Review: The Steam Deck Is the Perfect Mobile Gaming Platform

Last Christmas, I wanted to purchase a Nintendo Switch for my partner. They love playing Mario Kart, and playing together on TV seemed to be the perfect way to enjoy the Christmas season. However, the Nintendo Switch was released in 2017, with only minor screen upgrades in the years since. I just couldn’t justify paying the same launch product for a device years out of date.Fast-forward to this Christmas, and the cycle repeats. I want to buy a Switch, but the Switch is now 8 years old, has the same processor as when it was released, and still costs $300. Switch 2 is rumored to finally be released next year — and readers can expect a review when it comes out — but I’m not willing to pay full price for a soon-to-be outdated device.If you are interested in a mobile gaming platform, though, there’s never been a better time to shop. Lenovo, Asus, and Ayaneo all make Linux-powered gaming handhelds, letting you run most PC games on the go; and Sony now makes the PlayStation Portal for the PlayStation 5, letting you stream games to this handheld device when you’re on the same WiFi network as your PlayStation. But the unquestioned champion of the market is the Steam Deck.Announced in 2021 and released early the following year, the Steam Deck is very similar to those Lenovo and Asus devices: an all-in-one, handheld gaming device, powered by a Linux-based operating system. It’s powered by an AMD Zen 2 CPU, AMD RDNA 2 GPU, and comes with 16 GB of RAM; and none of those are particularly impressive chips, but they’re only displaying games on a small screen, using their very efficient Linux skin, SteamOS.The Steam Deck comes with a 7-inch 1280×800 LCD, or a 7.4-inch 1280×800 OLED, and though the base LCD version starts at $399, and is surprisingly good for the price, the upgraded screen is a worthwhile upgrade. Overall, the Steam Deck is bigger than some competitors, including the Switch, but it uses this for a more comprehensive range of control schemes, and it’s not heavy.The hardware is damn impressive — with ergonomic, well-made controls, more buttons than you will likely use, and two included thumb trackpads, and all of this is easily repairable and upgradable — but the Steam Deck beats every other handheld device with its software. Namely, it runs SteamOS; a Linux skin that directly connects to their online game launcher and store Steam, where the majority of Windows users buy their games. To set up the Steam Deck, you don’t need to purchase new games; just log into your Steam library, and you can download all the games you already have, and many of them are explicitly optimized to work for the Steam Deck.Not all games will run on the Steam Deck, but you can quickly tell their status. Just open a game, and Steam shows whether it’s optimized for the Steam Deck — meaning developers have configured its performance profile to run perfectly on the Deck — or, if not, whether it is compatible or won’t work. In my decade-old Steam library, there is not a single game marked incompatible.The games even synchronize between your Steam Deck and your computer, meaning you could play on a gaming computer when you’re at home, then use the Steam Deck on your commute or when traveling, and when you get back to your gaming PC, all your progress will instantly be carried over and continued.

Review: The Steam Deck Is the Perfect Mobile Gaming Platform

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