Valves Steam Deck

Expecting mine to come in today. I'm almost in disbelief this is really happening.
Arrived and fired it up - 512 GB model with a pretty sweet case. I love it so far. There are quite a few games as confirmed to work well with the Steam Deck and a number of them are flagged with seemingly minor issues (having to use the pop up keyboard occasionally, etc.)

I broke it in with The Orange Box package and played through the first hour or so of Half Life 2. It really is an amazing experience.
 
Arrived and fired it up - 512 GB model with a pretty sweet case. I love it so far. There are quite a few games as confirmed to work well with the Steam Deck and a number of them are flagged with seemingly minor issues (having to use the pop up keyboard occasionally, etc.)

I broke it in with The Orange Box package and played through the first hour or so of Half Life 2. It really is an amazing experience.
Keep the impressions coming. Thinking of picking one up at some point.
 
Keep the impressions coming. Thinking of picking one up at some point.
I didn't realize there is a desktop mode which takes you to a view similar to Windows desktop. It has Firefox included as the default browser, so if you want to watch Netflix, Disney +, etc., you just navigate to the site via Firefox, but there aren't standalone apps.

I downloaded Retroarch yesterday from the website via the browser and will be trying some roms out this evening.
 
  • Like
Reactions: D-V-ANT
I didn't realize there is a desktop mode which takes you to a view similar to Windows desktop. It has Firefox included as the default browser, so if you want to watch Netflix, Disney +, etc., you just navigate to the site via Firefox, but there aren't standalone apps.

I downloaded Retroarch yesterday from the website via the browser and will be trying some roms out this evening.
Is the desktop Linux?
 
Ok, got Retroarch up and running yesterday. It probably only took about 30 minutes total from the download to figuring out access directly from the Steam gaming/store environment. I purchased a dock that allows power pass-through so you can hook up the dock directly to the USB-C of the Steam Deck, which gives me a couple of direct USB ports for thumb drives, a full SD card port, and HDMI output to my TV if I want to:

Amazon product

I had some roms on a USB drive that I loaded onto the Steam Deck and I also added a 512 GB micro SD card, so I'm at about 1 TB total of internal space.

In terms of roms, it flawlessly runs NES, Genesis, and SNES games. I've had some funky things happen with N64 roms with Retroarch crashing, but that seems to be related to the cores and roms loaded. When they are running well, the N64 roms run flawlessly in terms of expected performance, so clearly horsepower isn't an issue.
 
Expecting mine to come in today. I'm almost in disbelief this is really happening.
Did you get a notification from Steam or an email? I'm still waiting for mine. It says Q3 (July-Sept) as expected availability for my order on the Steam Deck store page.
 
And got the email.
OGC.8b517eec430d9e1f1c64f93b90de3f44
 
  • Love
Reactions: Spiritech
How's everyone's experience with battery life on these?
 
Overall, it's been a positive experience for me. I'm finding lots of games that are in the unknown category of steam compatibility are surprisingly compatible with the deck. Sometimes you just gotta install it and see if it works. Battery life isn't the best, but I find it also varies between game to game. I've mainly been playing Brutal Legend. Plays quite good, but it makes my steam deck get good and warm. Can't say I have that issue with any other game I've played on it yet, but we'll see as I intend to try out other stuff like Elden Ring once I'm done with Brutal Legend. I'm also not a fan of PC mode not having a virtual keyboard available out the gate. Kind of defeats the purpose of it for me, but I do intend to get a kb/m for the steam deck once some construction in my house is done and I have a better idea of where my set-up is gonna be.

Final verdict, I love the Steam Deck. It's weird holding other handhelds because it feels so small in comparison. Love the interface on the actual steam pages. Everything feels so much more intuitive to access and look into compared to Nintendo's switch. I haven't bought any new games because I've just been slamming through my backlog, but I love the Steam Deck experience. Big thumbs up from me.
 
I didn't realize you could stream from the PC to the steam deck, and vice versa. I'm finding games that normally weren't playable on my PC, were playable on the steam deck, and that I could stream from the deck to the PC as well. Thus allowing me to play and experience games on my current PC set-up. Might drop a video of it in action, but it's a cool feature that opens up numerous possibilities for what games I can play and where.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DarkPassenger
I didn't realize you could stream from the PC to the steam deck, and vice versa. I'm finding games that normally weren't playable on my PC, were playable on the steam deck, and that I could stream from the deck to the PC as well. Thus allowing me to play and experience games on my current PC set-up. Might drop a video of it in action, but it's a cool feature that opens up numerous possibilities for what games I can play and where.
I think you can stream GamePass games from the browser as well.
 
  • Hmm
Reactions: sharkboy1200
I'm very happy with my Steam Deck Purchase.

I got it around mid April, and I basically consider it my backlog gaming device.

I have SO many Indie games (Particularly the 2D ones) that I wanted to get to but would always play the higher end games anytime I was at my Gaming PC. Now when I'm laying down in bed, I can just play everything on the Steam Deck like I do with the Nintendo Switch.

I got the 512GB model.

Oh, and I realized it would've been my 20th year anniversary last month if the Team Xbox Forums would've still been around. :D *Sheds Tear*