You may become spoiled by the Steam Deck's excellent controls, such that no gamepad currently for sale will ever come close.

For me and Rimworld, I became dependent on the four back buttons, and now I can't stand playing it on desktop with a controller because no controller on the market offers four additional buttons that work like that (as far as I know)

I'm a big fan of using the thumb pads for games like City Skylines and Civ.
Also you can play cozy games in bed.
Or balatro at the bus stop.
Or.. or.. or.. and.. and.. and..
Eh, I'd say it's a mixed bag.
The Triggers? Yes, I'd say they are tied for the best option right now.
The sticks? Also yes. They are positioned great, feel great, work great. As someone who likes both the Dualsense and Xbox sticks a lot, the Steam Deck is even better. It's worth mentioning that even after 2 years I still haven't found a use for the capacitive touch pads. They're a neat idea I suppose, but it seems like you need a VERY specific scenario to make it work. Even the one I see most often- gyro - I'd rather just use a button to toggle it than use the capacitive sensor on the right stick.
The face buttons? They're okay. Not the worst I've used, but too rounded for me. They can really wear on your thumbs in games where you mash. I'd prefer the Dualsense, but this is better than the Xbox.
The Shoulder Buttons? Pretty garage actually. They work, but feel really mush and awkward to use. Give me a Dualsense, or most other controllers instead.
Start/Select? Fine, but placed in places that are difficult to reach without actively stretching. Like they often are on controllers anyways, so not a big deal.
D-Pad? Serviceable. It feels similar to the PS Vita of all things. It's nowhere near the crisp, precise, harsh microswitches of JoyCons. It's also nowhere near the fluid, smooth motion of the Sony style D-Pad. It's somewhere in-between. It's also more precise than traditional Nintendo d-pads. I'd say it's fine, but I prefer Sony's. My thumb gets tired easily from D-Pad heavy games on the Deck.
Back buttons are a nice bonus, but they don't feel super great. They all feel more like toggles than buttons you are expected to constantly be actuating.
The track pass are great at first, but my right track pad wore out VERY quickly and it feels terrible. Clicking on it now is very unpleasant, to the point where in some games I map R2 or R4 to click just so I don't have to use the track pad for it anymore. Hopefully Valve improves that. I'd absolutely love to see those track pads on standalone controllers.
- I’ve used the right trackpad as a mouse. I haven’t tried it for an FPS, but it works well for menus, inventory management, or for lower stress mouse games like city builders.
  In Valhiem, at least, I’ve configured the left track pad as an 8 position radial menu to quickly activate to any hotbar slot.
- Your touchpad issue may be a fluke, both the steam decks in my house (one original, one OLED) still work great with both trackpada
  I use the touchpads constantly, mostly for Rimworld, but also desktop usage and other games, and I find them to be outstanding
- The Triggers? Yes, I'd say they are tied for the best option right now.
  I'm a huge fan of the Steam Deck, and it's control scheme, but as far as I'm aware, only the DualSense has adaptive, analog triggers.
  SD triggers aren't even close.
- The Back Buttons on their own are not great.
  IF you are going to do some customization - I highly recommend swapping them out.
  I only did the back plate and I keep it in a case so I barely notice the clear purple back but I Do notice the new, and much larger, back triggers. They feel so much better.
  https://jsaux.com/products/transparent-back-plate-for-steam-deck-pc0106
and now I can't stand playing it on desktop with a controller
I mean... Yeah. Why would you not use a mouse for Rimworld on desktop?
- I do a lot of couch gaming. I do have a wired lapboard for keyboard and mouse but it's nice relaxing with a gamepad too
The 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless has 2 back buttons and two extra shoulders, and it has full Steam Input support (must update the Controller and Dongle firmware and hold the B button when turning on)
No trackpads though...
I may catch some flack for this, but I was and still am a big fan of the original steam controller, so much so that I still use it on my aging gaming laptop. How do the steam deck controls and buttons compare to the steam controller?
- I have an original Steam Controller as well. The Steam Deck is a lot better in my opinion because I can choose between thumbstick or thumbpad on each side, whereas with the old controller you have to live with the touchpads and the single stick on the right.
  The build quality feels a bit better too, and the haptics a bit more refined.
  Really, the Deck offers everything the Controller did aside from form factor. And maybe if some folks vastly prefer the bigger touchpads, that might possibly be a downside, but I doubt that'd be the case for most
It's possible to use your steam deck as a controller on your pc. You can use steam link, but if your WiFi isn't very good there will be problems, or virtualhere. I haven't tried virtualhere but I have heard that it is good, unfortunately, the only good guide I found for it is on reddit :(
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/v22ddf/guide_how_to_use_your_deck_as_a_steam_input/
It works so good I even use it as a portable Linux machine. Just for internet etc.
- Yeah! I use mine as a media device sometimes. With the first party dock. And with KDE Connect on my phone already since I use KDE on both my work and personal machines, adding the Steam Deck to that works so incredibly well for remote input
i really wanna get into rimworld on steamdeck so much. i played it on pc but never took the plunge back in on deck. What config are you using? Id love to get everything right so i can get hooked as fast as possible :3
- Totally stock controls, dozens of hours. Works really really well!
I don't know Rimworld but the GuliKit KK3 MAX has 4 back buttons and works great with the steam deck
- From what I'm reading they are not independent buttons though. They can only be copies of other buttons. Utterly useless.
Playing rimworld on the deck seems tricky. Feels like a game where I want the precision of a mouse. What actions have you set your back buttons to?
- I haven't played Rimworld on it, but I have played other mouse-dependent games, and it's amazing how quickly you can adapt to the thumbpads. They actually work very well for fine mouse control.
- L4/R4: slow down or speedup time R5: move screen faster, also hold down to select multiple L5: something to do with the touchscreen but I don't use it
Don’t the expensive (over $100) controllers that PlayStation and Xbox offer have paddle controls on the back? I think they are Elite and Edge controllers.
- Only two and they don't function as additional buttons sadly
- I have an aftermarket controller with back paddles (8bitdo pro) but they can only be bound to other existing controls or macros which I don't find useful at all 😔

That it's awesome

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 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.

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.

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?

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.
- Yeah, hard disagree.
modern AAA but ps4 era works like 60-70% of the time and older than that youre usually goated too!

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.

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.
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.

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

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!
- https://www.etsy.com/listing/1790825219/steamdeck-mechlock-wall-mount-with
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.

About this super handy Kick stand

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.

Many oled models have serious audio issues. Speakers and bt audio work fine, but the 3.5 mm jack is noisy. If this happens, you open a ticket right away, send it back and they will replace sound board for you. I got mine done. It's better, but not perfect.

Oh man I didn't know they were replacing these. I tried the 3.5mm jack for the first time the other day and it was awful. I thought it had sat around unused for too long and I needed to clean it out or something
- The "fixed" board is still noisy, but the volume goes quiet very quickly if no sound is being reproduced. You still hear crackling but at least it falls off instead of always persisting.
  I am no engineer, but I suspect the audio is not shielded enough. Perhaps oled uses more current than led? I noticed the noise corresponds to the amount of motion on the screen.

If you're into cosmetics the only way (that I'm aware of) to get the fancy Steam profile stuff and special keyboards is to buy the 1TB version. If you're interested in customising your Deck with themes, intro videos and the like the 1TB version is the way forward as space gets eaten up quickly.

It's worth buying a screen protector and a small, fine paintbrush to dust out the grooves and vents.

Enjoy your Deck!

Maybe there are more keyboards that I don't know about but I got the 512 GB OLED version and was able to get all kinds of useless profile things and also keyboard skins, marked as Steamdeck exclusive.
- If that is the case I could very well have misunderstood; my partner bought the 512GB and (as far as I know) didn't receive the special profile, keyboards or intro video. Maybe they simply haven't claimed them.
It's also fairly simple to replace the lowest capacity drive with a 2TB.

Buy a nice case for transporting it. I like my JSAUX case, it has alot more storage space then the stock case.

Or don't, because the original one is perfectly fine.
I never understood what people have against it.
- I think not having room for the charger is a valid complaint. Not enough for me to buy a 3rd party case, but I can see why people would want one.
  I tend to put mine in its case, but put that case in a backpack with all of its accessories. Which kinda sucks, but also even if I didn't have the deck I typically have enough other electronics to justify a dedicated backpack anyways- battery banks, chargers, my wife's laptop and kindle, maybe our portable projector to throw things up on random spots. While I wish the Deck case had more space, unless it was badkpack-sized I would probably end up throwing it in a backpack anyways.
- The original one is solid, but takes up a lot of space. Which is fine in a car boot or something, but may be a problem in a backpack.
  Having said that, if you’re putting it in a bag where it won’t be rattling around, protecting the front is probably enough, so a half-case which covers the front will probably suffice.
- I have nothing against the original, I used it for a few months and it works great. I switched to a different case when I got a different charger and other cords to use with the external battery I added to the 'entourage' for the Deck. The original case didn't have the room for all that, and things like earbuds didn't like to stay in the elastic hollow of the original. Wasn't a big deal, but it was a noticeable change after switching cases.
Okay, thank you! If I can ask a dumb question, what else do you take with you when you bring your steamdeck places?
- I bring the power brick, a USB-C dongle, HDMI cable and one or two controllers.
  That way I can plug it at my friends or in a hotel etc.
  I have a portable USB-C display that I bring sometimes, if for example travelling by train for a longer period.
- Power brick, USB-C cable, external battery, earbud headphones.
  Sometimes I also add a folding bluetooth keyboard, mini bluetooth mouse, and USB drives, but that's only when I'm gonna use the Deck as a computer for 3D modeling or typing tasks.
OG case ftw.
Other cases seem like a waste of money.

Getting your games from Epic and GoG to work on it takes a bit of work but overall not complicated.

Also if you use an external controller, sometimes it will show the wrong platform glyphs. Personally I just deal with it while using a PS controller but you can just have it show generic ones if you prefer that.

Don't set charge limits, because odds are you can never get back to 100% battery charging ever again due to bugs (at best I get 99% now.)

Don't expect your games to "just work" - even if they have a green check box, expect to have to troubleshoot like you always have, almost certainly even more.

Memorize Steam button + X to open the keyboard, you're gonna need it.

Don't go anywhere without a charger unless you're playing a game that you know will last long on battery.

The more games you install, the more games you won't play. A giant SD card and a giant SSD just means you have more shit that you look at and feel guilty before you power it off because you can't decide what to play anyway (and that's a big factor for why our backlogs have been growing all this time even before getting a deck. Too many games, not enough time and motivation.)

Know that a USB-C dock is gonna have issues. You're gonna have to fuck with audio output settings each and every time you connect it, and sometimes when you resume it from sleep. It will not always gracefully recover when you unplug it either.

There's gonna be a refresh to the hardware before you know it, and you're gonna want that version.

It's too big to fit in your pocket, you basically need a backpack for it.

You won't need any kind of case, but a glass screen protector is a good idea.

The bottom plastic near the screws will crack from stress. It happens even moreso on the transparent model.

Expect very poor control schemes on any game that is not incredibly popular with official gamepad support. If you are patient and can setup the keybinds yourself you can do OK- but some games just don't work well with a controller, period.

Sleep mode drains battery like a motherfucker. It seemed great on release, but now I lose what feels like 20% a day, or more. This means the deck you set down Sunday night will almost certainly be dead by Saturday when you get back to it.

Games that have poor save schemes like what has been found in older RPGs can be frustrating to deal with, because if you pause your session and come back to it... you still need to grind to the next save point or lose your progress. This is in a non-issue in tons of games, but can be an issue sometimes.

Some games sync in-game settings to the cloud, and overwrite what you have on your deck or PC depending on what was last used.

If you use an SD card, sometimes it can take minutes to hours to provision the storage necessary to begin downloading and installing the game on said SD card. This is after it's properly formatted, no matter how many games have been installed and how much space is free. It's a great mystery.

There's hotkey combinations to turn up and down brightness. If you hold down the steam key long enough, it shows you many more of those combinations to do many more useful things.

When you're changing settings in a game, you can specify changing global settings or hit a slider to make it per-game profile. It's almost always better to change per-game profiles so your settings can be custom per game.

You can remote play on a ps5 incredibly well. Chiaki4deck is great.

Your GOG, Epic and other games do not work easily natively. There are fan projects like Heroic Games Launcher to have this functionality, but they aren't native to the system.

It's very easy to not have any of your steam playtime register with steam.

It's very easy for your steam playtime to suddenly display dozens or hundreds of hours from sleep mode being utilized in some games.

That's just what I can mention from personal experience.

Don't set charge limits, because odds are you can never get back to 100% battery charging ever again due to bugs (at best I get 99% now.)
Where can I read more about this?
- It's been a sporadic issue across multiple steamOS versions for a long, long time. At one point they said they fixed it, but I have the bug on the current version.
  I'm sure if you go through the process of factory resetting the device or re-loading the OS and blowing away your settings it can be fixed, but I look at that as way too much work.
  This thread has someone with a very verbose set of instructions of how to fix it via command line https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/1/597404077749474647/
I have never had that issue with a sd card on either of my steam decks. That's weird and shouldn't happen.
I also haven't had to do any trouble shooting for games with a green good to go.
But mostly that SD thing, something else must be an issue. I install only to the SD card, does that matter?
- The SD card thing was something I definitely saw a ton of others with the issue of when I knew the exact description of what was happening, but it's been a few months.
  When you go to install a game it does something to the effect of "provisioning space for game" and it was taking me minutes to hours before it would install some games. Installing to the onboard nvme ssd would get very fast rates that were bottlenecked by wifi attenuation mostly, and said provisioning time is instant.
  The card I have is this PNY one. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DM9NNMND So far i'm using only maybe 15% of the space. I noticed it when I first got it and was downloading a couple of games, not even necessarily large ones.
Hard disagree on the case. The Steam Deck is not made to be dropped like your average Game Boy. Far too expensive, and far too fragile.
I have dropped it exactly 1 time, 2 feet off a couch and I had to replace both triggers on one side.
The cases are not expensive. I had the Spigen one for $15 and now I have the Jsaux Mod Case.
The Jsaux Mod Case which is nice because it allows you to slide a battery pack on, and it has a hard screen cover so you can slap it in a bag, and not worry.
But I mostly use it because it allows me to use a lanyard.
Also I've never seen the bottom crack "from stress" but again I only dropped it once.
Side note:
It is a heavy device, it is giving me cubital tunnel syndrome from propping my elbows on tables. No idea what to do about it other than play less.
- With the case I just figure the one it comes with is the best case i've ever seen offered first party at no extra cost.
  If you drop the thing though outside of said carrying case it's toast. it's way too big and heavy to survive any real fall. I'd be very surprised if even some kind of otterbox would work (but I admit i've never looked into it.)

You might want to upgrade your couch & TV. If you’re used to playing at a desktop, it doesn’t feel right to play a handheld in your gaming chair. You can plop down in a big comfortable couch, put on a TV show or movie in the background, and grind through whatever game you like that runs decent.

It’s good for when someone else wants to watch a tv show you don’t care about, so you pop out your deck and spend time together doing separate things that interest you.

Remember your admin password if you mess around on the Linux side.

Yeah I love hanging out with the family while I casually play something.

The LCD model is not compatible with wifi 6 :(

Changing the SSD was easy and a big cost savings. I bought the cheapest model and upgraded to 512GB because at the time it was a huge price spike to go up to 1TB. My understanding now is that 1TB, or even 1.5TB, makes a lot more sense. Maybe even 2TB, though they are still a lot.
This applies to PC gaming in general, but even moreso for the Deck. The question is not "will it run?"- it is incredibly rare to find any game that simply will not run at all. The questiona are: how well does it run, and how much am I willing to sacrifice to get there? If you want, you can download Aperture Desk Job for free and play through the whole thing in one sitting. It's incredibly easy to install on a stock Deck with just a couple of button presses, all the controls are mapped perfectly, and it's designed to look and run great on a Deck. Other games will be more complicated.

I recently went to play Baldur's Gate 3 with a friend. It's Verified, but the experience just sucks. It installed just fine, and since it knows it's on Deck it handles the annoying Larian launcher thing fine. But even when I cranked all of the visual settings to their lowest and limited the Deck to 30FPS, it was still playing the game with the fan on max, loudly blasting hit air out. I think the battery life was less than an hour. The 720p screen really does the game poorly, and the controller UI is... Impressive, but still nowhere near as good as M&KB.

Skyrim is another example. Runs pretty well once you're in there, but there's an annoying splash screen first. So you need to either go into the launch options to turn it off (but that's the only way to adjust the visual settings to make sure you do that first), or just leave a track pad as a mouse (including press-to-click) for that game so you can click past the splash screen and go back to controller mode. Or just use the touch screen if you prefer.

Everything is a balance. Battery life, fan noise, heat, resolution, visual post-processing, frame rate. It's subjective, and you may want to play a game differently when you're on your couch vs when you're on a plane, for example.

Streaming. You can use the Deck similar to how devices like the PS Portal or Logitech G-Cloud are supposed to work. If you have a gaming desktop, you can install Valve's Steam Link app (it's not in Steam though - you need to go to desktop mode, go to the Discover repository to find and install it, then add it to Steam as a non-Steam game). Then after some setup, you can stream from your desktop to the Deck. This is a great workaround for heavy modern AAA games. Gigantic games that are hundreds of gigabytes can live on cheaper 2.5"SSD's this way. If your desktop runs windows this gets around anh OS comparability issues Proton can't handle, and it might get around some anticheat too. The computation is shifted of the deck, so the fan stays quiet, the unit stays cool, and battery life is great. The downside is a bit of lag.

I've heard of NVIDIA's Moonlight and the community-made AMD version Sunshine as well. But I think Nvidia has stopped their support, and personally I never even got Sunshine to install on my desktop. Steam Remote Play has dramatically improved over the years and is say it's pretty good now.

Sony has their official PS Remote Play app for Windows and Android that allows those devices to steam from PS4's and PS5's. I assume this is what the PS Portal uses too. There is no official app for Linux, but there is a 3rd party one called Chiaki. You can also install this as a non-Steam game and stream. I'm playing Bloodborne on the Deck on my porch right now as I'm taking this.

Advanced Savings. I have a ton of emulators and a library of ROMs. I also have my desktop and like to use it to stream to a variety of different screens, and unfortunately you can't use Steam Cloud Saves with non-Steam games, or even with some Steam games like Retroarch. Even some of my Steam games don't have cloud save support- I was shocked to open up Sonic Adventure 2: Battle on the Deck and see an empty save.

The solution? Syncthing. Install this app on your Deck as a non-Steam game. Install it on your desktop, your android TV box, your phone, your old laptop, your NAS. Whether it's backups or synchronization, it's great. I'll catch a Pokemon on my Deck in an emulator, save, move to my desktop, open the save using PKHex, make the pokemon Shiny, then go back to the Deck and enjoy my new shiny pokemon.

File Sharing. Assuming you have a desktop, set up an SMB shared folder there. On the Deck in Desktop mode, you might need to install an app with more advanced file browsing features than the default (I like one called Nautilus). This one I only use in Desktop mode, so no need to add it to the Steam Library. It's just great to be able to offload storage for my Deck onto my desktop, especially for larger disc-based ROM's. PS2, GameCube, PS3, Wii, WiiU, and Switch games all fall into this category because I either have large libraries or the games themselves are just huge. A 512GB card is probably enough for the entire library of ROM's for every pre-2000 videogame. Heck, you could probably get away with 256GB if you use good compression formats. Once we start using DVD's and Blue-Rays those sizes increase fast. My library is already on mechanical drives on my desktop (one of these days I'll build a proper server) so it's nice to be able to copy over the handful of games I feel like I'm going to want to play soon over the network, no messing with cables or flash drives or SD cards or anything.

I'm not sure what sort of information do you expect... it's fun? It's just a portable PC, not much more to it, I love mine.

That's fair and honestly I don't know either. I guess maybe I'm just trying to calm any fears that I would regret spending that much?
- It has became my main gaming device over time, when my pc broke i took a guest buying it and no regret except maybe not waiting for the Oled version other than that back button suck ( L4-5 and R4-5 ) so i mostly use them for the system zoom which is nice to read small text some game have.
  Really good for emulation if that something you want
  Ps4 controller work nice with them as a controller when i play docked

So I got my steam deck as a late Christmas present and I loved mine. One thing I do in 3D games is set the R5 (right bottom back button) to A so I can play stuff like Deep rock or no man’s sky and be able to jump while still being able to look around

Both the back paddles and the trackpads have so much customization (and the normal buttons if you want) being able to bind them to normal controls like I did with the jumping thing. You can also create menus for the trackpads, I mostly use it on emulators with save/load state, full screen mode, some utilities

You can also make the buttons emulate pc controls, when I was feeling particularly insane I got planetside on my deck and mapped joysticks to WASD and mouse movement and triggers as mouse 1 and 2 with my left trackpad 1-9 for equipment

One thing I like to do in shooters is a half trigger pull only activates the trigger but a full trigger pull does trigger and activates gyro

The only exception is deep rock since right trigger is mine so I have one of the back paddles be a toggle

As far as games go if you stick to verified and playable you’ll have no problem. The playable games sometimes have small issues such as small text (the deck has a built in magnifier) a 16:9 resolution leading to small black bars at the top of the 16:10 screen

You can boot into desktop mode and have a full on desktop environment, not some half desktop but like a full on computer. It does use a Linux system so I can’t really say much about that as I don’t use Linux on my computer. But I did get Emudeck going which has a ton of emulators ready to go and makes it easy to use in game mode (the mode where you’re not in desktop)

So I’m super happy with my OLED, I switched my Switch for in and have zero regrets. I play mainly on my PC and use the Deck for couch gaming mainly for games that don’t use mouse/keyboard, like older games, emulation, rpgs, twin sticks shooters, etc. I play most of the time in handheld mode.

But there are a few things I would wish they were better, some are personal preferences so take them as they are:

I wish the screen was larger. Im in my mid forties and on games with tiny characters (e.g. Hades) thi is particularly noticeable.
The back buttons suck big time, like really, you then go back to your controller of choice with back paddles and it’s even more noticeable how bad they are. In general the controls could use some better ergonomics.
The whole dock situation is very broken in my opinion, especially if you compare it to something as seamless as the Switch. For several reasons: when docking, sometimes the image doesn’t fill the TV screen because the Deck is 16:10 and the TV is 16:9 and they have different resolution. There is a setting to mitigate that, sometimes it works, sometimes it’s not. And when it’s not you either have to deal with it or restart the game. HDMI CEC is a whole world of its own, you may have a dock that supports it or not and if not is a pain to deal with. Have a third party controller for when it is docked? Well, you’ll have to fiddle in the settings every time you dock or undock for it to work properly.
The cloud save thing is finicky too. You will be surprised at how many games in your library don’t support it, well, at least in my library, probably because I play lots of older games. But even in the games that support it, it lacks a lot. See. The point of cloud saving would be to be able to seamlessly switch between your Deck and PC and vice versa and continue playing there, right? Well, not quite. In order for Steam Cloud to work you need to EXIT the game first (and pray that the game you are playing allow for saving freely anytime), then wait a few seconds for it to sync (sometimes up to half a minute). It might sound picky but you are playing on the Deck, you want to just press the standby button, leave it resting on the dock and go play to your PC. Well not so fast.
There are other minor gripes like when sometimes it takes an eternity to wake from standby or when the mouse doesn’t work on desktop mode for some reason and you have to keep the Steam hey pressed for it to work.
Getting your GOG, Epic or Amazon games to work is not always as straightforward as Heroic Launcher makes it seem and sometimes you’ll need to troubleshoot stuff.

Is still a great machine that allows your entire PC library on the go and works great on all games I throw at it but my point is that it is not as seamless as some people want to make it look. It is not a console and it shows. I don’t have a problem with that but it is worth noticing it.

It's incredible as an emulation machine. And emudeck made it incredibly easy to set up.

Also, kinda silly but I regret not switching to Bazzite OS earlier. I still have not done it. In theory it's got several benefits over stock SteamOS but being comfortable, I haven't put in the effort to try the new thing.

What would be the benefits?
I only got interested in it because you could have gnome instead of Kde in desktop mode, but I haven’t heard about other benefits and there are pribably downsides too.
- Benefits:
  Changes are persistent. Unlike SteamOS, which uses an A/B partition scheme for upgrades, every update is a new system image but leaves your home directories alone, and you can easily rollback or rebase at will without much issue.
  Several built in tweak commands to set up or modify different settings/apps.
  Comes with many QoL bundled apps.
  Can utilize Distrobox to install other software from other distros.
  Active and responsive devs and community.
  Works on both desktop and handheld hardware.
  Drawbacks:
  Does not always get updates as quickly as SteamOS (it's nearly bleeding edge, but not quite).
  The fully Atomic nature has a learning curve, and system management may be challenging, depending on what kinds of tweaks a user intends.
  There may be other technical aspects that differ, like battery life, but I don't know enough to say if they are different in practice. Fwiw, I have Bazzite on a laptop and SteamOS on my Deck.
- Main benefit for me is a more traditional Linux environment, whereas steamos basically has a single user without a password and encryption is difficult at best. Great for playing games but not for computer usability. Bazzite also supports full disk encryption, and recently I learned/was told that you can move your SD card between Bazzite devices like Nintendo cartridges to play wherever.
  One downside would be arguably less support. It's community driven so the hardware manufacturers aren't going to necessarily help you get dysfunctional games working, etc. Not that they're going to be much help even when you're playing native.

If you are planning to buy steam DOCK, don't. It has been a complete shitshow.

Updates fails dozen times before finishing without crashing. Sometimes you need to disconnect power, so it switches to deck power for the update process even start and same trick works, if the dock refuses to see the external displays. Connect power back after it spasms in the right direction.

30 euro garbage from local supermarket works better.

I have to say that the steam dock never gave me a single issue with a constant use since around launch, so your experience may vary.
- Yeah. Same for me. I do have issues from time to time that my monitor isn't recognized, then I have to disconnect and even switch off power to the display completely before trying again.
  But that happens maybe once every few weeks.
No problems with mine in the past 4 months since I got it.

Controversial opinion, but if cost isn't an issue then a steam deck isn't a great buy. It fills a niche for sure but honestly a gaming laptop with a gamepad is 100% more useful IMHO.

I struggled to find it anymore portable than a laptop is and worse performance/screen/utility in almost every measurable way.

Agree 100%. Steam Deck is great for people with no money who still want to get into PC gaming. Everyone else should build a PC or buy a laptop.
- Hard disagree
  It's great for mobile and couch gaming. Not comparable to a laptop and controller

Look into framegen. It actually works quite well and can make the difference between 40 fps not stable to 60 fps stable. It will introduce some artifacts, but on this screen size they are quite negligible.

Omg these stupid posts are plaguing Lemmy now

we need more posts like this instead

The multi user experience is really bad if you share any games

If you aren’t familiar with Linux I would spend a little bit of time in a BASH shell playing around with commands. You really don’t want to be stuck in a scenario where your steam deck cannot boot, for some random reason, and all of sudden you know no commands to troubleshoot with or a brief idea on the structure of the filesystem.

I don’t own a steam-deck personally but I always recommend this advice for anyone moving into the Linux ecosystem.

Best of luck.

Edit: Seems like SteamOS is on a whole other level of stable, while I still recommend this advice it certainly isn’t mandatory. Thanks to others who provided feedback.

Pfft. I don't know shit Linux and have never had to look at anything like that on my steam deck.
- I know bash and am very familiar with Linux and it has never mattered one iota as far as my steam deck is concerned.