Valve introduces the Steam Deck

[Portada HL]

It is a portable console powered by a Zen 2 and an RDNA 2 GPU. It will come with SteamOS 3.0 (a distro based on Arch) and KDE Plasma as a desktop environment. Its price starts at €419.

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[Gallina]

Steam has just killed the console vs PC debate! If you can connect a screen to a keyboard and mouse, this is the ultimate console

[palotes]

Well, well, well. What a surprise Valve has brought us.

There is revealing information in this interview that is summarized in these points:

• It comes with 16gb of RAM
• Storage of between 64 and 512gb depending on models
• 1280x800 16:10 screen
• Battery life of 2 to 8 hours. They say that if you play Portal 2 it lasts 4 hours and if you limit the frames to 30fps it lasts 5 or 6 hours.
• It only has wifi connection. No ethernet or mobile data. Here it falls short
• It works like a normal PC so you can run the entire Steam library that works on Linux
• They will sell a dock-station separately
• It comes with a USB-C port so you can connect an ethernet dongle, hdmi and other peripherals without having to buy the dock station
• It seems to come WITHOUT a headphone jack although it has Bluetooth
• The hardware is not expandable so it looks like the storage, RAM and everything will be soldered to the board.

A hit and I think at a more than reasonable price.

[cobito]

@Gallina said in Valve presents the Steam Deck:

Steam has just killed the fight between console and PC gamers! If you can connect it to a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse, this is the ultimate console.

That's very debatable. It's true that it's a PC with the advantages of a console, but it doesn't have the advantages of a PC. Even a low-end laptop has more upgrade possibilities than this.

@palotes said in Valve presents the Steam Deck:

A quick look and I think it's at a more than reasonable price.

Yes, it's true that it has a very attractive price. We'll have to see what the final performance is. In the same interview you linked (by the way, I'm editing your message to put the address as a link) they say that although you can put external screens, the games might not perform as well as expected at resolutions higher than 720p.

I think Valve is going to become a kind of printer manufacturer but with consoles: they sell you the hardware at cost price because what they're interested in is selling you the cartridges (in their case, the games).

I find it a very interesting gadget and honestly, Valve already has a finger in my wallet, but I would wait a bit to see the weak points. With that size and with that battery life, I think the hardware is going to be more limited than it seems at first glance. By the way, if it's true that it doesn't have a headphone jack, that's a big flaw.