Steam Deck In-Depth Review & Unboxing - Can It Really Do Everything?

A review I did on Valve's Steam Deck, covering the hardware, software, games, compatibility, emulators and everything else I can think of. I bought the Steamdeck on the 1 year anniversary, and figured it was probably time to finally cover it and share my thoughts.

All videos on this channel are edited and produced by Rob Noire.

[jordirapper]

Just FYI. The boxes were made plain because Valve only sells them and thus delivery services had to bring them. They made it plain so thieves wouldn't recognize as the steam deck. This eventually didn't matter as FedEx people stole decks left and right.

[JDabz]

Edit the settings on the trackpads, i use mine all the time they are soooo gooooddd, i promise, just adjust for you. Make it like a trackball.

[gametime]

It's pretty insane how much performance Valve managed to pack into this thing.

[LawlessNate]

I think I've heard that the Deck is great for old PC games. You just have to manually add them to Steam in desktop mode so you can then play them with Proton. Deck + Proton = better compatibility with old PC games than most computers running modern versions of Windows.

[imkester]

I'm having a hard time at first using the trackpad but after tweaking the settings for the trackpad it became really useful and great for me since I hate using the touch screen, in fact I spend a lot of time even in desktop mode(once I get tired of gaming and just want to chill and browse the internet) without using a mouse because the trackpad functions well for me.

[kratos]

I’ve had mines for about 4 months and I also have a PS5, once you get adjusted to this thing it will replace every other device you own. You will literally have to make time for your other device. It literally does everything

[timothylewis]

I grabbed the 256GB version last year but I actually wish I'd gotten the cheapest version.

I swapped the 256GB SSD for a 2TB Sabrent SSD I found on Amazon. From what I've read, all of the versions are the same aside from the storage and screen on the most expensive version.

[JDabz]

A lot of unsupported games actually work fine, if you get decky loader, and the protondb plugin its amazing to tell if a game will work. Grounded works too.

[fluffybunnybadass]

Thanks for making this video! It helped explain to me how it worked much better than anything I could find on the official websites.

[veganoutdoorsman]

Really helpful thanks. Never been a pc gamer but hopefully, this bridge's the gap like you said. Ordered one yesterday so hyped for it to arrive. Cheers dude

[JDabz]

I hate when people say the screen is crap compared to the ally, I mean look at it. It looks great to me

[darrenliewjiaquan]

One thing that standout from the ROG ally is the trackpad. They are amazing if u are not bringing any mouse out.

[MusicJunkie]

Very insightful, this video deserves more views

Really considering picking up a Steam deck myself

[flamingscar]

A couple of things I want to add here

1. Theres something called decky loader that allows for custom plugins in gaming mode, my favorites being CSS loader (allows for custom themes) and protonDB badges (will show a games protonDB rating, protonDB being a site that shows how games run on linux, this helps a lot for games marked as unsupported or unkown)

2. You can run non steam games off the SD card, but it takes a custom luanch option

[LawlessNate]

I'm surprised you don't like the track pads. In desktop mode obviously they're a massive benefit, especially compared to the many other handheld PCs on the market that don't have them. However, in games you can adjust just about everything about those track pads. In fact, there are people who play first person shooters really well with them. Usually they will set the track pads to "track ball" mode, where swipes give 'momentum' and then combine this with gyroscopic aiming (which is available both for track pads and for the joy sticks) for the finer control of aiming. It's not quite as good as a mouse and keyboard, but it can be pretty close, and it's worlds better than just trying to use the joysticks regularly.

[LyricalViking]

I've owned the steam deck since last year and I'll give you my two cents. It's the best handheld for emulation gaming or indie games.

[logangagnier]

as for 14:50, you can run games from other launchers onto a micro sd. i have both overwatch 2 and diablo 4 with the battlenet launcher all installed to my micro sd card, since i only got the 64gb model. i just got my steam deck like 2 weeks ago and i absolutely love it. as a lifelong console gamer it’s everything i wanted from pc gaming and then some. i also just wanted a handheld for the nostalgia lol. it’s definitely making me consider going all in on a pc in the future, but i do have a ps5 for new AAAs so we’ll see

[xXTigerWaveXx]

The 512 GB is on sale right now! I got it for $550 including delivery fee so it’s a perfect time to get one! Gosh I’m making myself seem like a bot but for real, the original price was kinda intimidating for a college student so it was nice to get the discount.😅

[PixelShade]

The biggest thing I disagree with in this review is the Steam Deck's unique input. I honestly don't think you have given neither the backbuttons or trackpads enough time and it doesn't really seem like you have played around with Steam Input at all, because you can absolutely make EVERY single game work on the device since you can download community profiles or map your own configuration, even if the game has non-standard exotic input. (PC games in the 90's in particular) Overall, Steam input for me, is what makes the Steam Deck superior to anything on the market. People just need to be open to personalized input methods and not the typical forced setups of conventional dualstick controller from the 90's. (FPS games on dual sticks has ALWAYS been a severe compromise, the touchpads+gyro honestly fixes this)

To give you some tips and tricks:
Back Buttons. They are placed perfectly for your finger grips and in a lot of games, when you are executing a lot of commands on the face buttons while moving the right stick camera (like running, jumping, reloading, special skills etc. and wanting camera control at the same time), having those commands always available without needing to switch your grip between the joystick and face buttons is a godsend.

Touchpads. In 3D games set the right trackpad as a mouse in steam input, adjust the sensitivity so that going from the left side of the trackpad to the right is 45 degrees in the game. then set "Trackball friction" to high. This way, you know EXACTLY and CONSISTENTLY how much the camera moves in all games, this also trains your muscle memory and together with Gyro it will almost give you mouse-like proficiency after a while. (and NO it's not at all like the awkwardness of laptop trackpads due to the flexibility of the steam input software). Also, with the trackball friction you gain another ability, if you flick the touch pads from left to right (lifting your thumb at the end), you gain inertia and do a pretty consistent 180 degree turn instantly. this is FAR superior to the slow, and often accelerating linear motion of analogue sticks in 3D games.
Touch pads are great for pointer movement, custom touch menus in emulators, online rpgs etc. games that require tons of different input. You can even add short commands for the journal, map, items, equipment etc. in Witcher 3. Things that are normally sub-menus and really slow to navigate to (especially when you lock to 30fps). That way you don't have to go through several hoops to get where you want to go in menus.

[simonrockstream]

I prefer the packaging of the Steam Deck over any of the consoles. Valves packaging is functional, no plastic and it doesnt try to be 'fancy'. Everything is put into the product. They dont waste money and effort on marketing fluff. You can instantly tell you're getting a serious product with actual effort put into it. Instead of a fancy box that serves no purpose except is bad for the environment.