Optionally, what would you have wanted to know before you bought one?
Thanks!
Edit: Hey, thank you all very very much for your comments and suggestions, I really appreciate. I will most likely save up more and get the 1TB OLED model rather than the LCD model I was initially planning on. A couple of reasons for that, one, I am not good with electronics and I’d probably screw something up putting a new storage drive in. And two this thing will most likely be a permanent replacement for my old gaming laptop, which at this point is more than 10 years old, and seems to be on its last legs (I installed Linux on it, which was a struggle, but that is probably on me rather than Linux or the computer being at fault).
Anyway, I appreciate everyone’s responses and thanks for helping a gal out!
That it’s awesome
The steam deck is somewhat old (2022) and VERY VERY VERY BULKY <-- I have difficulties holding it in my small hands
Go to a store and check out similar products from other brands to see if you like the grip
Also, only buy linux based/ linux compatible consoles
The steam deck is an excellent product, with great repairability, amazing software and the touchpads are a godsend. But if you are never going to use it because of it’s size, alternatives are worth considering
If you decide to go with the deck, buy a silicone case for it. The JSAUX one is great, albeit only available in black as far as I know
About this super handy Kick stand
It comes with a free Portal-universe game that teaches you how all the controls work. It’s fun. Play it immediately. It will teach you that the thumbsticks are capacitive. Turns out that’s a useless feature, so just get some nice thumbstick caps that make them larger, more rubbery, and more comfortable.
I highly recommend a 180° USB-C adapter to use the power cord while playing. It makes the cord angle down instead of up, which feels more natural. Plus, I feel like it would be gentler on the cord and USB-C port if the cord got tugged hard when plugged into an adapter instead of directly into the Steam Deck.
Plus, with a 180° adapter, you can keep the Deck in it’s case while charging. Normally you can’t do this because the top of the Steam Deck faces the hinge of the case. But the adapter fits in the case OK and reroutes the wire downward. It definitely raises the deck up slightly, but you can still zip the case halfway closed. I do this because I live in a very small apartment with a high chance of knocking or spilling something onto the Steam Deck if I were just to leave it laying around.
Fun fact: the touch pads don’t actually click when you press them like a button, but you will swear they do! The haptic feedback mechanism is incredibly good.
Major Overheating Issue
I don’t know how this is not a more widely complained-about problem.
I paired a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller to my deck, played a game, then put the deck in its case while asleep. (You tap the power button and the deck goes to sleep.) Well, apparently, “Wake on Bluetooth” is enabled by default and you can’t turn it off! So, I threw my Nintendo Switch controller in a drawer, and of course a button got hit. It woke up my Steam Deck in it’s case. I had a game running, so the Steam Deck starts rendering the game and creating a lot of heat that is just being circulated within the case by the fan. The Deck got insanely hot!
I noticed it sometime later only because I heard it make a sound. When I took it out, I used my infrared thermometer to measure the back of the deck, and it was over 140° F. Uncomfortable to touch! It would have sat there for hours like that if I hadn’t noticed.
Solution: I had to install the Decky Loader plugin system in order to install a plugin that disables Wake on Bluetooth. I still don’t see any way to disable it without using Decky. Decky is pretty great though, and it has tons of cool plugins. Of course, you could also just turn off Bluetooth before putting this Steam Deck in its case, but if you forget, it’ll be a problem.
You can disable wake from bluetooth in system settings now, and you can even disable it per device.
Also 180 degree USB-C connectors are really nice, but they actually aren’t USB-C spec compatible and can potentially burn up or other issues. Basically when you use a USB-C cord, there’s 3 way communication where the charger and cord both report to the deck what voltages and amperage amounts they support, and then the Deck decides what to charge at. The 180 degree connector isn’t part of this communication, and is invisible to the rest of the system. If it’s not able to support the charge rate of the other devices, it can burn up and potentially destroy your deck and cable.
Might be a minority opinion but I think the capacitive thumbsticks are awesome. They have been super handy every time I brew up a controller config that uses the gyro.
Can you give an example of how you use them?
Usually you use them to enable gyro, and automatically disable it when you aren’t touching one of the sticks. Part of this is it lets you set the deck down without the gyro going crazy from movement, but the biggest part is it lets you “reset” your position. When using gyro aiming it’s easy to get the deck turned in an uncomfortable position, and all you have to do is lift your thumbs off the stick for a moment, reposition, and go back to playing.
In comparison, when using gyro aiming on systems without capacitive sticks, you usually need a camera reset button (like Splatoon) or need to make gyro aiming only available when holding down an “aim” button (like LT).
You could also use capacitive sticks to change other controls. Some games have awkward menu controls, especially when using steam input to simulate keyboard keys. In games like this, you can have the controls normal for playing when touching the left thumbstick, but when you swap your thumb to the dpad instead it switches to “menu mode” with different binds to navigate menus easier.
Get the 1TB with the etched screen if you’re considering it. It looks fantastic, and works great when not indoors. Like, in a car or airplane for example. I was debating between it and the 512GB because I often prefer a glossy screen, but the effect is small yet mighty.
Also, get Moonlight on your Steam Deck and Apollo on your PC. You can stream games from your PC with Apollo to Moonlight at much higher quality than Steam’s own streaming system. I send 1440p to my deck so after chroma subsampling I get fully defined 1280x720 pixels. It looks significantly better than just sending 1280x720 or 1280x800 to the Deck.
And finally, pick up Geometry Wars 3. It’s like the perfect pick-up-and-put-down game for the Deck.
I got the entry model and an etched screen protector and upgraded to a 1tb ssd and saved myself a couple hundred. This was pre OLED though so YMMV
The 1TB version came with a completely different screen is what he meant though. A screen protector won’t be able to replicate a physical display difference.
I know exactly what they meant and the only difference between the etched glass screen and the regular screen on the earlier models was the surface of the glass and that’s primarily due to the reduction in glare. Which is replicated 99% as effectively with a matte glass overlay. I have done side by side comparisons between mine and my friends one who got the etched glass and you cannot tell the difference. Especially since the first thing you want to do on the etched glass model is put a screen protector on top to protect it anyway.
The OLED is a significant upgrade on both.
An etched screen protector can help, but isn’t as nice as the native etched glass. The underlying screen is the same OLED as the 512GB, I believe.
The OLED model is also just better. Got a few minor upgrades other than the screen. Faster RAM, better battery life, slightly lighter. Maybe some other changes.
The fan is more quiet. Wifi 6E, slightly larger screen, improved shoulder buttons. There’s a lot of improvements, definitely a worthy revision.
Oh I forgot about WiFi 6E. Suuuuuper good for streaming from your PC.
I got the 512gb and upgraded the SDD to 2tb. I learned about this screen after! If I had known I would have gone that route instead.
You can get an etched glass screen protector that emulates the effect. The one I got isn’t as good as the base screen (which is essentially perfect), it has a very small amount of color scrambling if you look really closely due to the nature of the etching, but it’s not bad and I got used to it quickly.
Don’t buy it for AAA games. It thrives on AA and indie games, but AAA games will suck the battery like crazy (on the original model, at least) and you’ll be lucky to get 60 frames on any AAA games from the last few years.
30fps locked is perfectly reasonable for many games. I seriously don’t understand some people’s obsession with needing 60fps or higher at all times. A Steam Deck is a compromise on many levels, it’s not a gaming PC, so adjusting expectations is perfectly reasonable.
To each their own. Personally, I can’t stomach it for 3D games. 2D / isometric is a different story, but most games from those perspectives don’t have the hardware requirements of 3D games.
I dunno, I grew up on the earliest 3D consoles and just never have had an issue with 30fps. Sure, when available, 60fps is great, but even that’s the limits of what I’ll push a device to do. People that push for 144fps+ for a turn-based game just confuse me honestly.
Tons of PS1 games ran at 60fps
(Sorry for the reddit link):
https://www.reddit.com/r/psx/comments/16onvdj/which_psx_games_ran_at_60_fps/
Yeah, hard disagree.
With the 30fps being good enough?
Yeah
modern AAA but ps4 era works like 60-70% of the time and older than that youre usually goated too!
The OLED has a bunch of upgrades over the base model that aren’t obvious. It’s really worth the splurge.
Other than that, don’t get too caught up in the hyperbole and expect to play things mostly up to the PS3/360 generation AAA and indies. Newer games will run sometimes but it’s often not worth the hassle. There are exceptions, particularly in games that have specific issues in other platforms, but… you know, it’s a 3 year old handheld, keep your expectations in check.
Depending on our use case, one of the newer 3rd party SteamOS handhelds may be a better option. Steam Deck does not ramp up performance when connected to a power source, for example. OTOH, if your use case is mainly portable with long battery life (so not ramping up performance by spending more energy), the performance difference to the newer devices is non existent any more, even skewed slightly towards the Deck.
Do yourself a favor and get the OLED model. The OG Deck’s LCD screen is really bad by today’s standards. The OLED screen and the dual touchpads are the two features that still stand out compared to the more recent competition. I don’t use the touchpads that often, though. For me personally, there are no must haves.
The Steam Deck is still king to me due to it’s controller setup. Nothing comes close to the versatility. But I do agree with you, if OP is a console player and only cares about thumb sticks then there are better options.
I bought an used LCD model a few months ago and got surprised by the quality of its screen.
Of course the LCD might be better (haven’t tested it), but I’m really happy with my screen.
Finding a good USB-C Hub for your needs is a good thing to know before purchasing if you want it docked at all. Whether the official steam deck dock suits your needs, or a third-party hub on any tech website you can find.
Oh that’s a good point! I hadn’t thought about playing docked. Thank you!
Do you have one that lasted more than 18 months?
I have a discontinued verbatim usb 3 port x 3, ethernet, headphone, HDMI, MicroSD/SD Card usb-c input hub that has been rock solid and hasn’t died on me yet. there are a ton verbatim branded hubs but not this particular model unfortunately.
Sleep takes battery even if nothing is running. It’s big so if you will play only steam deck for a while after that every controller would feel small and nintendo switch would feel like baby toy.
Look at the games you want on Steam and verify they’ll work to your satisfaction.
Simple stuff to prevent you from panicking early on:
- Say you’re playing docked with an external controller and you put your steam deck to sleep while playing a a game. After it wakes up the next time you use it, 99% of the time, the game won’t respond to the controller input anymore. You need to reorder the controllers in the menu and it’ll come good again. Only in extremely rare cases have I had to restart the game.
- Less so now, but early on there were definitely cases where I had to power cycle the steam deck because something went wrong. Even if the screen is black for a bit, just give it some time.
- There’s years of tips/tricks or software mods that people have collected that may/may not be relevant anymore. Just play it for a week or two before tweaking things. For instance, I love Decky loader for adding things like protondb support and how long to beat times to the library… but you definitely don’t need it.
If you do decide to play docked, Sony Dualshock 4 or Dualsense 5 controllers are great because they have touchpads. This makes them super useful in games with half implemented controller support (i.e. the games work fine but the menu controls still use a mouse) or using desktop mode from the couch. They also have gyro support too.
I haven’t had many issues with PC usb-c hubs… but all hubs are created differently. If you care about 4K output, VRR, HDR or anything above basic usage, I found a dedicated jsaux docking station works pretty well (note: I never considered the official dock as it was only officially available in my country well after I already had a steam deck).
As others have said, spring for the OLED at the lowest storage tier, refurbished if you want to save a few extra dollars and have patience.
The ssd upgrade is easy to do and on the wallet. Another minor upgrade I’d suggest are PlayVital back button covers…makes those a lot easier to use.
Go OLED if you can, grab a 1tb sdcard for storage expansion. Watch a few people tweak the settings of a game and the graphics card. You can force lower settings and make a game have higher fps and much longer battery life and not really see a loss in graphics due to the smaller screen. Also watch a few tutorials on tweaking steam controller settings. So you can pick up some rando game that’s built for kb/m and make it work nice with a controller. Especially gyro, FPS games are more fun being able to gyro the crosshairs a little for micro movements like targeting the head.
Also once you get it, play Aperature Desk Job. It’s free, and is a nice 30min tutorial of your deck.
If you’re comfortable changing an m.2 SSD in a standard laptop, then working on the steam deck isn’t much different. My advice is buying the lowest storage SD and then buying an aftermarket 2TB.
But also be aware that gameplay on SD cards is also very performative, so you may not need that extra storage anyway.
Just be aware that you need a 2230 M.2, not the much more common 2280 size.
