5.0 out of 5 stars Great handheld

s. · 8 February 2024

If your like myself and want to play pc games on the go then this is the device you need. Great size feels great in the hands. The steam store is we'll set out for getting games with deck certified titles that run great also easy to upgrade the ssd to 1 tb to keep a good catalog of games.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great but glitchy

s.r. · 8 November 2023

For games that work it's fantastic, but for others it can have glitchy graphics and there are system glitches eg games won't fully load after playing one game and then exiting it. You have to restart the whole Deck to get another game to start.

5.0 out of 5 stars The best handheld to get by far

D. · 8 August 2023

I've owned a 256GB Steam Deck for around ten months now. I use it primarily for playing indie games, mostly sticking to games rated as verified or playable by Valve, or checking ProtonDB with games not yet rated.It has played every game I have tried so far with only the one game crash in hundreds of hours of playtime and I'm fairly sure it was the game's fault, not Steam OS or the hardware. I also had lag in one verified game, I've played about eighty different games in total on it so far. This is impressive, given that the vast majority of games run through the Proton compatibility layer, which translates code written for Windows into code that runs on Linux. According to the YouTube videos I have watched, the performance impact of Proton versus native Windows is tiny and made up for by the fact that Steam OS is leaner than Windows and has fewer background tasks running. Things are only likely to get better over time as new versions of Proton and Steam OS are released.The device is very well supported, with frequent updates. In the indie games I play, battery life is generally four to five hours, though I charge when it gets to around 20%. Expect much shorter battery life if new AAA games are what you play on it, sometimes less than two hours. Steam OS seems very polished and the bugs that people reported on launch are mostly fixed now. It is a very intuitive OS and if you want to, you can use the Steam Deck almost like a console, never leaving game mode. There is also a full Linux desktop mode, which is easily accessible, from where you can use the Deck like a regular PC, again Windows users should not take long to get used to it.Although there are devices with higher specs, they all have drawbacks which make me glad I chose the Steam Deck. Competing devices tend to be less reliable, have worse support and be much more expensive. And from what I've read, Windows is not currently a great handheld experience. If you're so inclined, getting an official or third party dock and connecting a mouse and keyboard is a great way to try Linux.Overall I highly recommend the Steam Deck. The battery life could be better, but this is a limitation of current battery technology and battery life is about as good as it gets with handhelds at this time (excluding the Switch, a much less powerful device). I'd say the Steam Deck's main assets are its excellent value (when bought from Valve, I recommend dodging third party sellers here and elsewhere, until official retail release), Steam OS which is a fantastic gaming focused OS and Valve's excellent support for the device.

1.0 out of 5 stars Discontinued units at almost double the price

S. · 11 November 2023

Having just paid over £500 I just found out I could have bought the same unit for £300 as these versions are discontinued.