You may need to hold the power button down. You don’t NEED to charge it, as it will be 50% or so when you first turn it on. But giving it a good charge won’t hurt. You can do so as it’s on and you’re setting it up.

Are you saying that you compared the etched glass LE version to the glossy 512 version?

Can you post a video of your testing methodology?

Does emu deck setup controller configs for you?

You don’t need to know anything about optimization. It’s plug and play easy. Just turn it on, open the store, and buy games that are “deck verified”. Those are games tested that run well on the deck. Other games may not be 100% verified because in game text is too small, but sometimes you can adjust the UI sizing in game options.

But trust me, this is an easy console experience. It can be more in depth and complex if you choose to go down that route, but out of the box, it’s just plug and play easy.