The Steam Deck promises to deliver a powerful, portable PC, and it’s made by Valve. We’ve rounded up everything you need to know about Valve’s portable PC right here.
The Steam Deck is Valve’s long-rumored portable PC, and its set to launch this December. This Nintendo Switch-like device promises to put a fully-functional PC in the palm of your hand, and for anyone with a large Steam library of games, it already sounds like quite a tempting proposition. News originally surfaced that the company behind Half-Life was secretly developing a dedicated handheld device back in April. Dubbed the “SteamPal”, which was also previously known by the codename Neptune, Ars Technica were the first to break the news about Valve’s portable PC gaming device which we now know is real. At a glance, the Steam Deck is an all-in-one portable PC gaming device that brings the features and games you love from Steam and packs it into a new powerful and convenient form factor that you can take with you wherever you go. It runs a modified version of Valve’s SteamOS, complete with a console-like interface, and has 7-inch LCD screen. Much like the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck can also be docked and output to a TV or monitor using its USB Type-C port. Valve plans to sell its own dock separately at a later date, but you can use existing USB Type-C docks without worry. This functionality means you can use the Steam Deck as a fully-fledged PC if you so choose, as you can also install any OS you like – though most will be happy to stick with SteamOS. You can also connect various hardware accessories like a mouse and keyboard or flight stick, which means all your favorite peripherals will work. Oh, and you can even connect a pair of wireless Bluetooth headphones. The Steam Deck is set to release in December 2021, and costs $399 / £349 for the base model that comes with 64GB of eMMC internal storage and a carrying case. The mid-range option costs $529 / £459 and includes a 256GB NVMe SSD inside for faster storage, a carrying case and an exclusive Steam Community profile bundle. Finally, the highest tier option costs $649 / £569 and includes 512GB of NVMe SSD internal storage, premium anti-glare etched glass, an exclusive carrying case, exclusive Steam Community profile bundle, and an exclusive virtual keyboard theme. All three consoles storage can be expanded thanks to a microSD card slot, which supports SD, SDXC and SDHC formats. We expected the Steam Deck to be sold at a higher price tag than the Nintendo Switch, which retails for $299 / £279.99 / AU$469, but it’s even more expensive than the new Nintendo Switch OLED, which retails for $349 / £309. Valve’s Gabe Newell said the company found hitting Steam Deck price “painful” but “critical” in an interview with IGN. Newell told IGN about the need to be “very aggressive” in terms of pricing, and said that the top priority was to make sure that PC players are able to pick up the Steam Deck and feel like it works perfectly. “I want to pick this up and say, oh, it all works. It’s all fast. It’s all… and then price point was secondary and painful. But that was pretty clearly a critical aspect to it,” Newell said. “But the first thing was the performance and the experience, [that] was the biggest and most fundamental constraint that was driving this.
