Steam Deck 1 Year Later - WORTH IT?

Valve’s Steam Deck has been in the wild for over a year. How has this portable PC stacked up? Let’s talk.

[thimblebirb]

i completed cyberpunk exclusively on the steam deck last year, playing each day on my way to work and back. couldn't run it on my pc. this little thing is a monster

[ceez]

Best gaming purchase I’ve made in years.. that extra hour or 2 I can play before bed without sitting at my desk has allowed me to play games I never thought I’d have a chance to play. Not to mention the nostalgic classics I can emulate

[xeikai]

I decided to take the plunge and go all out and buy the 512gb version. I drive 18 wheelers for a living and i work about 8-11 hours a day depending on how fast warehouses are operating and there are days where i wait around for hours and hours. I bought a verified to work car charger and i'm going to be firing this thing up on slow days and connecting it to my hotspot and just gaming while i wait. Glad to see the deck is such a great value.

[goattea]

Steam Deck is one of the greatest consoles I have ever owned. This is what I always wanted the vita to be. It’s super convenient if you have had steam for years, then you already have games ready to play on there. I find myself playing on here more than my PC mainly for the comfortability of laying in bed and playing my games. Absolutely love this device.

[XavierLignieres]

Had my Deck for a little over 3 months, And I am still being impressed by how well it runs both modern and old games and with AMD FSR getting better and better I am sure the current iteration of the device will have plenty of life in it before most people actually NEED an upgrade. I have a full size PC with a 3070 but keep going back to my deck for all but the most demanding games or stuff that is better on a proper PC like Flight Simulator.

[durreetos]

As someone who doesn’t have a gaming pc, this has been incredible. Being able to dock it to a monitor allows me to play the city builder style games with all the little details, whilst still being able to go handheld for the simpler stuff. Great console!

[Mmcontrolz]

I can't believe it's been out for a year already! It's been a solid gaming/pc device. Emulation has been amazing also!

[breecat]

The steam deck has been great for me as someone who has disabilities. I can't sit at a computer some days, but having the steam deck lets me play my games anyway 😊 I prefer the switch for travel because it's lighter but you can't really beat that extensive steam library.

[farishanafiah]

Still loving this device because of Valve's bravery to use Linux instead of Windows. Also, you can use it as a normal desktop PC when you hook it up to an external monitor or a lapdock.

[maxmouse]

I just got one. It looks pretty cool but what I'm most happy is that it's pushing a lot of improvements to Linux, specially Linux gaming!
Also liked that it's repairable and not a black box that if you change anything it's instantly bricked

[Mandrake]

Its actually interesting to see this be such a success. Their Steam Machines thing didn't go so well for them but they persevered and seem to have found the sweet spot for what people actually want from a Valve produced gaming machine.

[CarthagoMike]

It is still such an amazing device. It allowed me to game again, despite my busy schedule.

[justintantiongloc]

In the spirit of community support, it's also awesome that not only are devs starting to mention how their games will run on the Deck when promoting them, but I've noticed a few Youtube reviewers now explicitly having a "How does it run on Steam Deck?" section on their reviews of games now, even sometimes highlighting the steps they need to take if it's not officially verified by Steam, or if it's a silver/gold ProtonDB title. That's really awesome, and is only going to encourage even more exploration and tinkering with the device.

[PietroPizzi]

Best thing since sliced bread! I'm an adult with a 10y old child, a job and (because I hate Windows since I studied Computer Science;) without a windows PC in my home. So I can't really play much since around 10 years. And now, boom, I play with my daughter retro games and Nintendo games, and when she goes to bed, I can play my huge backlog on the couch :). A life changer!!

[Buraikun]

I freaking love my steam deck. I'm going to have to have an overnight stay at the hospital after surgery here soon and the fact that I can have my deck to fight the boredom makes it was less of a big deal for me

[toolistify]

I think the tinkering does wear off but it is nice going through that phase and becoming well versed in your options and how to execute them. So when you do run into something that doesn't work quite the way you want it to, you have a lot of first hand knowledge to solve it.

[realtayo]

Really one of the best things to happen to gaming in years. I think the value is crazy with the $400 version and a cheap sd card.

[novusnocturnm]

I literally got mine today! We ordered it about Wednesday last week and so far I’m loving it. Bit of a learning curve and some fiddling with key binds, but so far so good!

[Chifilly]

Although I don't own a Steam Deck, I am a Linux user, and I'm SO happy to see it being so successful. Because of its success, it's pushing Linux gaming forward very quickly, so more and more games are getting officially supported on Linux and people don't have to jump through as many hoops or apply dodgy hacks in order to get games to work, and hopefully we'll see a time where developers are making a Linux version a priority as much as Windows.

[landonewts]

I love my Steam Deck! Not my first handheld, but it’s my first gaming PC. I played Fallout 4 on Steamdeck for hours every morning for weeks when I couldn’t sleep and was recovering from surgery. Smooth experience, and I got decent battery life with a few tweaks. Love the continued updates and customer support from Valve. There are some games I want to play that I can’t, like Dragon Age 2 and Scars Above, but some of them are supposed to be playable soon. LOVE the Deck.