Steam Deck

The Steam Deck is a more powerful alternative to the Nintendo Switch, capable of playing virtually any PC game on the go. Performance is excellent for a portable, with SteamOS offering a console-like experience, while still retaining all of the versatility of a PC. Battery life isn’t great when playing demanding games, but the Steam Deck remains the absolute best option for portable PC gaming.

Introduction

The Steam Deck has been heralded as the first major rival to the Nintendo Switch, but after spending just over two weeks with the new device, I don’t think that description does it justice. 

Instead, this is more akin to a gaming PC than a Switch, albeit shrunken down into a more portable, handheld design. While playing games is its bread and butter, it’s also capable of loading up a web browser, streaming Netflix or even enabling you to crack on with office work once plugged into a monitor and keyboard. 

But of course, it’s gaming where the Steam Deck truly excels, with enough power to play the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn and Hitman 2 with a smooth performance. This is also one of the best options for cloud streaming too, whether you’re playing via Xbox Game Pass, Google Stadia or Nvidia’s GeForce Now. The potential for the Steam Deck is absolutely staggering, making it a genuine game-changer for PC gaming. 

Design

• Light, portable design
• Larger than a Nintendo Switch
• Plastic build is comfortable to hold

It’s impossible not to make comparisons to the Nintendo Switch when ogling the Deck’s design. It has a screen sandwiched by two controllers (albeit not detachable) with analogue sticks on the front and bumper buttons up top. 

But the biggest difference is the size, as the Steam Deck is significantly larger, both in terms of width and depth, despite remarkably featuring the same 7-inch screen size as the Switch OLED. I find this slightly problematic, as I’d often have to stretch my thumbs to reach the analogue sticks and perform some finger gymnastics to hit the many onboard buttons. 

That said, the ability to remap buttons, coupled with the ‘grip buttons’ on the rear allowed me to fiddle with the settings to find the most comfortable fit. Even simple alterations, such as swapping the left-click function in Football Manager 2022 from right trigger to left-grip button, made a world of difference to my comfort. 

And despite weighing more than the Switch, hitting the scales at 669g, the Steam Deck doesn’t feel very heavy at all. When passing it to any one of my colleagues, they always remarked that it was significantly lighter than what they expected. I’ve managed to play games on the Deck for multiple hours without my arms aching, with Valve doing an excellent join at distributing the weight. 

The Steam Deck’s outer shell is entirely made up of plastic rather than metal, but I think that was a wise decision. The material feels nice in my hands, with the smooth rounded edge preventing it from digging into my palms. 

Valve has also made sure that the Deck’s handles never get hot, with the system only ever getting toasty on the rear where all of the components are stuffed. There’s a wide vent right at the top, which blasts out hot air while playing a game, but you’ll only realise that if you aim the vent directly into your face.

Controls 

• Same controller layout as an Xbox
• Trackpads aren’t precise enough for select games
• Can connect external controls via Bluetooth

Valve has adopted the same controller layout as the Xbox pad, albeit with the analogue sticks in a parallel position. You also get a D-Pad in the top-left corner, which is easy to reach. All of the front-facing buttons have satisfying travel, and work just as well as you could hope. 

You also get a Steam button, which can load up the Deck’s system settings, as well as a ‘Quick Access’ button which flashes up the most important settings in a small menu without forcing you to leave your game. I found this really useful for connecting Bluetooth peripherals or adjusting the performance settings on the fly. You also get ‘screenshot’ and in-game ‘menu’ buttons, both of which are commonplace on modern-day controllers. 

You’ll also notice a square-shaped pad on either side of the Deck’s screen; these are the trackpads, which allow you to control a mouse cursor with gentle swipes. I found the right-sided trackpad incredibly useful for Football Manager 2022, where I only needed to select emails and switch players around in formations.

But the trackpads didn’t offer precise enough input for games such as Total War: Warhammer 2, as I struggled to select my troops and assemble them into a tight formation. For games such as that, you’re really going to need a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse instead. 

Look to the top, and you’ll find a power button, a USB-C port for charging, a headphone jack and volume buttons. You also get two bumpers and triggers; travel is fine here and while there is haptic feedback, it pales in comparison to what the Xbox and PlayStation pads offer. Firing arrows in Horizon Zero Dawn lacked that satisfying ‘ping’ feel that other controllers are so apt at creating – it especially felt jarring after recently playing Horizon Forbidden West with the superb adaptive triggers on the DualSense. 

Thanks to the Deck’s Bluetooth connectivity, you can hook up external controllers if you prefer. Although since the portable doesn’t have a built-in stand, I would only really recommend this if you’re outputting to an external display, such as your TV or monitor. 

Display

• 800p resolution is fine for portable play
• Bright panel with good contrast
• Not as vibrant as an OLED screen

The Steam Deck features a 7-inch 60Hz touchscreen with a 1280 x 800 resolution – that’s shy of hitting the standard Full HD, which most gaming laptops have at an absolute minimum and has therefore been criticised by fans ahead of launch. 

Just like with the Switch, I personally don’t think it’s an issue when used as a portable. The screen is so small that the pixels are still compact enough to result in a sharp image, with no noticeable pixilation when playing AAA games. And the 800p resolution also allows the Deck to hit a smooth performance for the vast majority of games.

However, the target 800p becomes problematic when you connect the Steam Deck to an external display via the USB-C port. It still looks perfectly fine, but stretching the image to fit a larger screen won’t look half as good when using a PS5, Xbox Series X or a more powerful gaming PC instead. 

I’m still a big fan of the ability to connect it your TV, although I wish the process was a smidgen easier. Plugging a USB-C to USB-C cable didn’t always work, forcing me to use an adapter instead. Hopefully Valve can fix this issue, although the upcoming dock will be an even better solution; it’s just a shame it’s not bundled in at default like the Switch.

Portable mode is undoubtedly the optimum way to play, so it’s a relief that the Deck has a great screen. The display is nice and bright (575-nits according to our colorimeter) with a solid 1213:1 contrast. Its performance in dark scenes could be better however, as I struggled to see much detail when guiding Aloy through a cave in Horizon Zero Dawn.

That all said, switching from the Switch OLED to the Steam Deck reminded me how great the former looks. By sticking with an LCD screen, the Deck doesn’t look quite as vibrant as the latest Nintendo portable, with colours appearing subdued in comparison. But given the cost of the specs inside the Steam Deck, I can understand why Valve was reluctant to add an OLED panel and drive up the price even further. 

The Steam Deck has on-board speakers, and I’m genuinely surprised by how good they are. I’m sure most people will want to connect up Bluetooth or wired headphones, but the speakers here are both loud and detailed enough to go without. 

Performance 

• Powerful enough to play most PC games
• Can fiddle with settings just like a PC
• You’ll likely need to buy a Micro SD card

The Steam Deck’s greatest strength is its performance power: it’s packing an AMD APU, with a Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU, as well as 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM. It’s a big performance jump on the Nintendo Switch, which means it’s capable of running a wider selection of games. 

Loading up Horizon Zero Dawn was a jaw-dropping experience, as I was effectively playing a PS4 game on a handheld device. The visuals looked stunning too, as the Deck was able to handle the game running with ultra graphics settings at an average of 31fps. 

And since the Steam Deck is a PC, I was able to lower the graphics settings to ‘medium’ quality to achieve an even smoother 40fps. Sometimes this is a necessity to achieve a playable performance, as the Steam Deck only managed to hit a 20fps performance for Dying Light when set to ‘High’ graphics settings, resulting in an unplayable, juddering experience. But scaling the graphics quality down to ‘Low’ enabled me to push the performance up to a far smoother 32fps average.

I also tested Dirt Rally to see how the Steam Deck would fare with less intense games. It achieved a 48fps performance when set to Ultra graphics settings, and then jumped up to 60fps when dialling it down to a ‘medium’ preset. 

What’s more, AMD’s FSR technology is baked into SteamOS, and so can be used to boost the performance of any game via spatial upscaling. This will compromise the quality of the visuals to some extent, although it was difficult to notice when looking at the 7-inch screen. 

Activating FSR (with a balanced setting) boosted the performance for Horizon Zero Dawn from 31fps to 40fps, providing extra headroom for the portable when dealing with demanding games.

Despite its superb performance, the Steam Deck’s fans remained virtually silent during testing. You can hear a slight whir if you listen carefully, but the speakers will easily drown out that noise. Thermal performance is outstanding too, and while it will get noticeably warm in the centre after long stretches of play, I never felt the temperature increase on the handles. 

The Steam Deck is available in three storage capacity configurations: 64GB, 256GB and 512GB. Valve sent me the 256GB model, and even this amount of space feels insufficient. About 11GB of memory is currently taken up by necessary Steam software, and when games such as Horizon Zero Dawn take up a whopping 73GB of space, it won’t take long for you to fill up the SSD. 

This makes a microSD card an essential purchase, which can be easily pushed into the slot at the bottom. I purchased a 512GB card from Amazon for about £70, which makes the Steam Deck an even more costly investment. But I was surprised to see how well the microSD performed when loading up games, as it was only a few seconds slower than the loading times of games stored on the on-board SSD. 

Battery life

• Will struggle to last over 2 hours with AAA games
• Can last up to 8 hours with less demanding titles

Valve claims the Steam Deck can last between 2 and 8 hours of gameplay depending on which game you’re playing. My own testing supported these figures, although you’ll have to make some compromises in order to reach 2 hours for modern AAA games.

When playing Horizon Zero Dawn with ultra graphics settings and maximum brightness, I could only continue playing for an hour before needing to plug in the charger. This made me concerned, as a gaming portable isn’t much for long journeys if it can only last an hour. 

Fortunately, I was able to increase the portable’s stamina to the quoted 2-hour mark by reducing the brightness to 50%, lowering the graphics settings, limiting the performance to 30fps and activating the Thermal Power Limit. This did admittedly make framerate drops more frequent, however.

Fortunately, it was able to last a lot longer playing the likes of Football Manager and Stardew Valley. In these instances easily lasting around 4 to 5 hours with maximum brightness and graphics settings. But given the mediocre battery life and the large size of the portable, I do think the Steam Deck is best used when sitting on your sofa or lying down in bed, rather than during your daily commute to work. 

Games and software

• SteamOS is offers a console-like experience
• Verification system is great at showing Deck compatibility
• Apps such as Google Chrome make this a versatile machine

The Steam Deck is an open-platform PC, allowing you to use it as a Linux computer via Desktop mode, or even wipe the hard drive and boot up Windows instead. But I personally won’t recommend that, as the default SteamOS software is so good at offering a seamless console-like experience.

The Steam Deck’s interface isn’t too dissimilar to the Nintendo Switch, with your game library lined-up horizontally for easy access. I love being able to turn on the Deck and boot up a game in a matter of seconds, cutting out the tedious time it takes to boot up both Windows and Steam on a regular gaming PC. 

You’re able to access the Steam Store here, with Valve making a big effort to categorise every major game in its library so you know whether it’s well optimised for the Deck. Games that are already available on consoles such as God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn and Disco Elysium have all managed to secure the best-in-class ‘verified’ status, while PC games that are best experienced with a keyboard and mouse are generally given a ‘Playable’ verdict instead, including Crusader Kings 3, Total War: Warhammer 2 and Civilization VI. 

And then there are the completely unplayable games that won’t even boot up on the Steam Deck. These include the likes of Destiny 2, Apex Legends and Amazon’s New World. This is because these games feature anti-cheat software, which don’t currently support Linux. It’s possible that the relevant developers will patch their games to ensure Deck compatibility in the future, although there’s no guarantee that will happen. 

There’s also a staggering number of settings you can fiddle with on the Steam Deck, from controller remapping to performance sliders, as well as features such as Remote Play and the Google Chrome web browser. The latter is especially useful if you want to take advantage of cloud-streaming services such as Google Stadia, GeForce Now and Game Pass. 

Valve has also promised to make it easier to load up other non-Steam apps through SteamOS, although it’s already possible to pull in games from other stores such as Epic Games Store if you’re happy fiddling about with the Linux desktop. 

Valve has been excellent with software support so far, with numerous patches ahead of launch enhancing the experience by the day. In the first few days of testing, I noticed a number of irritating bugs such as the on-screen keyboard failing to input words into a search bar and cloud save files failing to sync up with my desktop PC, but such issues are being fixed as quickly as I can find them. With Valve’s history with Steam, I’m confident that it will continue to offer excellent software support long after launch day. 

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