikipost…)

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The only thing that will stop me from buying it right now is the fact that I’ll likely not have time for it for a while. :smiley:

Looks amazing and I have waited for an actual STRONG portable gaming computer all my life. I’ll likely fill it up with MAME emulators and whatnot; it’s almost certain to become my central hub of arcade and handheld gaming. No offence to my Switch. :003:

And yeah it looks really well done. I also plan to be backing it up (completely) to my NAS from one point and on!

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I’ll probably play factorio with some friends, but it’s definitely going to be just a better ‘phone’ for me, and I mainly use my phone as a remote development environment (not so much a phone), lol.

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I really don’t need another gaming device in my life but when I saw a screenshot of it with Factorio I would lie if I said I wasn’t tempted…

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Lol, only “gaming devices” I have are my desktops and my phone, I don’t have any consoles, they aren’t hackable and I abhor such ecosystems… ^.^;

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But the games are awesome :003:

Personally I am not a PC gamer as you rarely find them as polished as first party console games (imo), so the steam deck isn’t really of interest to me other than a super portable PC… but even then it would be competing with an iPad which for most people (including me) will be a much nicer device (you can even play playstation games on it via remote play or do dev if you have a remote server).

I think the Steam Deck will do well with PC gamers tho, I already know a few excited to get it… it’s just not something that interests me personally - but I’ll definitely be interested in seeing how people use them beyond gaming :smiley:

Do it :023:

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Ehhh, I haven’t really ran across many my style. Like I’m great at FPS games but they don’t really interest me, especially compared to more like RTS (emphasis on the strategy, not the tactical focus like ones like Starcraft have) and simulations (I guess Factorio kind of falls into this category as a resource management game?) which both tend to require good mouse control for efficiency (and not wanting to tear out my hair) reasons.

I’ve had quite the opposite experience! Then again I tend to have specific game tastes as you see above, lol.


Though again, as stated before, my main purpose will be programming on it, so gimme clion, which is definitely not something you can run on crappier devices like game consoles or ipads or so, lol.

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I’m not taking a side here because I enjoy both PC and console games but… just watching my wife play “Horizon: Zero Dawn” on the TV in the dead of the night (lights off) has been an experience that I’ll not ever forget.

But obviously, tastes and preferences.

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HZD is absolutely stunning!

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