As the name suggests, the handheld computing from Valve Corporation can run games from the Steam platform, with the games in your Steam Library available on the Deck (apparently, around 16,000 Steam titles are compatible, but not all the games).
It’s slightly larger than the Nintendo Switch (298mm x 117mm x 49mm) and weighs 669 grams. It features a quad-core AMD Zen 2 processoor at its heart, running at 3.2GHz, with an AMD RDNA 2 GPU of eight compute units. And there’s up to 512 GB of storage.
The 7″ IPS LCD display (1280 x 800px, with 16:10 aspect ratio) has a refresh rate of 60Hz. Andn terms of connectivity, there’s Bluetooth 5.0 support for accessories and audio, and there’s a Dual-band Wi-Fi radio (2.4GHz and 5GHz) supporting IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac.
For storage, it goes up to 512GB with a high-speed NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3).
Note that while technically a PC VR headset can be connected, Valve says the Steam Deck is not optimised for PC VR experiences.
Prices start at £349, and it’s available directly via Steam in the US, Canada, UK, the EU, Japan, South Korea,Taiwan and Hong Kong. You can read more here.
Steam Deck
The repair specialist iFixit have a section on their website devoted to the Steam Deck, which you can see here, providing Replacement Guides for elements such as the Action Buttons, the Audio Board, the Back Cover the Fan, the Spaekers and the Thumbsticks, among others.
Images: (top) Valve (bottom) iFixit
