If you love your games library here
but want to take it with you as easily as you can with this, you are in luck!
The Steam Deck portable mini-gaming pc is here!
And today, we’ll talk the ups and downs and up up down down left right left right b, a, select start
- of it all. This is DIYin5!
Hey everyone and welcome to DIY in 5!
I’m Trisha Hershberger and as an avid PC gamer,
Steam’s newest gaming handheld is the talk of the town right now.
For any of us who’ve dreamed of having the power of our gaming rigs, but with the portability
and form factor of a Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck offers a really interesting value proposition.
But is it all it’s cracked up to be?
Today, we’ll tell you just about everything you need to know about Valve’s Steam Deck.
And if you find the information in this video useful, we ask that you kindly like the video
and subscribe to the channel so that you don’t miss out on any future tech tips and tricks.
Valve’s latest all-in-one portable gaming PC is called the Steam Deck - not to be confused
with Elgato’s Stream Deck, another very popular PC gaming/streaming tool.
Not like I’ve ever done that before hehe...
To create the Steam Deck, Valve partnered with AMD to create a custom APU
or advanced processing unit - a CPU/GPU hybrid, optimized for handheld gaming.
When it comes to controls, it’s got a trackpad, gyro, haptics, and button and joystick placement design
that makes sense in the hand, and you can even connect external peripherals if you want to.
Valve has a full list of the tech specs on their site if you wanna check them out
but the tl:dr is - this thing looks to be a capable little powerhouse!
But does it live up to the hype?
Valve started shipping the first Steam Deck units to folks who pre-ordered ahead of time
and people seem to have spoken with a resounding - yeah, this thing rules!
Due to the smaller screen size and an option to lock at 30fps if you want to eek out more battery life,
people have sung the praises of games like Horizon Zero Dawn, GTA V, Forza Horizon 5,
God of War, and even have gotten smooth Elden Ring gameplay - wait, what PC has that??
Speaking of games you can play on the Steam Deck, it handles 2D low-power games like a champ,
as you might expect, but it’s also surprisingly adept at the latest AAA 3D games.
Now that we are talking higher end, AAA games, we should probably bring up storage,
since one of those titles alone could eat up 25% of your storage or more.
The Steam Deck comes in a few different storage options:
64GB eMMC, 256GB NVMe SSD (which is faster), or 512GB NVMe SSD (the fastest)
- all at increasing price points of $399, $529, and $649 respectively.
But built-in storage is not the whole shebang as there is an option for expandable storage!
Yea!!
This is expandable shorage via microSD card!
So if you are looking for a great option here, the Canvas Go Plus microSD would be a great choice.
Just sayin!
All models of Steam Deck support expanding your storage via microSD cards.
Games stored on a microSD card will appear in your library instantly.
As PC builders and DIYers, which I know many of us are who watch this channel,
expansion, upgradability, accessibility and repairability are all super important
and Valve is actually encouraging users to upgrade!
Valve published its own teardown video and is sending repair parts to iFixit for direct sale to consumers!
You love to see it.
Well, I love to see it, but you may too!
So what’s the future of the Steam Deck?
Since Valve is allowing upgrades and hardware flexibility, we could see some really cool
mods coming down the line.
In fact, we’ve already seen people online install OBS and stream from it, use it as
a work PC thanks to the built-in Steam version of Linux, dual-boot Windows and Linux,
or turn it into a portable media center!
Regarding other future uses, we know for a fact that Valve is coming out with a dock
in late Spring 2022 to connect to external displays, wired internet, USB peripherals and power.
You can also use a USB-C hub, if you’ve got one lying around - like maybe the Nucleum USB-C Hub?
With HDMI output, USB-A, SD and MicroSD card readers and power passthrough,
that would work just fine.
Whether or not you decide the Steam Deck is the right type of device for you, it’s certainly
an interesting challenger in the playing field that is today’s gaming landscape,
and I for one am all for more options for more types of gamers.
If you’ve had a chance to mess around with one, let us know about your experience in the comments
and I’ll see you next time with more DIY in 5.