Valve's Steam Deck is a handheld gaming PC

Source: Valve

Valve's long-rumoured Switch-like handheld device is now official. But the Steam Deck is more a handheld PC gaming device than a direct competitor to Nintendo's handheld console. 

It runs on an AMD APU with a quad-core Zen 2 CPU with eight threads and eight compute units' worth of AMD RDNA 2 graphics. It has 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and three storage tiers: 64GB eMMC storage (USD 399), 256GB NVMe SSD (USD 529), and 512GB high-speed NVMe SSD (USD 649). You can also expand storage with a microSD card.

There are so many control options on the Steam Deck, so we included a diagram of all of them above. You get two thumbsticks, two Steam Controller-like trackpads (for better precision in games like first-person shooters), ABXY buttons, D-pad, and its 7-inch 1,280 x 800 touchscreen for 720p gameplay. It also has a gyroscope for motion controls, two shoulder triggers on each side, and four back buttons (two on each side). And yes, there are built-in microphones, too.

According to Valve, the Steam Deck has a 40 watt-hour battery that "provides several hours of playtime for most games."

"For lighter use cases like game streaming, smaller 2D games, or web browsing, you can expect to get the maximum battery life of approximately 7-8 hours." Valve tells IGN that "You can play Portal 2 for four hours on this thing. If you limit it to 30 FPS, you're going to be playing for 5-6 hours."

The console also has a quick suspend/resume feature built into SteamOS, so you can put the device into sleep mode and pick up where you left off later. This device runs on a "new version of SteamOS" to optimize it for the mobile form factor. It's based on Linux and uses Proton as a compatibility layer so you can run Windows-based games without developers needing to port them to the device. As we mentioned, it's basically a full-fledged Linux computer.

The Steam Deck comes with full-fledged USB-C ports with HDMI, Ethernet, and USB, along with standard Bluetooth and native Bluetooth audio, which isn't available on the Switch. The company will sell a dock you can prop up a Steam Deck and plug into external displays. But you won't need a dock to plug it into a TV. 

Valve says, "Deck can be plugged into your TV, monitor, or even your old CRT if you have the right cables." You can connect a mouse, keyboard, monitor, install other game stores, browse the web, and more.

The Steam Deck is built to emulate the regular Steam app on the desktop, allowing you to access chat, notifications, cloud save support with your library, favourites, and collections in sync. You can even stream games to the console from your gaming PC with Valve's Remote Play feature.

Reservations are opening for all three versions at 1PM ET today, July 16. And they will initially be offered to accounts with purchases on Steam before June 2021 to help keep reseller bots away. There's a refundable USD 5 reservation fee and one reservation per person. This reservation isn't a pre-order yet, but it puts you in line to pre-order the device when it's available. The first units will be available in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union in December. Other areas will follow next year. Pre-order invites are expected to go out before December, and if you miss that, your reservation fee will be refunded to your Steam Wallet.

Source: The Verge