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Steam Deck is now available without a reservation | The Docking Station is available, too

TrebleShot

Member
They inform you if they have your order allocated shipment. In Europe it ships from Valve warehouse in the Netherlands.
I didn’t get an email but checked shipping and seems it’s been processed in the uk lol, very loose tracking on this thing.
 

Ryu Kaiba

Member
KFevlN1.png
"BuT StEaM MaChiNEs DidNT SeLL HoW wILL StEaM DeCKs seLL"
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
As a portable device (it's main functionality) the battery life is horrible, will wait for a revision. This thing needs to last 6+ hours for me to consider it a worth while purchase.
Depends on the game.

I'm currently playing Morrowind and I get like 6 or 8 hours, which is crazy for a portable device imo. I'm used to a PS Vita and a first batch Switch, both having battery lifes of what, 3 hours?

Then you have AAA games on the Deck. And yeah, games like Cyberpunk 2077 and RDR2 might drink the battery in about 2-2.5 hours but man, if you ask me, being able to play those kinda games on a handheld is great, even if for just a few hours.

But as others said, the Deck also gives you tools to make it last more time. Reduce the brightness, turn off the wifi, lower the screen's refresh rate, turn down TDP or even download PowerTools and turn off some CPU cores or put your RAM in power saving mode. No other handheld has this ammount of customizing options, afaik at least.
 

Beechos

Member
No bro, its the people who don't own one and say the battery lasts 2 hours that are right.
It all depends on the game i own one and it died about 2 hours playing vampire survivors, didnt think this game would be that system taxing but it brings the steamdeck to a crawl during the end of a lvl when youre fully powered up.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Depends on the game.

I'm currently playing Morrowind and I get like 6 or 8 hours, which is crazy for a portable device imo. I'm used to a PS Vita and a first batch Switch, both having battery lifes of what, 3 hours?

Then you have AAA games on the Deck. And yeah, games like Cyberpunk 2077 and RDR2 might drink the battery in about 2-2.5 hours but man, if you ask me, being able to play those kinda games on a handheld is great, even if for just a few hours.

But as others said, the Deck also gives you tools to make it last more time. Reduce the brightness, turn off the wifi, lower the screen's refresh rate, turn down TDP or even download PowerTools and turn off some CPU cores or put your RAM in power saving mode. No other handheld has this ammount of customizing options, afaik at least.

With many games where 60 fps isn't a must / great desire, simply setting it to 40 Hz refresh rate and limiting it to 40 fps adds another 60 - 90 minutes of life. Like Cyberpunk or Metal Gear Solid 5. At default settings (with a few things tuned down since it makes no difference on the 8" screen) they're about 2.5 hours - but change it to 40/40 and suddenly you'll be getting 3.5 - 4 hours. And of course, as you pointed out other games can be played for 5+ hours easy.

I think that's plenty for a portable device. I suppose some people are accustomed to much longer gaming sessions, but 2.5 - 3.5 hours is my sweet spot.
 
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LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
With many games where 60 fps isn't a must / great desire, simply setting it to 40 Hz refresh rate and limiting it to 40 fps adds another 60 - 90 minutes of life. Like Cyberpunk or Metal Gear Solid 5. At default settings (with a few things tuned down since it makes no difference on the 8" screen) they're about 2.5 hours - but change it to 40/40 and suddenly you'll be getting 3.5 - 4 hours. And of course, as you pointed out other games can be played for 5+ hours easy.

I think that's plenty for a portable device. I suppose some people are accustomed to much longer gaming sessions, but 2.5 - 2.5 hours is my sweet spot.
And to be perfectly clear expanding on your point, this thing is awesome. It's a full PC experience with settings tweaking and making each game their own. If you want a better frame rate, use FSR and find the sweet spot. Battery, tweak each game and find that happy medium.

The 2-3 hours for a demanding game is more than good enough. You want more power then you have to accept that the current device as is will get you solid gaming. If you can tweak, limit wattage, use FSR, and do a custom refresh rate than you can turn that 2-3 into 3-4 hours.

It's awesome.
 

drotahorror

Member
And to be perfectly clear expanding on your point, this thing is awesome. It's a full PC experience with settings tweaking and making each game their own. If you want a better frame rate, use FSR and find the sweet spot. Battery, tweak each game and find that happy medium.

The 2-3 hours for a demanding game is more than good enough. You want more power then you have to accept that the current device as is will get you solid gaming. If you can tweak, limit wattage, use FSR, and do a custom refresh rate than you can turn that 2-3 into 3-4 hours.

It's awesome.

Can you setup things like this on a per game basis?
 
i gotta get one of these before i move to europe, probably going for the 2nd tier one that is $500. i would prefer to wait for the 2 but that's too far away. going to budget for this one and order it in december !

How am I playing cyberpunk in bed on this thing....like wtf...what a device.
what's the performance like?
 
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Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
As a portable device (it's main functionality) the battery life is horrible, will wait for a revision. This thing needs to last 6+ hours for me to consider it a worth while purchase.
If you want this battery by default few things can happen:

The battery is larger, thus increasing the size of the device, since battery tech is one of the slowest to advance, then you will complain about portability

If you want a handheld playing AAA titles you have to accept this as a trade off, there is no magical way to ignore physics and heat generation.
 

sendit

Member
If you want this battery by default few things can happen:

The battery is larger, thus increasing the size of the device, since battery tech is one of the slowest to advance, then you will complain about portability

If you want a handheld playing AAA titles you have to accept this as a trade off, there is no magical way to ignore physics and heat generation.

You got all that from my post? Like I said, there is too many trade offs for this to be a viable product for me (there are quite a few people here that share the same sentiment). Everyone's use case is different, is that so hard to understand?
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
These I usually don't buy the first iteration of hardware. I think my biggest worry is the performance. I haven't looked up much about it. Can it run 60fps on most games?
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
You got all that from my post? Like I said, there is too many trade offs for this to be a viable product for me (there are quite a few people here that share the same sentiment). Everyone's use case is different, is that so hard to understand?
It’s hard to understand since you are asking the impossible, and your only justification is: “Because I want to!”.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
If you want this battery by default few things can happen:

The battery is larger, thus increasing the size of the device, since battery tech is one of the slowest to advance, then you will complain about portability

If you want a handheld playing AAA titles you have to accept this as a trade off, there is no magical way to ignore physics and heat generation.
Aye GL waiting on better battery life 🤠🤣
 

kiphalfton

Member
Probably finally goimg to get around to playing RPG's or ugly ass Japanese games that don't look any better on the switch than they do on a good PC.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
These I usually don't buy the first iteration of hardware. I think my biggest worry is the performance. I haven't looked up much about it. Can it run 60fps on most games?
It can run a large number of games at 60FPS e.g Doom 2016.

The most demanding ones like CP2077, RDR2, etc. it can run on 30-40FPS with a mix of low and medium settings (that look way better on a small screen than big TV or monitor). With games like that the battery draws 22-25W, so you have approx 90-120 minutes of game time.

What people usually do is have game like that locked at 40FPS since it’s way closer perception-wise to 60 than 30.
 
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dorkimoe

Member
That's the EXACT reason why I keep talking myself out of getting one. I really do want one, but then I think about how much I travel (I don't), and how often I'm away from home wishing I had a Steam Deck (not often). So, for me, getting one is not really necessary. But man, I wish I had a really good excuse to get one, but I don't, lmao.
I’m in the same boat. Could easily buy one but why? I don’t go anywhere. I’d use it in bed and that’s it and is that worth it ?
 

lachesis

Member
I was just playing Trails from Zero on the Steam Deck. It's really easy to just pickup and play.
Sure, I can just play on PC, but I can also relax on a bedroom, or bathroom, or basement beanbag and just play it.
And... I bought it for a long flight. On top of that, it's an emulation powerhouse. I'm looking forward visiting few RPGs that I've been wanting to play.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
i gotta get one of these before i move to europe, probably going for the 2nd tier one that is $500. i would prefer to wait for the 2 but that's too far away. going to budget for this one and order it in december !


what's the performance like?

I get 30fps with medium to high settings plus I have the save transfer with xbox/PC and deck so it's just crazy cool playing wherever I want.


All I ask valve, please provide an official oled screen swap service or a next gen model with oled as standard I'm there day one no matter what.
 

Filben

Member
It all depends on the game i own one and it died about 2 hours playing vampire survivors, didnt think this game would be that system taxing but it brings the steamdeck to a crawl during the end of a lvl when youre fully powered up.
Some games don't properly utilise performance/Watt steppings.

For example, Stardew Valley, normal settings, 60fps: 13-15 Watt. Now I reduced CPU TDP to 3 Watt, still 60fps, but only 7 Watt consumption in total, but like 6,5h of battery instead of 4h.

So if you assume higher power consumption than it should be, limit GPU clock and/or CPU TDP on per game basis.
 
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BlackTron

Member
That's the EXACT reason why I keep talking myself out of getting one. I really do want one, but then I think about how much I travel (I don't), and how often I'm away from home wishing I had a Steam Deck (not often). So, for me, getting one is not really necessary. But man, I wish I had a really good excuse to get one, but I don't, lmao.

This. For my situation, Switch has portability handled already. I just don't need any more portable gaming solutions. I need a better PC before I need a portable PS4-level PC.

Doesn't take away from how awesome the Deck is, I think for many of us it's just redundant. A better, more powerful model down the line might be more enticing.
 

00_Zer0

Member
I just preordered the $399.99 version of Steam Deck a little over a week ago and just recieved it yesterday. I bought it as a Christmas present for my son, and now I am debating whether to get one for my step daughter and a dock for each of them.

Personally, I am not much of a handheld player. I play my Switch almost exclusively in docked mode and I already have a decent PC that I play directly on my living room TV so that is why the Deck is not so appealing to me, however, what is fascinating to me is Steam OS and what Valve is doing with it.

It's good to see a company like Valve make a gaming OS that cuts out most of the garbage that weighs down a Windows gaming PC and I look forward to see the benefits it can provide for PC gaming in the future.
 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
I just got 64gb model reservation email (for my nephew for christmass).
I was expecting it to arrive next month so I had to cancel.

Dock is too expensive for 90 sorry.
I don't see a use for it anyway
This is the best Christmas gift you could give to a nephew
You're surprisingly generous
 

SScorpio

Member
i gotta get one of these before i move to europe, probably going for the 2nd tier one that is $500. i would prefer to wait for the 2 but that's too far away. going to budget for this one and order it in december !
The 256GB isn't really worth it. "2230 512GB nvme" drives go for $55-60 on eBay and are a very, very simple swap. That's double the storage, for 1/2 of the price difference between the 64 and 256.

The 512GB also doesn't make sense, as you can then buy an anti-glare glass screen protector for $16. And 1TB drives are $140-150.

If anyone is thinking about getting one soon, I recommend buying the nvme drive now if you are going to do the upgrade. With the Steam Deck being available I'm sure stock of them will dry up on eBay. The same thing happened in Oct 2021, the 1TB drives were just under $100 and I warned people. A month later they were up to $200 and stayed there until about 2-3 months ago.
 

JCK75

Member
We are doing Esports in the school I work for now, I got shitty old pc's trying to run Rocket League and League of Legends..
Steam Dock looks like the most cost effective way for us to get what we need for this but I'm not sure they will allow orders of more than one device so we are going to have to see if there is any way we can order
4-5 as a division.
 

NovaSe7en

Member
what is fascinating to me is Steam OS and what Valve is doing with it.

It's good to see a company like Valve make a gaming OS that cuts out most of the garbage that weighs down a Windows gaming PC and I look forward to see the benefits it can provide for PC gaming in the future.

Valve has wanted to break free from Windows for years. Steam Deck is really just a catalyst for making Steam OS ubiquitous.
 

dave_d

Member
The 256GB isn't really worth it. "2230 512GB nvme" drives go for $55-60 on eBay and are a very, very simple swap. That's double the storage, for 1/2 of the price difference between the 64 and 256.
Of course I'd always worry that if I bought a drive off of ebay would it be a scam where the drive is really much lower and hacked to appear larger.(Weren't there quite a few SD cards like that on ebay?) I know you can get them on Amazon but then the price goes up quite a bit.
 

SScorpio

Member
Of course I'd always worry that if I bought a drive off of ebay would it be a scam where the drive is really much lower and hacked to appear larger.(Weren't there quite a few SD cards like that on ebay?) I know you can get them on Amazon but then the price goes up quite a bit.
With SD Cards, USB Drives, and 2 1/2" SSDs that is the case, but the drives were always listed as some crazy high storage and sold impossibly cheap.

I haven't seen any reports of that with NVME drives yet. All of the drives listed have been from name brands and are just pulls from laptops. The 2230 NVME drive market is extremely niche as they are mostly exclusive to laptops, and now the Steam Deck. Most NVME drives are the more common 2280, and some other handheld PCs actually can use those full size drives.

There's will always be a risk, but just cheap eBay reviews of the seller and you should be fine. It's pretty easy to test the actually capacity if you are concerned, and eBay makes getting your money back on a scam pretty easy as they are way more likely to side with the buyer.
 

SScorpio

Member
We are doing Esports in the school I work for now, I got shitty old pc's trying to run Rocket League and League of Legends..
Steam Dock looks like the most cost effective way for us to get what we need for this but I'm not sure they will allow orders of more than one device so we are going to have to see if there is any way we can order
4-5 as a division.
Ryzen 4700U mini PCs are going down to $350, with 5500U models right around $400.

eSports games should run fine, just check on YouTube for reviews of the different processors and see how they compare to your current systems. With the mini PCs you wouldn't have to deal with separate docks, and not being handhelds you secure them. The Steam Deck doesn't have a mounting point on it, while all mini PCs I've seen have kensington lock mounting points.
 
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