I’ve been considering purchasing a steam deck. My pc is in my office, which limits interaction with the rest of the family if I want to play anything. I’ve tried playing mobile games, but just can’t get use to the controls. Think it’s worth getting one?
Others here have probably mentioned it, but I’ve heard the Deck is fantastic in situations where you use a main powerhouse PC to run a game (especially at the Deck’s resolution of 800p), then stream it through your local network to the Deck.
I don’t do that, but I daily drive a Steam Deck and can attest that it’s a fantastic device handheld. It’ll play a TON of stuff at low/medium settings natively, and you have a big PC to handle the top tear graphics-card-melters, which you can stream from (in that scenario the Deck is fine as it takes very little of the load).
My only caution point is the small screen. It’s 7 inches diagonal, so small print in games can be tough, especially if you have 40s eyes like me. Otherwise, it’s exceeded wildly beyond my expectations.
I love mine. I used it as a remote PC for 2 1.5 years on my skoolie bus conversion. If your work is compatible with linux and don’t need a lot of intense specs (or can cloud all the heavy labor), then you’ll be just fine. edit: sometimes time flies, sometimes it doesn’t lol. Corrected the time I’ve owned this awesome little device.
@Johnpwrinkle Well worth it. It can handle quite a bit locally, and can stream from steam on your main pc (or be set up to several cloud services).
I can speak to exactly the issue you’re having, you’ve got a family hanging out, you don’t want to be all cooped in the office.
Get a steam deck dude. Do it. I work from home, my wife does too. We have an 8 year old. Not only do I get more gaming time in with my deck than I ever could previously, they’re both happier about it. I can suspend power and do whatever, etc, it isn’t an anchor at a desk.
And it can play the games. Keep in mind that steam themselves is very picky about their “this is great on the deck” blessing. There’s a ton of games they only say will run, and even more they say won’t run at all, that operate perfectly fine. More every month too, as Proton continues development.
You can also load all your GoG and Epic games easily, heroic launcher.
Seriously, get one. The mid or basic version is fine, sd cards are fine.
Worth it 100% for me, I love mine. I didn’t think I would use it much, I honestly bought it initially to just support the project and help FOSS friendly hardware and software.
But once I started playing on it, I fell in love. I play lots of indie games and smaller studio games, like Brotato, Hollow Knight, Battle for Wesnoth, Core Keeper. I also installed RetroArch and play all of my favorite Game Boy games. I play Old School Runescape with my friend, some kart racing games, some fighting games.
I also have Jellyfin installed on there, so I use it docked to my TV as a box for streaming from my Jellyfin server to my TV for movie nights. Discord runs pretty well on it in the background, so it works well for group party games like Pummel Party with my friends. Also games like Table Top simulator to play DnD, and virtual board games.
Idk, it’s just a perfect device for me. Super moddable, repair friendly, FOSS friendly, powerful enough to play most games without issue, works with every kind of Bluetooth device I’ve tested it with, controllers, headphones, etc. And now that it’s been out for well over a year, all of the most severe and annoying bugs have been fixed, so the general experience is very smooth and stable.
