I had someone tell me “your hands are small, you’ll hate the steam deck! You’ll get hand cramps reaching for the thumb stick!” I’m glad I didn’t listen to them. This thing comes with me almost everywhere, but especially when I know I’ll have a wait. I just finished Cyberpunk 2077, playing only on my Steam deck and it was fantastic. I don’t have a gaming computer, just this thing (and a Nintendo switch, but I won that in a raffle), and it handles anything I’ve tried to play so far. I hope it sticks around for at least another 5 years, cause prices are crazy lol.
AMD > Intel
ATM & IMO
4 AI and gaming
As the Steam Deck slowly marches toward its fifth birthday next February, owners are likely eager for a way to extend its life rather than investing in expensive high-end competition.
With the AI bubble and the cost increases that come with it game developers are coming back around to the Steam Deck’s specs.
Honestly, the Steamdeck has a really good mix of components to ensure gaming for a decent while.
My Steamdeck now costs more than what i paid for it. The last time something like that happened was with the GPU shortages, I had just bought the RTX 3070 and then prices skyrocketed.
That’s probably the only good part of the AI bubble. Now they have to optimize and think about doing more with the same hardware.
Or we all will just be pushed towards cloud services
I think I’m still going to grab a Steam Deck. It works just fine, I’m sure. Also, a Nintento DS was more than enough fun when I was a kid. :)
If you’ve got the disposable income for it, yes, it’s a great device. The value isn’t as great since the price increases, but the slowing market also means hardware at that level will stay relevant much longer.
More powerful handhelds have come out since, but I agree on not putting too much focus on the numbers. Most comparisons seem to miss how important ergonomics and UX are for actually using devices like this, and nobody else seems to have figured those out quite to the degree Valve has.
That said, the power is still enough for a lot of people to play AAA games with it. I’m a bit too spoiled by easy, frequent access to better hardware to quite enjoy that myself, but I can see myself still using it as a AA/indie/backlog machine for many years.
