I LOVE portable consoles as I can’t just play on the TV because it’s in the living room so I’ll let my gf have the TV. Plus having all my related games on one divide that I can easily transport with me was a no brainer. Steamdeck has topped the switch for my all time favorite portable console.

playing all my childhood games so easily compared to emulating on pc, picking up where i left with sleep mode ( mine is almost never turned off, except for updates and such), NOT PAYING FOR ONLINE and most of all, not having to double dip.

The bonus is streaming from my pc, which , if you do at the deck’s native resolution, means you will get to keep your deck and graphics card for a long time !

on any long flight or train, time flies.

Flight was delayed 1hr last time, no problem, flipped out the deck, put it on the suitcase, played mario kart with two xbox controllers with my gf. time went by fast.

I arrive at the airbnb, with a dock ,controller and charger, and i’m playing god of war , any of them really, i can play more god of war games on my SD than i can on any playstation i ever owned WITH BETTER GRAPHICS AND MOTION, which is a big big big shame.

anything below ps3 runs perfect, some ps3 and switch games work, others dont or crash.

i’ve had the regular SD for a year now, i’ve had a switch oled before and the SD simply replaced it. The games were so expensive on switch and i didn’t even have to buy anything when i got the SD, steam library, and xcloud runs almost native like quality, since the screen is small it’s hard to see the imperfections due to streaming, so it looks pretty impressive. i have 2GB internet at home and use it to stream.

Streaming from my pc is definitely a native like experience, i don’t see the difference honestly

streaming from xcloud is sometimes janky, but very playable and enjoyable overall. i use it to play gta online with xbox friends or any gamepass game i want to try really.

i’m definitely getting the oled SD, i’ve seen the difference between the oled and regular switch and it felt like a generational leap despite having the same hardware. The SD also gets better battery life and weights less, with better bt and wifi. I use the product daily and love seeing a company which actually pushes for self repair

For me it was the fact that it is a handheld. What’s better than playing your favorite games no matter the platform laying on a couch? This device has an enormous potential!

Regarding your question about compatibility - obviously, it’s on a per game basis. But for the most part, considering the general basis of half of those games (Anime games, originally intended for consoles, made by Japanese studios), the most likely incompatibility issue is video playback.

A lot of companies love using proprietary video codecs to get file sizes smaller for saving optical disk space, or to encrypt copyrighted media to protect IP (like, uh, Anime franchises). Valve can’t provide you with that codec, because it’s privately owned and will probably involve either paying loyalties or breaking some copyright law.

Other people can, however - ProtonGE replaces the thing that interprets Windows games on Linux (which is what’s happening on the Steam Deck), which is maintained by someone else (GloriousEggroll, hence the name - actually an engineer at Red Hat, a version of Linux that caters to enterprise). It’s the same as what Valve provides, but also includes access to all those codecs to get video working.

As always, just check your games via ProtonDB to see if you have to do anything special with incompatible games to get them running.

I wanted a portable gaming pc. I play mostly single player games. I don’t care if the games are old if they’re GOOD. Games like Resident evil 5, Need for speed MW 2004 and newer games like Resident Evil 7, Live a Live and even DMC5 are a dream come true on the deck.

On the other hand, I always used Linux but came back to Windows because of gaming. Valve contributions to proton helped me transition finally. Valve really won my loyalty and now they address every issues most people had with the original deck. Needless to say IM SOLD with the OLED model. I will support Valve until they start anticonsumer things like EA or Activision do.

I loved my old psp back in the day and homebrewed the hell of it day dreaming about being able to play my pc games on a portable device, unfortunately it was stollen.

Then came the steam deck that’s that old dream of mine come true, just spent last night porting my mo2 modlist for Oblivion from my pc to the steam deck, adjusting some settings and it’s playing like a dream.

I don’t have a gaming rig and didn’t want to invest in one or a dedicated console.

The deck is the perfect middle ground. Additionally, I travel every summer. This is the perfect travel companion!

With how much I travel given my job and hobbies, I am hardly ever home so the steam deck was a really obvious purchase. I already used my switch a lot and just paying for hardware that gives seamless access to my already large Steam library was well worth the price. I could not giver you any about the other handhelds, more performance I guess would be nice but I am already happy what I can do with mine, as long as it lasts a few years ill upgrade then.

For me it’s instant on and off. Can’t do that with a windows handheld. It’s super convenient.

• Do you want the best console-like experience? Steam Deck
• Do you want the best performances and compatibility? Legion Go
• Do you want to curse every minute of your life using Windows without having a trackpad? Ally

I’ve been a pc gamer for about 20 years now, and there weren’t good affordable handheld solutions for both emulation of all kind plus couch gaming that allowed me to olay outside my home. 2h commutes to work changes you…

Ability to play PC games, including my massive Steam backlog, on a device with working in-game suspend/wake up. For a father of three, it is a godsend.

I don’t use the deck for too many AAA, where I want a full 4k glory - I use PS5 for those. It’s not even about performance, it’s more about the screen size & resolution. I want to enjoy the beauty of e.g. Control or CP2077 as it was intended.

The Steam Deck is “Perfect for me” because the Work Valve put into the Software and Hardware means there’s usually a way to tweak games to work for you, even hardcore Mouse and Keyboard games or Games without controller support.

Compatibility is a game by game struggle and workarounds are largely going to depend on why it’s not compatible. I haven’t had an issue with anything I’ve wanted to play.

As for the Windows Systems, The Legion Go and Ally being able to run games better at higher TDPs is only a plus if you’re not got going to be relying on the battery life. The Ally has a battery that’s comparable to the LCD Deck but can run significantly higher TDP.

The Legion Go is also monstrous, I owned another 8” class Handheld and it was just too fatiguing.

Windows outside of the native compatibility for Anti-Cheat games is a compromised experience for handhelds. Windows is built from the ground up expecting you to use a mouse and keyboard for control of the OS. It’s something that makes set up more difficult but eventually it kind of gets out of your way. SteamOS makes PC Gaming the most console like it’s ever been, and honestly rocks. Valve has really turned Linux gaming from a joke into a serious option.

TL;DR: Do your research that the games you want to play can play on Deck, and then get a Deck if they can it’s the best all around solution.

I moved from an lcd switch to the lcd steam deck. It’s a pretty console like experience if you just buy games from steam and play them (although you can dick about with stuff if you want to).

The OLED screen looks like a great upgrade. The other consoles do have a bit more oomf, so can run at slightly better graphics settings, at the cost of lower battery life and having to deal with windows. I would t worry about extra resolution on the screens. You won’t be able to tell at 7”, and I expect the OLED screen will look better.

I’m old and I can’t game for hours at my desk anymore and I need to be able to move around a bit. All of my games are pretty old so it would help me finish them off.