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[Alex Atkin UK]

I pre-ordered Steam Deck in January and a few weeks back I was finally given the chance to complete the purchase.  I had hoped it would be a bit later in the year, but a small portable Linux machine optimised for gaming was too interesting to pass on.

First impressions, way way better than I expected.

Hardware:
I've looked at a few videos on it over the months and it never looked that ergonomic, but it totally is, its by far the most comfortable handheld I've ever owned.  If I didn't have Fibromyalgia I'd expect it to be completely pain free, as yesterday it started to hurt that mustle between the palm and thumb (I often get insta-cramp there holding cutlery too and pens), but today it isn't.

The fan also sounded really loud in videos which worried me, but it really isn't.  In actual gaming the speakers make it completely inaudible.  Speakers lack bass, but are much better than my gaming laptop.

The screen also seems pretty good, I got the top-end model which I think has a better anti-reflective finish and seems to block everything except pointing it directly at a light bulb.  I hear it pales against the OLED Nintendo Switch, but considering none of the games I'm playing are on Switch and that console hurts my hands very quickly, its kinda irrelevant.

The haptics/vibration are as crap as reported, I do not notice any vibration at all (its probably there, but so subtle it might as well not be) but that's hardly the end of the world.

Downloads over WiFi are hitting around 700Mbit which is not at all bad considering WiFi can vary a lot.  Nintendo Switch is capped at around 40Mbit.

Performance:

What's particularly amazing is there are games on here that are problematic to get working on modern Windows but worked painlessly on Steam Deck, main example being NiGHTS into Dreams which is one of my all time favourites (though its flawed compared to the Saturn original).  Although it wouldn't run with an external monitor connected.

All the older, simpler games (I've focused mostly on the ones verified as Steam Deck compatible, 344 verified as Great on Deck out of my 1412 collection, run really well.  The one newer title I tried was Horizon: Zero Dawn which is definitely rough, but it has its issues on a full blown gaming PC too so not too shocking.

Issues:
The default popup keyboard is buggy in desktop mode, it often misses letters even though it shows they registered a press.  This is not too bad, as in desktop mode you can install a different keyboard.

I had WiFi drop once and had to reboot to fix it, some are saying disabling WiFi power management helps.

I've also experienced minor audio crackling/stutter in some games, not sure what that's about.

Desktop Mode:
A clean KDE Plasma desktop, a little fiddly to use due to the issue mentioned above but very nice to have.  Interestingly I plugged my monitor in over USB-C (my monitor supports this natively) which allowed me a full 4K 144Hz desktop with my keyboard and mouse detected perfectly.  It allows the normal KDE package manager that installs applications via Flatpak.  Its extremely usable in this configuration.

It doesn't automatically turn the internal LCD off in this mode instead leaving it as a second screen but I haven't looked into if its possible to do so.

Right to Repair:
Value are aggressively supporting this which is great, one drawback is they have glued the battery in which is a shame.  This means while you can get a replacement, removing the existing one appears to be a PITA.

So initial impressions are they've done an insane job with this, especially for the price.  I don't think they're making much money off it, as its a way to encourage people to buy off Steam directly rather than the alternatives like Epic Games or Xbox.

Third party support:
Ubisofts anti-cheat is not supported so I can't play The Crew 2.  This is a huge shame that I really hope they resolve.
It is supposed to be possible to install Epic launcher and GOG, but I believe there is some sort of resource limitation in desktop mode so anything run from there does not get full performance. (as KDE is run on X11, Steam is run in Wayland)

I've also seen instructions for installing Windows on an SD card so will look into that.  The performance is supposed to be quite a bit worse, but that's expected given Windows doesn't have the ability to customise it tightly to the hardware like Linux does.  The point is, the Steam Deck is a normal EFI boot PC, you can install whatever you want on it barring driver support and supposedly it supports fTPM so Windows 11 works too.

[dee.jay]

Funnily enough I was able to buy a 512GB model yesterday and I promptly did so. Should be an interesting device.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I had no idea there were things like Heroic Game Launcher on Linux that allows GOG and Epic Games Launcher titles to be installed.

I managed to get Pinball FX Early Access to run on Steam Deck, probably not going to try Cyberpunk 2077 though. 

The fact they included KDE Desktop as standard is insanely useful (though as widely reported, the touch screen calibration seems kinda off), especially for me as its my primary daily-driver desktop.  But with two touch pads I changed the configuration so pressing down the left one is a left click, pressing down on the right is a right click, which really helps.  The main drawback in desktop mode is having to use on on screen keyboard, though they just released a new patch that supposedly fixed the mis-clicks I mentioned on the stock keyboard.

I did notice one issue, my left trigger feels kinda sticky compared to the right.  Not found it functionally cause any issues, it just feels odd.  Apparently its a known issue others have had, something to do with it catching on the moulding so I'd expect it to go away over time if so.

Also I installed Windows 11 onto an SD card using Rufus Windows on the Go option and it worked a lot better than I expected (although without sound as the latest Win11 update broke the sound drivers, 10 is supposed to work okay).  Drawback there is trying to get the controller to work, its the same mess as using my PS5 controller on Windows, you have to launch everything via Steam shortcuts for it to enable controller support.  I did get The Crew 2 running that way, but performance was a bit choppy at times, possibly due to running off SD card.