Just pulled the trigger on an OLED. I haven’t played a game on my PC for over a year, it’s simply used to stream football matches to my Chromecast on the weekends.
I already have a laptop and a PS5 that can do the heavy lifting. I also have a PS Vita that gets used daily simply because it’s so convenient, so I know the Steam Deck will get some play.
Just curious about others.
For me, pc and steamdeck have a lovely symbiotic relationship. I simply play a bit of game on pc, and continue where I left off on my steam deck.
This is the intended functionality, in my opinion.
It amazes me the amount of people that go “Full Steam Deck” ( Robert Downey Jr Voice from Tropic Thunder ) and act like a steam deck is better than even the most middle ground desktop.
They’re not designed to compete with one another. Like you said, play games at home and then pick up the deck and play on the move. It’s portability is it’s USP. That’s the only thing the deck has over my desktop. And that’s ok…
But you’re always going to find cultists when you join the cult I guess
I love my Steam Deck and currently have two of them (upgraded to OLED) but I don’t use it for demanding games or games with small UI elements.
A good example is Starfield, it is much nicer to play on proper hardware with a nice big screen. Can it be played on the Steam Deck? Sure, it kind of runs natively and streaming is possible, but I simply don’t prefer it.
But rogue likes, emulation, older games, Steam Deck is great! Currently replaying Alan Wake on my Deck and it’s been a ton of fun.
In my case the Deck (OLED) has one major advantage over my PC besides the portability - its screen. My PC screen is a perfectly competent 1440p panel with decent colours, but it’s also a 60Hz IPS. Some games the power of the PC (5900X, 3070) is going to make games look better on there, others the Deck’s OLED is going to give it the win. Or there’s always streaming to get both!
I’ll add that on the move isn’t necessary. Just being able to relax and game away from setup still feels so good. Depends on the game though, still plenty I will prefer on my main machine.
Might buy a steam deck instead of upgrading my 4th gen i5 pc since that’s about 3 times more expensive and steam deck can kind of play a lot of recent games with a stable 30fps.
The Steam Deck isn’t even the most powerful handheld. For people that want to play AAA games consistently a PC is still a great option. I like my PS5 but it only really gets turned on for exclusives.