The Steam Deck has now officially been out for a few years! How time has flown for the handheld PC. I mean, I’ve had mine for two to three years, maybe, as I ordered it when it launched and then had to wait months and months for mine to arrive, but I’ve been following the device for at least few years, and I think it’s time to deep dive into the “Switch beater” and see if it’s still awesome.
Throughout this deep dive, I’ll take a look at the Steam Deck, what features it has, the various options you have in models available, how easy it is to use, and most importantly, what games it will give you access to.
The first thing I need to do is clarify which model of Steam Deck I’ll be looking at in this deep dive, and mine is the 512GB LCD model, which until the OLED models launched a year and a half into the Steam Deck’s life, was the best model available.
If you’re considering which model to get, I’d usually say my advice is to get the best model that is available as long as you can afford it. I like the screen on my LCD version, and am truthfully not fussed about the OLED model in this regard, but if I was buying today I would probably aim for the 1TB OLED. My 512GB LCD Steam Deck comes with an anti glare screen, which the lesser 64GB and 256GB models that originally launched did not.
The OLED models feature a 7.4 inch screen compared to the 7 inch screen of my LCD model, and the OLEDs are also HDR screens with a refresh rate of 90Hz compared to the LCD’s 60Hz.
Outside of the screen I’d say to avoid the original 64GB model not only because that’s a pathetic amount of space for the potentially unlimited about of games you may want to install, but because the memory in the 64GB model is eMMC whilst all other models have the much faster loading NVMe solid state drive. Of course, whichever model you have, I’d recommend you having the largest and fastest micro-SD card you can afford in there. I have a U3 512GB micro-SD card inserted and this gives me double the space. Even this though, can quickly fill up.
Valve have made it easy to upgrade the hard drive in any model, although this isn’t something I’d consider doing at any point in the foreseeable future, as even though this is advertised as a user friendly process, I’m generally happy to go with a gaming device as it comes out the box unless there’s an incredibly good reason.
The battery on the OLED may be up to 25% better than the original model, and this may be a significant difference maker for some, but as well get into, depending what game you’re playing on the Steam Deck, the battery can last maybe one to four or five hours anyway.
I also believe the wifi on the OLED model is also faster, but essentially it’s not a massive upgrade like going from one iPhone model to the next. OLED has a marginally larger OLED display with a better refresh rate, slightly faster wifi and a better battery, but since my model is the anti glare 512GB LCD model, we’re going to continue focusing on that.
The Steam Deck, whichever model you have, is a large device. It’s ginormous in fact, and as a handheld, it’s not at all pocketable. But when you consider that these can be very expensive, you wouldn’t want to have something like this just loose in a pocket anyway.
Despite its size, it’s actually very comfortable to hold. In my experience you’ll want to be able to rest your arms on a table or cushion, and it’s great to play whilst laying down, but you may start to notice the weight after a while.
You’ll probably also quickly notice some warmth from the device and you’re definitely going to notice the noise from the fan. I’ve yet to do a test to see if the heat from this can fry an egg, but I’m inclined to think it probably can at least get it started.
You’ll want to have a carry case for your Steam Deck, and although I’ve not taken the probably sensible steps to get it a silicone case and screen protector, it would be sensible to get a silicone case and a screen protector. What can I say, I’m either more confident I can be careful with my Steam Deck than others, or it’s just because I like to live dangerously. The truth is, it’s something I think about every time I use the console, but then do nothing about.
Let’s talk about games, and what games you can expect to play on the little…huge wonder from Valve.
Valve are the creators of the Steam Deck, and they’re also the creators of Steam. So, this device naturally runs Steam OS, which is designed to work well with the software from your Steam library. As it happens, whilst there are other options like the Epic Games Store, my collection of PC games, like probably the majority of users, is primarily on Steam. If you want to play games on this from other stores, if is possible as this is effectively a handheld PC, and has a PC mode for which you can install other operating systems like Windows if you’d like to. Once again, for me, I’m happy to use this with the Linux based operating system in desktop mode, but truthfully to date I only ever use desktop mode when I’m setting up adding emulators and games that I would like to appear on the Home Screen.
It’s worth noting that not everything you may have in your Steam library will work on the Steam Deck. This is a console-ised version of a PC after all, and as a result specs and compatibility is going to be a pain much more than if you were just to use your Nintendo Switch or PlayStation Vita. That said even those games require downloads and updates these days. But the point is you shouldn’t expect this to us work in every instance. This isn’t a Game Boy where you can just plug in Pokémon Gold and it just works.
I recently had the system do an update and then it didn’t want to load past the Steam icon as it was booting up. I had to google a fox for this and basically using a button combo, I put the device into safe mode and reverted back to an older system software version. I’ve never had to do this with my Tiger Game.com.
From the main menu you’ll be able to access your Steam library and the Steam Store, and unless you’ve never owned a PC, I imagine that most people will sign into Steam and then have the magic of seeing all of their Steam games list now available in portable form. This was like getting a new more powerful Switch and discovering it came with 200 games out the box.
Valve have made a push for games to be Steam Deck compatible which is both good but interesting as a concept. If developers are now considering making it so their newest games can run well on the Steam Deck this may mean their games are in some way limited compared to if they just shot for the stars and designed a game to need the beefiest PC imaginable. But I guess this is just like any games being held back by versions needing to run on consoles. A top end gaming PC will be able to run things with settings up all the way, but you shouldn’t expect your Steam Deck to have everything turned on to max in the settings.
Speaking of which, running games on Steam OS, you will have a lot more options you can go rough to make each game run as optimised as possible. But by bit there are more games that are listed as ‘Great on Deck’. These are ones that are tested and verified and considered to run really well on the Steam Deck. The bad news is that this isn’t all the games by a long shot, but the good news is that even if a game isn’t listed as great on Deck doesn’t mean it doesn’t work and doesn’t mean it won’t run great on your Steam Deck. It just means that it perhaps hasn’t been optimised as yet, or that maybe it just hasn’t been tested enough for it to be added to the verified list.
I don’t have the largest Steam library as I consider myself more of a console gamer, but that said I still have a Steam library of 291 games. Crazy right? I can truthfully say that this is from a lot of humble bundles, other sales, but has started to grow as a result of my purchase of the Steam Deck.
Of my 291 games, only 74 are listed as Great on Deck. That’s basically a quarter of my games. I’m sure there will be compatibility lists all over the internet, so it may be worth checking if your favourite games will work on the Deck. Again though I’ll mention that even if they’re not listed as great on Deck it doesn’t mean they won’t work. I think sometimes a game may not get the nod if it perhaps requires a keyboard and as the Deck only has a virtual keyboard option as a handheld, this may be enough to not get a game on the list.
Games that are listed as great on deck from my library include Batman Arkham Knight, Alan Wake, Control, Fire Pro Wrestling, Broken Sword, Resident Evil 4 Remake and Resident Evil Village, Metal Gear Solid V, and Horizon Zero Dawn.
Examples of games that are listed with the yellow warning of playable or the question mark of unknown include my collection of Alone in the Dark games, Injustice 2, and others.
My copy of Curse of Monkey Island is listed as not working, and whilst I’ve not played it all the way through, it has worked for me. Likewise my copy of Quake 3 Arena played great…but on the main menu when I’d move the cursor it would leave a graphical error of a trail of where it had been. Actual gameplay was fine for me though.
As an example of a game that doesn’t work, the first Metal Slug game is listed as not working, and when I launch it I can hear the game, but I cannot see the game. Likewise I had a similar issue with the first Tomb Raider game. Good job it’s just hd a remaster then, as my Steam Deck doesn’t want to play ball after the fancy 1996 cut scenes have finished playing.
So yeah, whilst I can play a ton of games on it, it doesn’t fully give me everything that I can play on my gaming laptop. But my gaming laptop is a beast and won’t fit in my pocket. And by pocket I mean the carry case in my backpack.
I have taken this thing to medical appointments with long waiting times and it’s useful on holiday, but I’ve also felt nervous carrying it around. I’m not sure why, but because I’ve had occasional game glitches on it and it is more expensive I am more afraid that this will one day just brick. I don’t ever really have the same worry about the Switch.
But what else can the Steam Deck offer? Well, it’s brilliant for emulation. I’ve probably used the Deck more for being my all in one emulation device than I have for the Steam library.
There are loads of great guides online, but it doesn’t take much to be able to add emulator cores and your classic collection of games to the system, and you can even get to select them with artwork from the main library menu.
To do this does require a little tinkering around in desktop mode, but isn’t a difficult process.
I’ve recently got into using my Analogue Pocket which is a great for having FPGa cores of a bunch of classic systems and will arguably give a better performance on playing older games for the Game Boy, Super Nintendo, NES, Mega Drive and so on, than you would from regular emulation. Truthfully, I don’t notice much difference, but one thing I do know is that the Steam Deck will allow me to relive my library of Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, PSOne, GameCube and Dreamcast games without much effort needed at all.
In terms of all of the games that you can get to run on this thing is basically second to none in terms of handhelds. And yeah, I know there are now other handheld PCs and some of them run Windows natively, but the Steam Deck is still the top dog for me in this respect.
One thing that I love is that I could get a relatively cheap Dock for the system and this was a third party one from Amazon that works great. I mention this because as you’ll have seen on my review of the Analogue Pocket, you can only use the official dock with that system and it costs a fortune. My dock for the Steam Deck lets me connect the Deck to my TV or to my PC with a capture card to get gameplay footage and stream. I also have three USB Type A ports, a connection for hardwired internet which is infinitely better than Wi-Fi and I can easily expand this further with a USB hub.
As I’m someone who liked to make videos about games, and likes to stream games on occasion, I’ve enjoyed using the Steam Deck hooked up to my PC to record and stream games. I find it the better option for me rather than have the one PC have the tasks of running the games and recording or streaming at the same time. Using a Steam Deck hooked up to a PC is me finally having that two PC solution that I would seem everyone rave about on their gaming PC set up videos.
Of all the gaming devices I own, I have to say that my Steam Deck is possibly the best, but despite that it’s one that at times I’ve put away for days or even a couple of weeks at a time. But what I can say is that if I could only have one of the devices I own for gaming currently for the rest of my life, I would definitely choose the Steam Deck. It can be connected to a TV, but it’s also portable. It’s got the controls and layout to play most types of games, and it’s also got a library of all my PC games and can pretty much run any emulator game that is currently possible to play.
It certainly could have been argued to have been a Switch 1 beater, but the Switch 2 gives it more of a run for it’s money in terms of higher end games that can run on it. Of course, this is a deep dive of the original model of the SteamDeck, and not even the revised OLED or any future versions. There have since been a bunch of handheld PCS like the ASUS Rog Aly Xbox and there will be more and more in the future.
I feel I’ve probably overlooked it at times because I like to play a range of different games on different consoles, and especially as I’ve got more into making videos about games and systems, it’s sometimes lingered in the background whilst I’m playing something on Switch, or on something more unusual and random like the Playdate.
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