Steam Deck Is a Handheld Gaming PC That Competes With Nintendo Switch

Steam Deck is a new portable handheld gaming PC that combines the form factor of a Nintendo Switch with the vast game library of Steam. Valve co-founder and Managing Director Gabe Newell had teased the device in May and it has been made official now with shipping starting December this year. Steam Deck comes with a 7-inch touchscreen display flanked by controller buttons and analogue sticks on either side. It is powered by an AMD CPU and GPU, and will be offered in multiple storage options.

Steam Deck price, availability

Steam Deck is priced at $399 (roughly Rs. 29,800) for the 64GB eMMC internal storage option, $529 (roughly Rs. 39,500) for the 256GB NVMe SSD internal storage model, and $649 (roughly Rs. 48,400) for the 512GB NVMe SSD model. As of now, there seems to be only a black colour option for the Steam Deck. It will be available for purchase starting December this year in the US, Canada, European Union, and the UK.

The three configurations come with a carrying case but the 256GB and 512GB models get some extra benefits. With the 256GB model, customers will get an exclusive Steam community profile bundle. The 512GB model comes with a premium anti-glare etched glass, an exclusive carrying case, exclusive Steam community profile bundle, and an exclusive virtual keyboard theme.

All three configurations are available for reservation but only in the aforementioned regions. Valve has not shared any information on the international availability for Steam Deck yet.

Steam Deck specifications, features

Steam Deck runs on Arch Linux-based SteamOS 3.0 that has been optimised for a handheld experience. It has built-in quick suspend/ resume feature, allowing the Steam Deck to resume after waking from sleep. You can install and use PC software and perform typical desktop tasks. It also allows you to install other game stores like Origin, Battle.net, Epic, and more.

It features a 7-inch LCD display with 1,280×800 pixels resolution, a 16:10 aspect ratio, a 60Hz refresh rate, and 400 nits of peak brightness. It is touch enabled and has an ambient light sensor as well. Under the hood, the Steam Deck is powered by an AMD APU that includes a Zen 2 based 4-core 8-thread CPU with clock speed ranging from 2.4GHz to 3.5GHz and a GPU with 8 RDNA 2 compute units (CUs) that ranges from 1.0GHz to 1.6GHz. The APU’s power ranges from 4W to 15W.

Steam Deck has D-Pad on the left and ABXY buttons on the right
Photo Credit: Valve

It comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and three storage options — 64GB eMMC (PCIe Gen 2 x1) storage, 256GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4), and 512GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3 x4). All three models have expandable storage via a microSD card slot that works with SD, SDXC, and SDHC cards. The 256GB and 512GB options will be much faster than the 64GB model and Valve says the 512GB option will be the fastest. For connectivity, the Steam Deck has dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v5, a 3.5mm stereo headphone combo jack, and a USB Type-C port that can be used to output the display on a TV or monitor. It can do up to 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz.

In terms of controls, you get a D-Pad, two analogue sticks, A B X Y buttons, bumpers, triggers, two trackpads, and four additional buttons on the back that can be assigned in-game. The Steam Deck has a built-in gyro sensor as well. It works with an external keyboard or mouse, be it wired or Bluetooth. You can also connect Bluetooth headphones to the Steam Deck.

Valve has packed a 40Whr battery in the Steam Deck that is said to deliver between two to eight hours of gameplay. The USB Type-C port supports 45W charging as well. It has stereo speakers and a dual microphone array. In terms of dimensions, the Steam Deck measures 298x117x49mm and weighs 669 grams.

There will also be a dock that will allow you to get external display connectivity via HDMI or DisplayPort, wired networking, a USB hub, etc. Furthermore, Ryan McCaffrey from IGN says Steam Deck can run other operating systems besides SteamOS adding that it will run every Xbox game that is available on Steam which means Halo Infinite will be playable on Steam when it arrives in autumn this year.