Valve Announces Steam Deck, A Portable Gaming PC

Steam Deck is Valve’s first true foray into the portable gaming PC realm and, needless to say, it’s quite a stunning concept! This isn’t exactly an attempt to compete with the Nintendo Switch as it targets a wholly different demographic.

Instead of catering to as broad an audience as possible, Steam Deck is more geared towards PC enthusiasts and gamers with sizable Steam libraries who want to experience their favorite titles while on the go. It’s a niche, for sure, but it’s obviously sizable enough for Valve to make the move.

They’re willing to take a risk, and that’s highly commendable.

Additionally, the Steam Deck isn’t the first portable gaming console of its kind. Far from it, in fact. Chinese manufacturers have been making similar products for years, albeit on a much smaller scale. What Valve is trying to do here is not create a new product category out of thin air but rather perfect someone else’s formula.

It’s a good approach, all things considered, but we’re not too sure whether they’ll succeed given their many projects — all of which failed in one way or another. Steam Deck is obviously a polished, fleshed out product, but that doesn’t warrant any concrete amount of success.

Be that as it may, we’re elated that Valve has the courage and gusto to embark on such an endeavour, come hell or high water!

Let’s Talk Specs

Valve’s Steam Deck will come equipped with a 7″ IPS touch screen (400 nits of brightness) that’s 16:10. We’re talking about a 1280×800 resolution which, in all fairness, is more than enough for such a small diagonal.

On the front there’s a standard directional pad, two thumbsticks, built-in microphones and speakers, bespoke buttons (for quick access and similar bindings) and two fairly large capacitive trackpads. On top we have the standard L1/L2 and R1/R2 triggers, a USB-C port (with display out), a status LED, headphone/microphone combo jack, volume controls alond with a power button.

Finally, on the back of the device you’ll find four additional buttons (L4/L5 and R4/R5), all of which will be fully programmable. And, seeing how you’ll probably want as much storage as possible, there’s a built-in microSD card slot as well!

All in all, Valve has managed to cram in as many different control schemes as possible! Definitely a plus as far as we’re concerned!

But is it powerful enough?

Fortunately, the answer is a resounding “yes!”

Packed inside its sleek enclosure, is an AMD Zen 2 APU with four cores and eight treads, along with an integrated Radeon RDNA 2 graphics card with 8 CUs. That should result in almost two TFlops of power which is comparable to a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

There’s 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM as well, all of which is soldered right onto the motherboard. Lastly, there are three different storage options: 64GB (eMMC), 256GB (NVMe SSD), and 512GB (an even faster NVMe).

As if all of that wasn’t enough, there’s a built-in gyroscope, an ambient light sensor, Bluetooth 5.0, and dual-band Wi-Fi!

There’s really nothing missing. It’ll run on an Arch-based fork of SteamOS (Linux, in other words). Interestingly enough, though, you’ll be able to flash Windows 10/11 with ease and use the Steam Dock much like you would any other computer.

It’s Basically a Full-Fledged PC

To use the Steam Dock as a regular computer, all you’ll need to do is connect it to an external display, add in a mouse and keyboard and you’re be good to go! Whether this specific use-case scenario is something you’d be interested in will heavily depend on your workflow, but it’s definitely a nice option to have.

Finally, let’s talk pricing. Valve’s Steam Deck will be sold at three different price points: 419€, 549€, and 679€. These three models correspond to the storage options written above. The important part is that there’s no difference in terms of the hardware itself. If you’re paying more, you’re only doing so to get additional (and faster) storage.

It’s also worth mentioning that Valve will be selling the Steam Deck at a spectacularly low price. There’s nothing like it on the market. We’re talking about a full-fledged portable PC that’s fairly powerful and yet will be sold for under 500€. Truly incredible stuff!

Steam Deck will start shipping around December 2021 to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, with more regions coming in 2022. So, if you happen to live in any of these places and have been looking for a stellar way to experience your favorite titles on your daily commutes, make sure to put in a pre-order!