The Steam Deck. Full disclosure, I am not a gamer. I played Age of Empires all growing up, dabbled
with Halo at friends' houses in high school, and played through Breath of the Wild twice. And while
I might not play a whole lot of video games, I can still appreciate solid hardware. Today we're
going to durability test the all new Steam Deck portable gaming system. This guy starts at $399,
which sounds like a pretty good deal. Pretty similar to the Nintendo Switch. Today we'll be
testing the top of the line $650 version that has the premium anti-glare etched glass screen.
And we will indeed by finding out whatever it is that actually means. Let's get started.
[Intro]
It's interesting to see what's going on here with the Steam Deck. Steam
is a video game distribution service that has almost 20 years worth of downloadable
games...almost 30,000 titles, most of which are made for computers.
Two thousand of those titles so far are currently playable on this portable Steam Deck. I'm pretty
sure though that nobody has played with their deck in the same way I'm about to play with mine.
The biggest difference between the cheapest Steam Deck and the most expensive, besides the
memory size, is this new etched anti-reflective glass surface. You might be like, 'Hey Jerry,
why do you have two sold out Steam Decks when I can't even get one?' And the answer to that
is maybe one of these is yours...but more on that later. The etched glass supposedly breaks up and
gently disperses any light shining at it so it's not bounced or reflected back onto the viewer.
Kind of like those colored plastic things in urinals, except for dispersing sunlight they're
dispersing... (clears throat). What really matters though is that the frosted glass, in theory,
allows us to better focus more on what's underneath than what's reflecting from above
or outside. Personally though, I'm not overly sold on the anti-glare stuff. As you can see my
desk is more lit up than SpaceX on launch day. And the screen of the Steam Deck is barely visible.
Adding a few more nits of brightness would have been more effective than the anti-glare.
The etching also makes things awkward with the scratch test since the ever so slightly
roughed up level 6 glass is now acting like sandpaper to my Mohs hardness picks.
And as you can see we are leaving marks from 2, all the way up the scale. The actual damage of
course only occurs with the scratches at level 6, with deeper grooves at level 7. But the markings
left behind by the other picks aren't rubbing off on their own either. The less expensive Steam
Decks are made with just smooth glass and won't have this abrasive issue. All of the Steam Decks
though are made with glass screens, and as we know, glass is glass, and glass needs protection.
Luckily my channel sponsor dbrand is doing their thing with precision fit slices of optically clear
protective tempered glass screen protectors. You might have read online that some of the
lower quality Steam Deck screen protectors are hampering the touch sensitivity of the display,
but that's not the case with dbrand's premium glass. It's designed to be ultra thin
like it's not even there. The screen is still dark of course. I do have my brightness all the way up,
but at least the console is protected against scratches and impacts. I'll leave a link down
in the description so you can grab one for your own deck or for your smartphone.
Speaking of scratches though, let's see what this deck is made with.
Starting on the right side we get a whole lot of plastic. The menu button is plastic and even these
little glossy A B X Y keys on the top right corner are made from plastic. Interesting though, just
like we saw on the Nintendo Switch, the lettering is inlaid all the way through the buttons.
I can shave off entire slices of the letters like a birthday cake and the font is still there,
cooked all the way through the button. It would be impossible for your thumbs to wear off these
letters even after years of gaming. Thumbs up for that. The decals on the other buttons
though do just kind of scrape off. The thumb stick has a plasticy capacitive surface on top
with rubber grippy halo things around the edges. It doesn't feel like it will fall
apart on its own. Same kind of vibe goes for the large square trackpad.
Scratchable but has a cool feeling vibrator underneath.
It'll be fun to see what this looks like from the inside when we take it apart.
The top of the Steam Deck has more plastic, along with the plastic power button,
45 watt USB-C port, fan vent, headphone jack, and plastic volume buttons. No metal so far.
The left side of the console is very symmetrical to the right side with more plastic.
The Steam button lettering does scrape off pretty easily. And, of course,
we have the glossy d-pad over here in the corner. Still plastic. Along with the plastic triggers.
There is a metal fan intake grill, surprisingly.
And then 4 additional programmable plastic buttons on the back.
The only metal on this whole thing is that grill for the fan.
You might have noticed a large Valve sign on the back.
This is actually an Art Class with Jerry request by the Steam Deck designers,
which I assume is for me to talk about my favorite fixed geometry valvular conduit,
which is the Tesla valve invented by none other than Nikola Tesla himself. It's a pretty sweet
little contraption with no moving parts that allows liquid to flow through one direction. But
if the flow were to reverse, all these little side channels, enlargements, and turbulent recesses
would make upstream flow much more difficult. So if I had to pick a favorite valve, it would be
this one. Thanks for the drawing suggestion Steam Deck design team, wherever you are.
The bottom of the Deck does have a micro SD slot which allows for an additional terabyte
of video game storage. Pretty cool. And as you can tell with all the air vents and no
flap over the SD card, there is also no water resistance to water, or dare I say it, steam.
Personally, I think it's super smart of the Steam people to get into the mobile space.
The Nintendo Switch has sold over 100 million units, and the PSP sold around
80 million. So even if Steam captured even a tiny percentage of the mobile gamers,
it would be a worthwhile venture. The Steam Deck is very similar in size to the Nintendo Switch,
with a 7 inch display and a 60 hertz refresh rate. We can tell it's an IPS LCD by the way it
goes black after about 20 seconds under the heat from my lighter...well blacker than it normally is
I guess. We really should have picked a brighter game because 400 nits of brightness is just not
super great. For reference, the iPhone 13 Pro has 1000 nits, and the Samsung S22 Ultra has 1300.
Outdoor gaming just isn't going to be super realistic with this guy,
but I don't think any of us were planning on going outside anyway though so it's fine.
Finally, the bend test. I will do my best to try and detach these permanently attached controls.
I am a little nervous since this thing is so long and so lightweight, and so made out of plastic.
It might go poorly. Bending from the back there is a minor flex, but no cracks or strange sounds
so far. It does feel hollow inside, but when bent from the front we get the same results.
A structurally sound creakless, crackless solid mobile gaming system. It's a pretty slick device.
Having the ability to game anywhere, pause that game, and then pick up again where you left off
from your computer is pretty nifty. And if you've made it this far in the video you've
probably noticed that I do have more than one Steam Deck. Mine, which of course we'll take
apart so we can explore the insides. But I do have this other one here still in pristine, unscratched
condition. Owning two sold out Steam Decks is rather excessive so I'm going to give one away
over on Twitter. Come follow me @ZacksJerryRig and I'll have a tweet up giving this one away within
the next week. If you win I can always draw a Tesla valve on the back for you. Or better,
I'll just include a full body protective Teardown Skin, quite possibly my favorite Teardown Skin
yet. If you're one of the luckies who already has your Steam Deck, I'll leave a link for this
Teardown Skin in the video description right next to dbrand's tempered glass screen protectors.
So whether you're waiting for a Breath of the Wild 2, or Half Life 3,
or just for your dad to get home from the gas station, we can all appreciate the
effort that's been put into mobile consoles lately, and this Steam Deck continues the
solid tradition of structurally sound mobile consoles. Come hang out with me on Instagram,
and of course, over on Twitter for the giveaway. Leave any questions you have
for the teardown video down in the comments. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.