LG is once again updating its CineBeam 4K projectors, and the upgrades are good news if you tend to watch during the day. Both the HU715Q Ultra Short Throw laser projector (above) and the HU710P laser-LED hybrid promise better daytime viewing through key upgrades. The HU715Q touts auto brightness, while the HU710P's move to a wheel-free hybrid offers brighter overall pictures than its predecessor. The two also provide high 2,000,000:1 contrast ratios to provide more details in bright and dark video scenes
The HU710P peaks at 2,000 lumens of brightness and is built for back-of-the-room projection at distances between 9.5 feet and 15 feet. It offers the most flexibility for image sizes, though, ranging between 40 inches to 300 inches. The HU715Q is limited to images 80 inches to 120 inches in size, but it can produce a 100-inch picture from just 8.5 inches away and delivers a brighter 2,500-lumen output (if slightly dimmer than the HU810P). It's also your pick if you can't justify external speakers, as it packs a 40W stereo setup and Bluetooth-enabled surround versus the 10W of the HU710P.
Both CineBeam 4K projectors include three HDMI ports (including eARC), two USB 2.0 ports and support for AirPlay 2, HomeKit and screen sharing. Their lamps are good for 20,000 hours of use.
LG is already shipping the two CineBeam projectors, starting at $2,499 for the HU710P and $2,999 for the HU715Q. Those aren't trivial prices, but their brightness upgrades might make them easier to justify as replacements for some premium large-screen TVs.
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We had two reports last week suggesting that Apple is working on some kind of foldable MacBook display. Designer Antonio De Rosa has created a set of renders – and a video – with his take on what such a device might look like.
Both reports came from reliable sources, so it seems clear that Apple is at least playing around with this idea, though the exact nature of any eventual product isn’t totally clear …
Display analyst Ross Young pointed to what appears to be a MacBook with a virtual keyboard, which can then unfold into a larger monitor when used with an external keyboard.
We are now showing Apple in our roadmap for foldable notebooks. We hear there is interest at the largest size yet, around 20.x”. This size could create a new category for Apple and would result in a true dual use product, a notebook with a full-size keyboard when folded and for use as a monitor when not folded and used with an external keyboard.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman echoed this idea but suggested that it could be a hybrid MacBook/iPad.
I’m told Apple has indeed been exploring a dual-screen, foldable MacBook/iPad hybrid that would take the second approach. It would trade in the physical keyboard and trackpad for a fully touch-screen base.
De Rosa’s take has a physical trackpad with virtual keyboard. In folded form, it doesn’t look too different to today’s MacBooks, but for a wider aspect ratio.
When opened, we get something that still looks very much like a conventional MacBook, but the keyboard is a virtual one on the lower section of the folded display.
The virtual keyboard means that it could offer users a choice of styles, and indeed be used for completely different purposes by different apps.
As well as the full display being available if used as a giant iPad, or with an external keyboard.
Check out the video below, and more images over at De Rosa’s site.
I have some thoughts on this, which I’ll share later, but what are your reactions? Could you see Apple making something like this? Would you be interested personally? Please share your thoughts on the foldable MacBook display in the comments.
Unlike Apple’s M1 MacBooks, ARM-based Windows on Snapdragon laptops haven’t enjoyed quite the same level of success or popularity. But Lenovo is hoping to change that – at least for enterprise customers – with the new ThinkPad X13s.
The ThinkPad X13s’ secret weapon is its Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chip, which Lenovo says is the first time Qualcomm’s newest laptop processor has been featured in a commercial device. By leveraging improved energy efficiency and a low-power 400-nit 13.3-inch display, Lenovo says the ThinkPad X13s can last up to 28 hours on a single charge. That said, I’m going to want to confirm this myself, because I’ve definitely been burned by shorter-than-expected longevity on previous Windows on Snapdragon machines.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
In keeping with the ThinkPad X13s’ focus on mobile productivity, the laptop also features a fanless design while weighing just 2.5 pounds, with top and bottom panels made from 90 percent recycled magnesium. And to make sure you have a speedy internet connection wherever you go, the laptop also supports 5G (both sub-6GHz and mmWave) and WiFi 6E. Other specs include up to 32GB of RAM, up to 1TB of PCIe storage, and two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports (but no Thunderbolt 4, cause that’s an Intel thing).
Inside, the laptop comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro, with Lenovo relying on a number of Qualcomm’s collaboration features like AI-based auto-framing for its 5MP webcam and intelligent noise suppression that works with the laptop’s triple microphone setup. There’s even a human presence detection feature that can automatically dim or turn off the laptop’s display when it detects that you have looked away to protect sensitive data from prying eyes.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Now I know I’m not exactly Lenovo’s target audience for the ThinkPad X13s, and I probably wouldn’t buy a Windows on Snapdragon laptop for myself since they often struggle to run games (even casual titles). But even so, during my brief hands-on time with the device, I found that there’s a lot to like. Its design is quite sleek even by ThinkPad standards, while its magnesium chassis adds durability without a significant increase in weight. And of course, there’s that claimed 28 hours of battery which should last for days of real-world use (assuming the laptop can live up to Lenovo’s figures).
The only issue I noticed during my brief time with the notebook was a touchpad that felt softer and spongier than I’d like. Though since it’s a ThinkPad, you can always use Lenovo’s iconic TrackPoint nub instead. Thankfully, the X13s’ keyboard felt crisp with plenty of key travel, so there shouldn't be much of a learning curve for ThinkPad diehards.
Sam Rutherford/Engadget
For a low power display, the laptop’s screen is admirably bright, and the auto-framing camera worked like a charm, even if it was a touch too aggressive zooming in and out when I moved my head back and forth. You even get built-in IR cameras for facial recognition and Windows Hello face login. And thanks to the App Assure program, enterprise customers can get help directly from Microsoft to ensure all of a company’s corporate software runs smoothly on the X13s’ Arm-based processor.
So despite a bumpy reception for previous Windows on Snapdragon machines, between the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 and Lenovo's willingness to put that chip in a ThinkPad for the first time, we could be looking at a new era for ARM-based Windows notebooks.
The ThinkPad X13s is slated to go on sale sometime in May starting at $1,100.
Catch up on all of the news from MWC 2022right here!
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Three weeks ago, I opened up a cardboard box containing the Steam Deck, Valve’s incredible new gadget that attempts to make PC gaming portable — and sometimes wildly succeeds. Today, you no longer need to read a 4,000-word review or listen to me explain my giant cartoon heart eyes for 30 minutes on The Vergecast to understand my very big feelings: we’ve got a video that shows you the Deck’s biggest wins and its biggest failings.
And it starts with an original Nintendo Game Boy.
That’s right: not a Nintendo Switch. My family’s carefully preserved 1989-era Game Boy, previously featured here. You’ll understand why long before you finish.
Plus, you’ll see and hear a few things that didn’t fit into my text review. How does the noisy fan sound? What’s the Wi-Fi speed like? Want proof I played GameCube games on this thing? It’s all here.
And if you’ve got any more questions by the time you’re done, please send them my way in the comments, @starfire2258 on Twitter, or at sean@theverge.com. Not only am I still testing the Deck, I’m also working on a big FAQ.
“It’s Max-Q all over again” – More cores do not always mean more performance
According to some recent tests conducted by Notebookcheck, some variants of NVIDIA’s newest RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU are actually slower than full-fledged RTX 3070 non-Ti models.
This story repeats itself with almost every launch of the NVIDIA laptop GPU. Some power-limited GeForce mobile GPUs are not able to compete with lower-tier SKUs that are not power restricted. This is confirmed by some initial tests performed by Notebookcheck feature MSI Stealth GS66 gaming laptop with GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 105W GPU. That’s significantly less power than the Vector GP66 model from the same company featuring 150W graphics. However, as discovered, the RTX 3070 Ti with 105W TGP is also slower than RTX 3070 150W.
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti vs RTX 3070, Source: Notebookcheck
While it makes perfect sense to buy RTX 3070 Ti laptop in this case – the graphics card consumes less power after all – it might be misleading to customers who choose their laptops simply by looking at the name of the graphics card.
The RTX 3070 Ti 105W has a boost clock of 1035 MHz, which is a lot slower than the 1485 MHz of the 150W model. This alone shows an 8-9% difference in synthetic benchmarks and up to 24% in GPU-bound game tests, such as Final Fantasy XV. However, the RTX 3070 Ti 105W is actually outperformed by RTX 3070 150W in XMG Apex 17 as well.
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti vs RTX 3070, Source: Notebookcheck
Those discrepancies between the same GeForce Laptop SKUs with different power targets were the sole reason why media outlets pushed for NVIDIA to enforce a requirement to list TGP by all laptop manufacturers. This change was required after NVIDIA stopped advertising its Laptop graphics cards with Max-Q/P naming.
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The latest batch of game consoles have not exactly been easy to find in stock. That has only recently changed, and only really for the Xbox Series S and Nintendo Switch OLED, both of which can often be found in stock at various retailers. But right now, for the first time, you can grab an Xbox Series S on sale for $249.99, a full $50 off the MSRP. The deal is live at Woot, and it's only available today for as long as supplies last. If you could use one, now's the time to grab it. This is the best Xbox Series S deal we've seen yet.
Xbox Series S: Save $50
Free Shipping with Prime
Xbox Series S
17% off $299.90
Woot is owned by Amazon, and Amazon Prime members get free shipping on the deal (you can sign up here). Otherwise, shipping is $6, which still puts it comfortably in "the best Xbox Series S deal we've ever seen" territory.
The Xbox Series S is the digital-only model of the latest-generation console from Microsoft. It can run all the same games the Series X can run, but it does so at a lower resolution, making it a good choice for people who don't plan on upgrading to a 4K TV anytime soon. It also makes a good second console for anyone who might not have access to their main TV all the time (thanks, roommates/kids/etc.).
Being a digital-only console, the Series S lacks a disc drive, which means you can only play downloadable games on it. This is fine for many people, especially if you subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, which gets you access to a huge library of Xbox games, including all first-party titles on day one. That means you can play games like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5, along with tons of indies and third-party titles like The Sims 4 and Back 4 Blood (and other games, potentially even ones without the number four in the title).
This is by far the best deal we've seen yet on a new-gen console. In fact, it's one of the only deals we've seen yet. So if you want it, grab it. It's not likely to stick around for long.
Samsung announced Sunday a new fleet of premium Galaxy laptops led by the Galaxy Book2 Pro and Galaxy Book2 Pro 360. The leading Android phone maker has a mixed track record in the notebook market but the Galaxy Book Pro 360 impressed us last year and these two additions bring several nice upgrades to the table, including Intel’s long-awaited discrete Arc graphics.
The Galaxy Book2 Pro and Book2 Pro 360 will be available in 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch versions. Whichever you choose, it will come with a 1080p AMOLED display with a max brightness of 500 nits (a 33% increase from the previous model). If you’ve kept tabs on the laptop space in recent years, these specs are a bit old school.
Image: Samsung
While everyone moves to 13.4, 14, and 16 inches with 16:10 and 3:2 aspect ratios, Samsung is keeping things traditional with a standard 16:9, 1080p display. I prefer a slightly taller screen, though I don’t blame Samsung for sticking with something that works best for multimedia considering the AMOLED panel should look fantastic (as it did on the Book 360).
Samsung sticks with a simple, understated design with these systems, which are available in Silver and Graphite. The convertible model has a Burgundy option. At 12 x 7.68 x 0.44 inches and 1.9 pounds, the Book2 Pro is an extremely lightweight laptop, even for a 13 incher (the MacBook Air weighs 2.8 pounds). The 15-inch Book2 Pro, at 0.48 inches thick and 2.58 pounds, is also among the most portable devices in its class.
Image: Samsung
Both systems will be powered by 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1240P or Core i7-1260P processors with Iris Xe Graphics and can be equipped with up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to a 1TB NVMe SSD. These are portable systems, not big gaming rigs so Samsung has opted for Intel’s mid-tier P-series chips, which are designed to offer high performance for ultra-mobile devices. One spec we’re keeping a close eye on is the Book2 Pro’s Intel Arc Graphics; this system will be among the first batch to use the chipmaker’s highly anticipated discrete GPU. Unfortunately, Samsung didn’t set any performance expectations.
Port selection on the convertible is limited to a Thunderbolt 4, two USB-C, and a microSD card slot while the more generous clamshell model has a Thunderbolt 4, a USB-C, a USB-a, an HDMI, and a microSD card. Connectivity support includes Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1. I’m particularly eager to test these laptops’ upgraded 1080p webcams and the new Auto Framing feature, which uses fancy algorithms to keep you centered within the frame.
Samsung is touting the security of these devices, which are the first consumer devices to meet Microsoft’s secure-core requirements, meaning the two companies collaborated to ensure certain security benchmarks were met. Samsung vaguely states it has “integrated hardware, firmware, and software” to protect these systems.
Image: Samsung
“Working with Samsung on the Galaxy Book2 Pro series is the next chapter in our proud collaboration to remove barriers between different operating systems and bring the best of Microsoft apps and services to the Galaxy Ecosystem,” said David Weston, the director of Enterprise and OS Security at Microsoft. “Delivering the first consumer PC with Microsoft’s secured-core PC designation is a crucial step in this effort as today’s consumers deserve the same security protections they get in the office as they do while working remotely.”
The Galaxy Book2 Pro and Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 will go on pre-order on March 18 before hitting stores on April 1. The convertible Pro 360 will cost $1,2499 while the Book2 Pro goes for $1,049. Another base model, a 13.3-inch Galaxy Book2 360, will cost $899 when it’s available, also on April 1.
As an Android brand, Nokia has found its own rhythm with phones — make them cheap without looking or feeling so, make them easy to maintain, and then (try to) maintain them. It's a strategy that has helped its parent company, HMD Global, achieve its first profitable year in 2021. And it hopes to continue that winning streak with a second batch of aggressively budget-minded products for 2022.
Nokia C2 2nd Edition
Nokia C21
Nokia C21 Plus
Phone
Nokia C2 (2nd Edition)
Nokia C21
Nokia C21 Plus
SoC
Unnamed 4-core @ 1.5GHz
Unisoc SC9863a
Unisoc SC9863a
RAM & Storage
1 or 2GB + 32GB; microSD up to 256GB
2 or 3GB + 32GB; microSD up to 256GB
2 or 3GB + 32GB / 4GB + 64GB; microSD up to 256GB
Display
5.7" LCD @ 480 x 960
6.5" LCD @ 720 x 1600
6.5" LCD @ 720 x 1600
Software
Android 11 (Go Edition)
Android 11 (Go Edition)
Android 11 (Go Edition)
Power
2,400mAh removable battery; 5W charging
3,000mAh; 5W charging
4,000mAh (5,050mAh for 4+64GB); 10W charging
Cameras
5MP rear / 2MP front
8MP rear / 5MP front
13MP + 2MP depth rear / 5MP front
Connectivity
LTE (Cat. 4), Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth 5
LTE (Cat. 4), Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth 4.2
LTE (Cat. 4), Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth 4.2
Peripherals
Micro-USB (USB 2.0), 3.5mm audio, wired + wireless FM
The C21, C21 Plus, and C2 (2nd Edition) are Android 11 (Go edition) entries matched up with modest processors and limited memory options, and micro-USB ports in 2022. No NFC here, if you're a stickler for that radio as we are. Just as much as these phones are meant for consumers on tight budgets, this OEM tends to design them on a tight budget. No plans for OS upgrades, just quarterly security updates for the next 2 years. The new C2 has a couple of quirks such as supporting wireless FM reception (that is, without using a pair of wired headphones to act as an aerial). The phones are set to spread across Europe starting mostly in April for as low as €79.
Nokia Wired Headphones
Nokia is also coming off of a year when it doubled its accessories sales, so it's out with wired and wireless Nokia headphones — the latter variant, which we know a lot more about, runs on 40mm drivers, Bluetooth 5.2, and a 60-hour battery with a tentative price of $50, €49, or £46. The wired version is cheaper at €30 or £30 and will definitely appeal to those who are able to rock it old-school style. Both are available around the world right now.
Jules joined the Android Police team in 2019. Before that, he was at Pocketnow. He loves public transportation, podcasts, and people in general. He also likes to take views from the bigger picture in technology from how people are attracted to it to how it's utilized across every other industry.
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UPDATE: Here are a couple full-size images showing both models in all 5 colorways.
Samsung plans to reveal updates to its Galaxy Book line of Windows notebooks at its third major product announcement of the year, and second this month alone — following the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy Tab S8 families at Unpacked — to kick off Mobile World Congress Sunday evening, Barcelona time.
Following standard Samsung naming convention, the laptops — both of which come in 13.3-inch or 15.6-inch sizes — are known as the Galaxy Book2 Pro and Galaxy Book2 Pro 360, with the latter offering a swivelling touchscreen. They’re follow-ups to last year’s Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360, respectively.
As is apparent from the embedded infographics, changes are mostly iterative and aesthetic, as they feature newer generations of Intel silicon and updated colour schemes, including some of the same colourways found on the Galaxy S22 lineup. They also ship with Windows 11, although that’s now also true of their predecessors, which had initially been preloaded with Windows 10.
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The Huawei MatePad Paper is an e-reader and the first of this kind of product to be released by the Chinese technology giant. Huawei is looking to boost its consumer business with new products beyond smartphones.
Huawei
Huawei launched a slew of new products on Sunday including a rival to Amazon's Kindle, as the Chinese tech giant looks to inject life into its consumer business that has been hurt by falling smartphone sales due to U.S. sanctions.
The Huawei MatePad Paper is the company's first e-reader device and features a 10.3-inch display. Huawei is positioning this as a product useful for the work environment.
It is compatible with the Huawei M-Pencil, which can be used across other products.
Huawei said that writing on the MatePad Paper with the electronic pencil feels like writing on actual paper due to the slight bit of friction and the sound given off. Users can convert handwritten notes into text as well.
"The MatePad Paper is the most interesting product in Huawei's new range," said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. "These products are growing in popularity due to their extremely long battery life, ultra-thin designs and easy-to-read screens that are said to be less fatiguing than a traditional LCD displays."
Huawei also launched the new generation of its flagship laptop called the MateBook X Pro, positioned as a rival to Apple's Macbook. It also showed off the Huawei MateBook E, a tablet with detachable keyboard.
The Chinese technology giant also took the wraps off the Matestation X, an all-in-one PC and screen designed as a competitor to Apple's iMac.
These were previously launched in China and the company is now bringing them to international markets.
With the new products, Huawei is hoping to give a boost to its consumer division which has been hurt by U.S. sanctions that have cut the Chinese firm off from key components and technology and crippled its smartphone business.
But finding appeal with international consumers for these products could be tough, according to Wood.
"Its hardware remains as competitive as ever, but selling products into Western markets will be challenging given the sustained brand damage the company has endured," Wood said.
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Technology
You can now attach one-time content warnings to the images and videos you tweet if you didn't have access to the feature in the past. Twitter started testing a feature that gives you a way to add warnings for nudity, violence and other types of sensitive content to each individual post last year. Now, Twitter Support has announced that the feature is available to everyone using its Android and iOS apps, as well as its web interface.
When you apply a warning to an individual tweet, the media you attach to it will look obscured to people viewing it until they opt to view what's behind it. The feature gives you a way to share content that may be upsetting or not appropriate for everyone without having to mark all your tweets as sensitive.
To add a warning to a single tweet, simply click on the flag icon that shows up while you're editing the photo or video you attached and then choose between the nudity, violence and sensitive options. As The Verge notes, you can tag multiple warnings for each attachment, and Twitter will place a single warning over multiple media in a single post.
You can watch Twitter Safety's video on how to access the feature below:
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The Pokemon Company has announced Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, new Pokemon games that formally introduce players to a brand new region and serve to kick off a brand new generation of Pokemon games. The games were announced at the end of today's Pokemon Presents. Few details about the game were provided, other than that it will take place in a new region and will feature new starter Pokemon (seen below). The new games will be released in late 2022.
The Pokemon Company has reserved Pokemon Day, the anniversary of Pokemon Red and Green's initial launch in Japan, as the day to make major Pokemon announcements. Pokemon Sun and Moon were announced on Pokemon Day 2016, while Pokemon Sword and Shield were announced on Pokemon Day 2019. Both Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and Pokemon Legends: Arceus were announced on Pokemon Day 2021.
While fans have argued over what constitutes a new "generation" of Pokemon games, the generally held description is that a new generation is kicked off when a Pokemon game introduces a brand new region. While Pokemon Legends: Arceus introduced players to the Hisui region, that region is technically just a version of the Sinnoh region from a previous era instead of a brand new Pokemon game.
It seems that the new Pokemon games are a return to the "classic" style of Pokemon game most recently seen in Pokemon Sword and Shield, with turn-based battles on a separate screen from the overworld map that players explore. This style of Pokemon game has been refined from Pokemon Red and Blue all the way to Pokemon Sword and Shield with various improvements added like Pokemon appearing in the overworld map and a more free-moving experience with large Wild Areas. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl featured a more retro-version of the Pokemon game formula with its return to chibi-style graphics reminiscent of the original pixel artwork and the use of a grid map design. Pokemon Legends: Arceus broke the mold entirely with a more open-world system that emphasized stealth and exploration over repetitive battling.
Valve CEO Gabe Newell is open to Microsoft launching its PC Game Pass service on Steam. In an interview with PC Gamer, Newell says Valve has no plans for an Xbox Game Pass competitor, but that it would be happy to work with Microsoft to bring PC Game Pass to Steam.
“I don’t think it’s something that we think we need to do ourselves, building a subscription service at this time,” Newell said. “But for their customers it’s clearly a popular option, and we’d be more than happy to work with them to get that on Steam.”
Microsoft and Valve have held discussions about bringing PC Game Pass to Steam, but it’s clearly early days and may never happen. “We’ve talked to people there quite a bit about that topic,” says Newell. “If your customers want it, then you should figure out how to make it happen. That’s where we’re at.”
A sticking point could be Valve’s 30 percent cut on software sales through Steam. Valve relaxes this to 20 percent for sales after $50 million, but it’s not clear how it treats subscription services like PC Game Pass. EA Play launched on Steam in 2020, but only the basic subscription is available and EA Play Pro is still exclusive to EA’s Origin launcher.
Microsoft has so far shown no signs that it’s willing to bring PC Game Pass to Steam, though. The software maker started distributing more of its Xbox Game Studios titles through Steam in 2019, but PC Game Pass remains exclusive to the Microsoft Store and Windows 10 or Windows 11 PCs. That means if you purchase a new Steam Deck, you can’t access PC Game Pass on the Linux OS that’s preinstalled.
Microsoft also attempted to shake up PC gaming last year by reducing its Windows store cut to just 12 percent. Steam still dominates PC gaming, and Microsoft has said it’s open to Steam being part of its new Windows 11 app store.
The Steam Deck, the new $399-and-up Switch-like PC made by Valve, sometimes feels like the most impressive portable gaming system ever made. But it's also not finished.
Like other hot electronics in 2022, Valve's first bespoke PC launch—which resembles a supersized Game Gear but is, at its heart, a Linux PC—is limited by a strained supply chain and an ongoing chip shortage. But if you'd like to feel better about missing the Deck's first wave of preorders, or seeing a delayed shipping estimate of "Q2 2022" and beyond for new orders, this review is for you.
When the Steam Deck works as intended, it's easily the best Nintendo Switch-like PC on the market. Its processing power, build quality, software flexibility, and Linux-to-Windows wizardry can breathe new life into (some of) your PC gaming back catalog. The Deck beats all other PC and Android options in this space. The right game, running at a smooth 30 fps with visual bells and whistles enabled (or 60 fps when possible), might even convince you to put your Switch into storage.
As a first-generation piece of hardware, the Steam Deck looks good, feels sturdy, and performs well (especially given its base price of $399). But the software side of the Deck is currently rough.
The Deck's bugs, quirks, and outright failures stand in stark contrast to the Switch. In too many situations where the Nintendo Switch "just works," you may find yourself saying to the Deck, "Just work, please!"
One of the biggest caveats to this review is that the Deck currently lacks one potential selling point: compatibility with Windows 10. After providing Ars Technica with review hardware, Valve confirmed that certain Windows drivers for the Steam Deck were not ready. That remained the case as I wrapped up this review.
While I had the option to dual-boot Windows 10 and Linux during the review period, it didn't feel fair to do so without full OS-level support for things like the CPU, the GPU, and audio playback. We'll take a closer look at the Steam Deck's Windows 10 experience once drivers are ready, but based on what I've found with the device's built-in fork of Linux, I'm not confident that using Windows 10 will be a smooth experience.
Speaking of Linux, I've moved my testing of the Deck's version of Arch Linux into a separate article. Can you go into the command line and install whatever you want? Can you bring Linux apps into SteamOS? Do you love Flatpak? Click here to dive into that stuff.
A history primer: Why the heck is Valve releasing a Linux PC?
Enlarge/ Valve provided this image of various Steam Deck prototypes made over the years in its skunkworks labs.
Valve
The Steam Deck is Valve's first stab at creating its own PC form factor. That separates the Deck from "Steam Machines," i.e., desktop gaming PCs that Valve consulted on but didn't produce. Both concepts arose from the same premise: make the massive ecosystem of Steam games work on non-Windows machines—and without requiring that Steam game devs patch or update their existing code.
This probably boils down to money. Valve has already sunk years of work and tons of cash into its Steam Proton initiative, which combines a Wine compatibility layer and appropriate drivers to boot Windows games inside of Linux. If Valve can get most of Steam's popular games running on the Deck without paying a per-device Windows license fee, the company could make out like a bandit—or, at the very least, keep the Deck's launch prices down.
History primer, continued: A perfect SteamPal storm
Enlarge/ Another peek at Steam Deck pre-release prototypes, as officially provided by Valve.
Valve
As I exclusively reported in May of last year, Valve had been toying with a device resembling the Steam Deck for years. The idea was inspired in part by small, powerful SoC (system-on-chip) rollouts from the likes of AMD and Intel. Chinese OEMs like GPD Win and Aya began integrating these SoCs into Switch-like chassis and releasing solid (if expensive) systems, yet Western manufacturers hadn't followed suit. Alienware teased its own Switch-like PC in early 2020, only to go silent on the idea after COVID dominated the news cycle.
Before the Deck (originally codenamed SteamPal), Valve had been locking down its manufacturing pipeline by releasing increasingly complicated devices over the years. These devices ranged from a streaming box to a custom gamepad to a professional-grade VR system. During that time, the skunkworks teams at Valve's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, worked on increasingly ambitious ideas—some of which I'm intimately familiar with but doubt will ever see a formal launch. Even SteamPal entered developmental limbo at Valve HQ before getting picked up again as a viable project.
Steam Proton had made significant progress in terms of game compatibility. Compact x64 computing architecture had matured in ways that could viably deliver legitimate, battery-efficient 3D PC gaming on the go. Valve had established a decent track record for every step of the physical manufacturing process, which included crucial testing on handheld devices (like the cult-favorite Steam Controller and the immaculate Valve Index Controller). Valve therefore was primed to deliver a portable, powerful, comfortable, and affordable PC that no other company could match.
The resulting device, officially dubbed the Steam Deck, was originally slated to ship to preorder customers by the end of 2021. According to sources familiar with the system's development, the rollout was delayed at least in part thanks to feedback about the Deck's physical components. The feedback was gathered after Valve sent early hardware to developers responsible for some of Steam's most popular games. (Those shipments became an open secret once Valve's official Steam Deck social media account began tweeting devs' humblebrags about owning early Deck hardware.)
Whatever feedback those devs gave about the Deck's physical aspects appears to have paid off. The device is by no means an ergonomic slam dunk, but it's quite nice.
The mere act of picking up a Steam Deck before playing any games feels decidedly "melty." Wrap your hands around this Xbox-like pair of grips, and every finger lands in the perfect place.
Crucially, thumbs can find the d-pad, the joysticks, and the buttons via a sensible radial arrangement, and these all feel solid. The "ABXY" array resembles the same buttons on beloved Xbox One gamepads in terms of size and button travel. The d-pad is mushier than it is clicky, yet it still delivers a clear sense of directionality during frantic tapping. (Remember, unlike the Nintendo Switch's Joy-Cons, the Deck features an actual d-pad.) And the joysticks are absolutely robust, up there with the Xbox Elite Gamepad in terms of travel, tension, and sensitivity.
Steam Deck size comparison, with Nintendo Switch.
Sam Machkovech
Switch has been placed directly on top of Deck, with its Joy-Cons removed.
Steam Deck size comparison, with Nintendo Switch.
While the system is noticeably heavy—150 percent the weight of a standard Nintendo Switch—its weight is distributed evenly enough to be almost unnoticeable, at least while you're playing. To feel what I'm talking about, pick up and hold a Steam Deck with only one hand for a few seconds, which feels unwieldy, then grab the other handle. As settled into a pair of hands, Deck feels sturdy, not overly dense—arguably because it gives middle, ring, and pinky fingers room to brace the system without cramping one another.
Trackpad talk: Valve’s best yet, if you’re into that sort of thing
Enlarge/ A closer look at Steam Deck's right-side trackpad, along with a clear look at the height and build quality of the ABXY button array.
Sam Machkovech
Are you a big fan of Steam Controller's pair of trackpads? If so, the Deck is absolutely for you, as this concept has returned—and it's better than ever. (If you're unfamiliar, catch up by revisiting our Steam Controller review.) The Deck's version of trackpads includes the same mix of high sensitivity, mild haptic feedback, and trackball emulation, which allows a thumb to carefully nudge a mouse pointer or rapidly spin the viewport in a first-person shooter.
The only real change is that the trackballs now demand much less space on the gamepad portion of the controller, yet they somehow feel more precise. The sensation comes from a carefully engineered combination of haptic feedback and glide-friendly plastic. That means every unit of movement triggers a tiny rumble against your thumb. I've come to look forward to moments when a game supports a mouse pointer, because this touch-and-movement system stimulates my brain in a funky way.
More Steam Deck size comparisons. Notice how its width is almost the exact same as an Xbox Gamepad and PlayStation DualSense placed side by side.
Sam Machkovech
Compared to the N64 controller.
Banana, for scale.
That being said, I've never been a trackball aficionado in frantic video games, and my weeks of testing the Steam Deck didn't change my mind. This is a better trackpad, but it's still a trackpad.
There's also the weirdness of the left-side trackpad not being useful in practice, at least for trackpad novices. I would have preferred that Valve break some fans' hearts and nix the left-side trackpad in favor of something else, especially since the Deck's screen already supports 10-point capacitive touch. How many touch-friendly surfaces does a handheld gaming system need?
Downside: A ho-hum screen
Enlarge/ An off-screen shot of the Steam Deck's screen. This isn't necessarily indicative of its quality or color reproduction since I didn't snap it in a well-controlled environment.
Sam Machkovech
The screen is the system's biggest heartbreak, at least on the hardware side. As a control option, Deck's touchscreen is tough to recommend in unoptimized software. This headache is familiar to anyone who has tapped around a touch-unfriendly app on a Windows touchscreen—but even in those cases, a tap of the finger usually touches something larger than a single pixel at a time. Depending on the game, the Deck's incredibly narrow touch radius ranges from tolerable to maddening.
The Deck's LCD panel also disappoints thanks to its somewhat washed-out color reproduction and its obvious light bleed. I wouldn't call the panel a disaster. It keeps high-motion issues like pixel ghosting to a minimum and maxes out at 500 nits of brightness, which is serviceable enough for outdoor play on a sunny day. But the screen certainly isn't up to the color reproduction on the default Switch configuration, let alone the handsomely upgraded Switch OLED. And this cost-saving panel isn't compatible with variable refresh rates (VRR).
Enlarge/ Duck, Deck, goose. Also, an example of how the Deck's screen can look on an incredibly bright day in direct sunlight.
Sam Machkovech
The Deck's screen ultimately feels like a place where Valve cut corners to save cash, and I wish the system included an option to spend an extra $100 for more screen quality.
Downside: Button placement nitpicks
The fact that the Steam Deck's controls feel better than a stock Nintendo Switch isn't surprising, since Joy-Cons are famously dinky. But Valve's configuration isn't perfect. I was still able to burn through puzzle-y delights like Tetris and Lumines on the Deck, but my left palm didn't quite cradle the controller when my thumb was aligned with the d-pad.
The Deck's ABXY array is arguably less comfortable than the d-pad—at least for anyone who, like me, places a thumb diagonally over all four buttons. Maybe Valve's testers prefer to directly cover the Y and A buttons with their thumbs, but my muscle memory is aligned with SNES and all gamepads that followed: my thumb is the river that divides the nations of "XA" and "YB." Holding the Deck like this requires additional space between the hardware and the right palm.
Enlarge/ I like the analog trigger button (here, "L2") on Deck, but I can't say the same for the bumper button ("L1"), which is recessed ever so slightly behind a thin bit of plastic.
Sam Machkovech
The Deck's pair of analog triggers are top notch, with minimal tension and a short-yet-healthy amount of analog travel. The bumpers, on the other hand, are slightly blocked by a piece of plastic molding, at least as compared to similar orientations on Xbox and PlayStation gamepads. For some Deck users, this millimeter-long gap may go entirely unnoticed, but I generally access bumper buttons (LB/RB on Xbox, L1/R1 on PlayStation) with the middle pads of my index fingers, not the fingertips. Deck's design isn't optimized for my fingers' middle pads to slide from the bumpers to the triggers and back.
I'm a fan of the joysticks' size, rotation, and clickiness, but be warned: they match the optional "higher-tension" setting on the Xbox Elite Gamepad (as accessed by lifting Elite's joystick heads and rotating a small lock). By default, Xbox gamepads feel looser than this, and the additional thumb tension can add up over hours of virtual adventures. If you can walk into a brick-and-mortar store and sample an Xbox Elite Gamepad, you can see the difference for yourself by toying with Elite's joystick-tension adjustments. My smaller-handed friends don't like this Deck aspect as much as I do.
Downside: First-gen “grip” buttons need a revision
Yet we all agree that the four buttons (two per hand) placed on the system's grips don't quite cut it. By default, your middle and ring fingertips will land on top of these buttons, and for some players, the best part about them is that it's very difficult to accidentally touch them.
Should you want to use them, however, you have a problem. Their resistance is so firm, and their size is so big, that they demand more force than a smaller, more passive ABXY button—and they must be pressed by fingers that aren't as comfortably braced or traditionally used to gamepad buttons.
Enlarge/ A closer look at Steam Deck's grip buttons.
Sam Machkovech
Again, going back to the Xbox Elite Gamepad, its own series of grip buttons are a wonderfully engineered system that hinges on small, clicky triggers—which attach magnetically and can be removed. I understand why detachable triggers aren't ideal, but even 8Bitdo nailed its own pass at grip buttons with last year's Pro 2 Gamepad, which errs on the side of the buttons being a bit too easy to press and has them disabled by default. Steam Deck should have copied 8Bitdo's solution, and I'm hopeful Valve revises the grip buttons in future Steam Deck models.
Gyroscopic controls in video games used to be limited to features like the Wii waggle, but that situation has changed in recent years, thanks to support for a mix of motion and joystick controls in popular Switch and PlayStation games. Combining joystick control with granular wrist adjustments is arguably as close as console players can get to mouse-like precision. In great news, the Deck packs in modern gyro controls on day one—and adds a novel party trick to the concept.
You have to activate gyro controls on a per-game basis. The toggle includes an option to have gyro turn on only when a finger is on the Deck's touch-sensitive joysticks or touchpad. With this option selected, you can pick up and put down your Deck while a game is active without motion controls bouncing your view all over the place. As soon as you rest your thumb on a joystick or touchpad, motion control will return. Lift your thumb off, and the motion control turns off.
It's neat! Since getting my Deck, I've started toggling this feature on to work on the left-side joystick so that motion control is on when I'm running around in a shooter yet turns off if I'm standing still to focus my aim. You'll likely want to test out the feature on all of the Deck's joysticks and touchpads to decide whether it's right for you.
The Deck's gyroscopic sensitivity is nicely tuned by default, and it includes a per-game slider to tune not only the sensitivity, but also motion-acceleration curves on both the x- and y-axis. The built-in sensors parse lateral and curved motion equally well, meaning that the Deck adapts to how you move instead of expecting you to follow a rote movement model.
Valve's work on the Index VR system included a labor of sound-engineering love, with the company producing a pair of float-above-the-ears speakers designed to deliver positional 3D audio without touching users' heads. These wacky orbs are possibly my favorite thing about Valve Index (and I love a lot about Valve Index). In great news, the Deck gets similarly brilliant built-in speakers.
Deck owners can test the speakers by playing a 5.1 surround demonstration file on the device. This is the clearest way to recognize the frequency trickery that the Deck's speakers use to send sound toward your ears. The speakers do a good job of separating the sound coming from, say, the front-right from sound coming from the rear-left. The Deck doesn't deliver the utter precision of dome-like, 360-degree audio, but it's quite close. Also, to get the most out of this effect, I recommend turning down or disabling in-game music whenever possible, as the Deck's speakers don't produce nearly as much low-end boom as the orbs on Valve Index do. Once a sound mix gets too crowded, picking out directional audio becomes much tougher.
Speaking of "boom," Valve opted to err on the side of wimpy haptic feedback in games with "rumble" features. It's unclear whether Valve made this decision to save money on cheaper haptic motors or if it ran out of space in the Deck's crowded interior. Either way, I hope that a second-gen Deck will have better rumble support across the board. Still, this seems like a more forgivable first-gen fumble than, say, short-shrifting the joysticks would be.
Unlike the software side of the Deck, of course, the system's feel in the hands is locked down—unless, of course, you use Valve's published schematics to 3D print your own plastic-molding tweaks. Ultimately, though, I am pleased with how the Deck's controls feel across a large variety of software. I've never used a portable console with joysticks this fantastic, and the rest of the system's buttons, weight distribution, and general melt-in-the-palms sensation make for a better experience than that seen in my prior portable console favorite, the PlayStation Vita. Think of the above nitpicks as a wishlist for an eventual Deck 2 as opposed to a series of dealbreakers.
The Deck’s shaky power-and-battery relationship
Before moving into the software half of the Steam Deck, there are two major hardware considerations to sum up: processing power and battery life.
Official Deck specs, as provided by Valve.
Valve
The Steam Deck's power draw maxes out at 15 W, which the system splits between a four-core CPU that maxes out at 3.5 GHz and an eight compute-unit GPU that runs at a maximum boost clock of 1.6 GHz. For much of our testing phase, the Deck tended to draw near-max power by default—which, among other things, kicked the Deck's cooling fans into high gear while the system was doing little more than downloading update data. (When the fans turn on, you can expect roughly 35 dB of fan noise—a somewhat typical noise level to other modern, Switch-like x64 PCs but much louder than the efficient, lower-powered Switch itself.)
At the 14-day mark of our review testing period, Valve pushed a system update accounting for how much power was needed to get games running at target frame rates, which Deck owners can set to either 60 fps (the default) or 30 fps. Should a game fail to reach either target frame rate, the hardware will typically run near the 15 W maximum—and it usually devotes more of that wattage to the GPU than the CPU because of how 3D game performance usually leans on the graphics side to achieve higher frame rates.
More official Deck specs, as provided by Valve.
Sam Machkovech
What kind of battery life can you expect, then? At near-max settings, the recently launched PC version of Monster Hunter Rise, which runs quite efficiently on PC thanks to its designed-for-Switch assets, sustains a frame rate close to 60 fps on the Deck at near-max settings. At 40 percent brightness (200 nits), a full Deck charge will give you 150 minutes of gameplay with these settings. In comparison, the more demanding Dying Light 2, at a target frame rate of 60 fps, hovers in the area of 35–50 fps with low-to-medium settings, and the battery lasts only 105 minutes, also at 40 percent brightness.
Better battery news with simpler games
That's not very long in either case, but this is x64 PC architecture beholden to a 40 WHr battery. Despite efforts by the Deck's custom APU supplier AMD to deliver power-efficient performance, we're still dealing with brave, new portable gaming territory. (As a comparison, take an average gaming laptop from the past five years and run a high-end game on battery power with its GPU set to max speeds, and it will typically drain much bigger batteries in the two-hours-or-less range.)
In an extreme example of power efficiency, the Deck lasts for 496 minutes (a bit over 8 hours) in Ars Technica's classic 200-nit web-browsing battery test, which we have used in smartphone reviews for years.
You'll probably want to play something beefier than a web browser instance of Wordle for the entirety of a cross-country flight, and you can still get decent power efficiency with some games. Lighter 2D fare like Spelunky 2 and simple 3D games like Death Squared get closer to the six-hour mark on a fully charged battery.
Steam Deck's primary interface. Recent games and apps on top, suggestions for content below.
Tap Deck's physical "STEAM" button to bring up a major sub-menu. You can use your fingers to bring it up, as well, by tapping the bottom-left corner, but thanks to Deck's finicky finger recognition and the icon's tiny size, this is usually a pain.
A physical "..." button on the bottom-right of Deck brings up a quick settings menu.
Tap the battery icon to expose a crucial "performance" tab. But its most interesting stuff, particularly a 30 fps cap that can either conserve battery life or reduce apparent frame rate judder, has to be exposed by further tapping the "advanced view" button.
Should you wish to underclock your Deck for even more power, at the cost of performance, here's where you can do so. (I suggest sticking with the 30 fps cap for starters.) Also: AMD FSR is in this system, but it requires going into each game you want to play and reducing its resolution there. I found this process to be unwieldy, blurry, and not worth the effort, at least during the review period.
The library tab includes more visible games, and I wish Deck included an option to always show this first. It could also use a revision to shrink the icons or turn them into even smaller blocks of text, so users can see more available games at once (especially when a library is up to, gulp, 1,111 games).
A peek at the settings menu accessed by the "STEAM" button.
Before that system update, though, I had to go through system menus to manually reduce the system's maximum power draw to boost a session's battery life. And this option is still available. At any time, tap the Deck's physical "..." button to bring up a quick options menu. One of its five tabs hides power consumption limits behind an "advanced options" button. Here, you'll find the option to limit the system's TDP (thermal design power) and max GPU clock speed.
However, as I wrapped this review and retested how much these settings contributed to battery savings, I found that trying to reduce the max GPU clock speed would consistently make the Deck crash. The image on my screen would freeze the instant I tapped "GPU clock" on the menu in question. I reproduced the bug ten times in a row, each time in a different game, until I gave up on those tests.
I did not consent to late-night DMs about your Deck
The Steam Deck's propensity to crash, display error messages, freeze, produce glitchy visuals, and exhibit other unexpected behavior has been a constant pain during the system's review period. So much so, in fact, that I paused a lot of my software-specific testing until I was closer to today's embargo date. I didn't know how many issues would be patched or resolved by the flurry of Steam Deck and SteamOS 3.0 updates that landed on the system on a near-daily basis, and I wanted to best represent the state that the system would launch in. Why report a two-week-old bug that an average user may never see if Valve could squash it?
Yet, in spite of near-daily updates, Valve's fixes didn't come quickly enough to resolve every issue. Game journalists are normally hesitant to talk with each other about anything we're testing in private. But in the case of the Steam Deck, my inbox began to light up with messages from peers asking the same question: Is it just me, or is something wrong with the Steam Deck?
To be clear, for every unfortunate bug I witnessed or heard about, my testing period gave me at least as many delightful gaming experiences that proved the power of AMD's impressive, custom-built SoC. The Deck certainly gets close to fulfilling the promise of delivering a power-efficient, comfortable, and open alternative to the Nintendo Switch. But the issues are concerning.
Desktop? Hard stop
For instance, as I was finishing my review, Shacknews' Asif Khan told me about a freak system crash he experienced. "I believe I broke this thing," Khan wrote to me unprompted, along with a brief video of his Steam Deck seizing up into a DOS-like prompt. That was the only thing that appeared on his hardware every time he rebooted his Deck until Valve reached out with system-restore instructions. The cause? "I tried to go into 'desktop' mode," Khan said.
At any time, Steam Deck users can close the SteamOS front-end, which is essentially a redesigned "Steam Big Picture Mode" interface that includes an automated process that downloads Windows builds of Steam games and then runs them with the Steam Proton compatibility layer enabled by default. With that interface closed, a KDE desktop instance of Arch Linux appears, with installs of basic software like Firefox already loaded and available. Users must go through this mode to add certain features to the Steam Deck.
This functionality is clearly advertised on the Steam Deck any time a user picks the "power" option within the main menu. It's here that users can shut down or restart the system, change the logged-in user, or perform other basic system functions. As critics furiously finished tests and demos of the Steam Deck, the advertised "restart in desktop mode" toggle left at least one critic in the absolute dark.
Thankfully, I could not reproduce this bug. And with an external keyboard and mouse, connected via USB Type-C dongle or through Bluetooth pairing, I can use the Deck's KDE Plasma desktop instance as if it were a normal Linux laptop—though I'll get back to this point.
Grand Theft of my time
Pick a game in Steam Deck's library interface, and it'll bring you to its hub page, where you can choose to install a game, play it, or tap around for other options. What's this little yellow icon, though?
Scrolling down exposes useful sections like game-specific forums. It also shows every game's "Steam Deck compatibility" rating, but this requires a further click-through to understand what it means.
This warning paints a rosier picture of the GTA V experience on Deck than I personally experienced.
My weirdest game-specific bug came from Grand Theft Auto V, one of Steam's most popular games, which is marked as "playable" in Valve's official Steam Deck database. The game provides a solid test of SteamOS's juggling act, as it doesn't just boot GTA V's Windows EXE in a Linux-friendly sandbox. It must also run a number of Rockstar Social Club apps and dependencies in the same ecosystem.
Any first boot of GTA V on the Deck will present users with a few prompts from developer Rockstar, and the Steam Deck warns users when booting games like GTA V that they'll need to use fingers to tap these prompts when they appear. That's the only way to emulate the necessary mouse clicks in these moments, as the Steam Deck doesn't always enable a mouse pointer, which is usually controlled by the right-side trackpad.
After clicking through the initial setup process, mostly to agree to Rockstar's ToS and EULA, the Rockstar Social Club loaded a pair of "one moment, please" windows. Then a Steam logo filled the Deck's screen and animated for a moment before the system reverted back to GTA V's Steam Library page. The word "Play" was displayed in a green box, as if the game was not running, but the Deck hadn't produced an error message confirming that the game had abruptly shut down. Hmm.
I tried again and got the same prompts, the same Steam logo animation, and the same abrupt crash without an error message. I was confused. Steam's library listing insists this game is "playable" on the Deck, only warning me about the requirement to use my fingers to click prompts at the outset. I tried again.
And again. Still nothing. I powered down and rebooted the Steam Deck and tried again. Same result.
I tried a sixth time. Same result.
You gotta be kidding me
Somehow, my seventh attempt to boot GTA V on the Steam Deck worked. Even then, however, I ran into another weird issue: I had to restart the game four more times before it would accept any settings changes.
Even after all of that, GTA V still exhibited a few errors. First, in the main menu, I could emulate mouse clicks... but only within an 800 x 600 block of pixels. This meant I could not tap the bottom-right text that set the game's modes and menus. Thankfully, I could access them with the Deck's d-pad.
I then loaded GTA V's in-game benchmark to determine which visual settings the Steam Deck ran most efficiently with. The first time I ran the benchmark, I saw something I'd never seen before. I've run the GTA V benchmark roughly 5,000 times, since I use it in each of my GPU reviews at Ars Technica. It always shows the same thing: fighter jet flying through the game's desert toward a bustling city. That scene disappears, and you get a standard GTA V sequence: a character begins driving a car, engages in a drive-by shooting, and crashes into an exploding truck.
Only on the Steam Deck, however, have I ever seen a car in this benchmark sequence sink into the ground. The car in question rose before going into submarine mode, but the glitch was still quite bizarre. Even my tests of the weakest GPUs never made GTA V bug out that way. What gives?
Enlarge/ Here is the "Great on Deck" tab of the Steam Deck library interface. I've highlighted Sonic Generations in the bottom-right corner because it is most certainly not great on Deck. This game's PC port is famously unoptimized, and whether you leave the Deck in 60 fps mode or turn on its 30 fps cap, the game will frequently dip into the 10–20 fps range. The Steam Deck doesn't warn you about this.
Most disconcerting, however, is that the Deck struggles to maintain a smooth 60 fps in real-world GTA V gameplay. I downgraded a ton of in-game settings to aim for 60 fps, and I knew that older AMD APUs could get GTA V running at a steady 60 fps refresh (with higher average power draws, sure, but also with four-year-old Vega 8 architecture). But something about how the Deck handles GTA V's streaming assets consistently leads to herky-jerky performance that can only produce frame rates in the high 40s to low 50s, at least as of press time. Since many GTA V benchmark moments lock perfectly to 60 fps, I wonder if Steam Deck driver updates may help.
Maybe not a fluke
Bethesda's Prey is one of many games that proves how good AMD's Deck-specific APU can be. This atmospheric sci-fi romp defaults to medium-high settings when installed on the Steam Deck, and the result is a nearly locked 60 fps default refresh rate. When I first began playing the game, I felt like I had found a serious showcase for impressive portable action that you cannot find on Nintendo Switch. Prey has not been ported to that system, much less optimized for its weaker hardware.
Yet my first tour of Prey on the Deck ended in a bizarre crash. The game's opening tutorial asks players to do basic tasks inside of a lab while scientists watch and offer mocking responses over a loudspeaker. In my first Deck test of the game, those voices went silent halfway through the tutorial. Scientists merely looked at me quizzically, their mouths not even moving, while I waited for the game to let me complete each challenge to keep the tutorial moving. This sequence normally ends in a disastrous alien-murder turn, but I instead simply watched the game's scientists stand still and bored until the screen went to black. The game remained stuck on a black screen until I quit Prey from the Deck's system menu.
I booted the game again, and this time, the tutorial played out correctly. Scientists began speaking again. I saw the game's infamous alien-carnage meltdown. I was not subsequently able to reproduce the crash.
Four more Bethesda tests—with one surprise
Since Bethesda has a lot of PC-friendly shooters in its catalog, I decided to test 2020's Doom Eternal and 2021's Deathloop on the Steam Deck. Doom Eternal, like Doom 2016 before it, has repeatedly proven to run very well on weaker hardware, and the Deck is no exception. The game holds a steady 60 fps refresh with all settings cranked to a maximum "ultra nightmare" level. As a particularly twitchy game, Doom Eternal is also a solid candidate for testing the Deck's touchpads and gyro controls.
Meanwhile, last year's Deathloop has proven quite demanding, and it doesn't necessarily shine on the Steam Deck. If you leave the Deck's 60 fps maximum untouched, the first-person shooter will vacillate wildly between 30 and 60 fps, averaging closer to 40 fps. In cases like this, flipping on the Steam Deck's optional 30 fps cap can prove helpful, but Deathloop is one of a number of games for which the Deck's 30 fps cap doesn't trigger appropriately. Moments in which Deathloop would otherwise exceed 30 fps stutter more often when the Deck's macro-level frame-rate cap is enabled.
Deathloop's loading times on the Steam Deck are pretty long, though the first time I noticed the issue, I had the game installed on my slowest microSD card as opposed to the 256GB Deck model's built-in, PCI-e 4.0-grade storage. I subsequently tested Deathloop on both a faster microSD card and the internal storage, only to find that all three required roughly 2 minutes and 15 seconds to proceed from Steam's top menus to the "press start to play" prompt. In other words: you may not need to overpay for faster-rated storage to get the most out of Steam Deck.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim remains a demanding (and arguably unoptimized) adventure, and as such, your options are to either turn the resolution down below the native 800p to get near 60 fps or crank up Skyrim's visual sliders and enjoy a prettier portable version of the game than anything you might see in its Switch port. At least the Steam Deck gives you the option.
Last of all, and most surprising, is a bug that has afflicted Doom 64 for the entirety of my testing period. This N64-era shooter suffers from constant two- to three-second hitches, even while the game's logic runs in real time, leading to unseen monsters killing Doomguy while his first-person view is frozen. This low-poly classic is currently impossible to play on the Steam Deck, and I'll be curious to see if, when, and how Valve resolves the problem on its end. (You'd think Doom 64 would get to a smooth 60 fps before Doom Eternal on the Deck, right?)
Two streaming options, neither yet ready for prime time
The screen output on the Steam Deck when using the device's remote play option. Notice the blurry text; in motion, this actually looks blurrier, thanks to whatever streaming protocol Valve currently has in place.
The same game's direct 800p feed, as run on my desktop computer.
I wanted to test Halo PC content on the Deck since the series is among my all-time favorites and is unlikely to ever launch on the Switch. But the series' reliance on Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) has thus far hobbled its Deck compatibility. Steam Proton's compatibility wrapper currently cannot reckon with EAC in a way that works with server check-ins, and this makes any EAC-reliant fare, like Halo: Master Chief Collection or Halo Infinite, a Deck nonstarter.
Valve insists it's close to getting EAC working on Deck for compatible games, which is good news for the myriad games that depend on it (particularly Elden Ring, which currently defaults to an offline mode on Deck). But I didn't get that luxury during the review period, so I tried to use Steam Remote Play to get Halo games working on the Deck. Valve has been pushing this option ever since Steam Link worked as a streaming hub for living room TVs, and the idea is the same on the Deck: stream higher-fidelity gameplay from a desktop PC in your home to the Deck's screen while only suffering a mild button-tap delay. It's all conducted over your local Wi-Fi network. The problem, as the above gallery demonstrates, is that Remote Play currently sends a disappointing stream from a desktop to a Deck.
I tried streaming Halo: Master Chief Collection from my Ethernet-connected desktop PC to my Deck via 5 GHz Wi-Fi, and once I got the game working, the image on the Deck was noticeably blurry. Above, you'll see the Deck's native 800p signal and the 800p output from my PC. It only looks worse in motion, thanks to blur and constantly shifting pixels while Steam Remote Play is active on the Deck. The same results arose with other Steam Remote Play tests on the Deck, not just Halo.
Could you get crisper fidelity when the game is streamed via Xbox Game Streaming on a Deck web browser? Based on my prior experience with Xbox's streaming options, it's possible, but as of press time, Microsoft's service is not yet working on the Deck. Thirty-six hours before this review went live, Valve directed critics to a "flatpak" version of Google Chrome that is compatible with SteamOS's version of Arch Linux. But it came with a catch: no support for the Steam Deck to act as a connected gamepad. Valve insists the issue will be corrected via driver updates, but until those go live, Xbox Game Streaming, Google Stadia, and other game-streaming options won't work on the Deck's browser.
Some better news: The Deck’s showcase games
In spite of the disappointments exposed through my testing, I did manage to flex the Deck's muscles with certain beloved games, completely crash-free. The best result came from Control, Ars Technica's 2019 game of the year, which famously launched as an exclusive on another launcher before landing on Steam one year later. Two years later, Remedy's hit game has emerged as a must-own action-adventure game on the Steam Deck. What a turnaround!
Control's Deck version can't tap into the ray-tracing effects provided by higher-end graphics cards, but it can still run with pretty much every other visual preset at or near max values while easily exceeding 30 fps on the Deck. At that point, you have the option to either endure slightly jumpy frame rates (in the 35-42 fps range) or cap the frame rate at 30—and in this case, the 30 fps cap works perfectly. Thanks to the Deck's lack of variable refresh rate (VRR), you will probably enjoy a smoother experience with a lower, locked frame rate. But that choice is yours.
Control is available on the Switch through a cloud-streamed version that Remedy sells on Nintendo's eShop. But that streamed version doesn't provide Control's highest ray-tracing setting, and it gives up the fidelity and button-tap responsiveness you get from a locally installed version. If you want to play Control on the go and feel like you're in the future, the Steam Deck version is where it's at.
Enlarge/ Selecting Death Stranding in the Steam Deck's menus.
Sam Machkovech
Sony's quad-fecta of God of War 2018, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Death Stranding, and Days Gone each reach a steady 30 fps refresh by default, all while juggling medium-high settings. Thanks to these games' original target of PlayStation 4 hardware, all but Horizon manage to run decently at 40-50 fps with all settings turned down to "low"—if you don't mind a smidge of frame rate judder.
A 60 fps pot at the end of the Deck’s rainbow (for some games)
Microsoft's Forza Horizon 5 suffers from the same asset-streaming issue that I found in GTA V, making its 60 fps mode a frame-hitchy nonstarter, even with all settings turned down as low as possible. But FH5 is a more demanding game, and its creators have done a lot of work to make sure the game looks and feels responsive even at 30 fps. I suggest settling for settings between "medium" and "high," toggling Deck's macro-level 30 fps cap, and enjoying this remarkably smooth open-world racing experience on the go.
For 60 fps 3D action, meanwhile, I am happy to report that responsive fighting games Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V each stick to a solid 60 fps refresh at native 800p, though this level of performance requires a settings downgrade in both ("low" for Tekken 7, "medium" for SFV). Unsurprisingly, Valve's first-party games Dota 2, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, and Left 4 Dead 2 also stick to a 60 fps refresh.
Heck, I managed to get Crysis Remastered to exceed 60 fps, so long as I turned down settings and ran the game through a slightly fuzzy upscaling system. I got even more efficient 60 fps performance out of the Wipeout-like future-racing game Redout. So you should by no means assume that 60 fps isn't achievable on Deck.
The ones that still won’t boot
Back to the bad news. As of press time, I cannot get the following games to load on Steam Deck consistently, if at all. Yes, I have tried to load each of these games at least seven times.
Enlarge/ I've seen this Cyberpunk 2077 error message many times on the Steam Deck. (Reminder: the numbers at the top-left are an optional toggle on the Steam Deck, and they have nothing to do with the crash.)
Cyberpunk 2077: Every attempt to boot this game brings up a GOG mini-launcher, much how the Rockstar Social Club appears before booting GTA V. But after tapping CP77's GOG prompt with a finger, the game consistently displays a custom crash message that asks me to send a bug report to the CP77 creators at CD Projekt Red. This issue began once the game's substantial version 1.5 patch went live, and before that, I was able to run the game at a not-quite-steady 35 fps average.
Civilization VI: The only time I got this game to run was when I was filming a brief video showcasing games that weren't working. This game's pre-launch options menu usually makes the Deck screen turn black, with no solution available other than quitting out. I assume this is a matter of the Deck and SteamOS juggling 2K Games' floating pre-launch screen.
When I did get Civ VI to run, at least, the Deck's thumbpad felt as responsive as a mouse replacement as I'd hoped. As I previously complained about, the Deck's touchscreen-to-click emulation can feel flighty and inaccurate while you're selecting menu icons that weren't designed around touch interfaces. Thus, you'll need to lean on the right-side touchpad for the pointer-heavy likes of Civ VI, Dota 2, and other games in the sim, 4X, and MOBA genres.
Nex Machina: This is one of my absolute favorite twin-stick shooters, co-developed by Housemarque (Returnal) and Eugene Jarvis (Robotron 2084). I was hopeful its stylized, high-contrast graphics and explosive, low-poly effects would shine on the Deck, but I've yet to advance past NM's opening menus.
Enlarge/ This is the last menu you see in Tempest 4000 before it consistently hard-crashes on the Deck.
Tempest 4000: After tapping through a dated Windows prompt to get the game started, this Llamasoft gem freezes on the game's opening video. It's an example of a glaring issue with Steam Deck: the performance of dated indie games. Valve confirmed to Ars Technica that its Steam Proton development focus has been determined by examining the gameplay data attached to any accounts in the first waves of Steam Deck preorders. Those buyers have clear favorites in mind, so Valve is prioritizing them before its Proton compatibility layer is tuned for less popular fare.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Also, no, no, no, no!
Enlarge/ The microSD card slot at the bottom of the Steam Deck and a microSD card for scale.
Sam Machkovech
But Valve's data-driven approach ignores the reality of what picking up a Deck can feel like, especially for someone like me, whose Steam library exceeds 1,000 games. Yes, that high count is an indicator that I review games for a living, but it's easy for an average, decade-old Steam user to rack up hundreds of games. The Deck was sold in part on the promise that Steam Proton could truly get a ton of classic games working without incident, with one Valve engineer suggesting in an interview that he expected "really the entire Steam library" to work on Deck. My testing hasn't borne that out.
Inside of the Deck's menus, Valve warns users that games outside the "Deck Verified" silo may either malfunction or not load altogether. But this information is conveyed with small text and gray icons, not massive red flags or orange warning signs. Valve should be much more forthcoming when talking to its customers about the realities of Steam Deck.
As I made my way through less popular Steam fare in search of weird edge cases, I found examples of both Deck's promise and problems. Take Crazy Taxi, a Dreamcast-era Sega classic that received a PC port over a decade ago. The Steam Deck runs the game mostly fine at 60 fps; there are a few annoying frame-rate hitches but nothing as bad as what I saw with GTA V. The gamepad works. The graphics render correctly. The sound, the rumble, all of it—it's fine. Even better, because SteamOS is somewhat open, I can go into my Crazy Taxi installation folder and mess around with the game as I see fit, without making Steam Proton buckle. In Crazy Taxi's case, that means manually replacing all of its generic music with the licensed Offspring and Bad Religion songs that had been removed from the PC port. Try to do that on a Nintendo Switch.
Then I booted a pair of great 2D games: the roguelike physics-magic adventure game Noita, which doesn't have a Switch port, and the roguelite grapple-action title Flinthook, which is available on Switch. Noita is marked as being "Deck Verified," but this badge only promises a steady 30 fps refresh. Noita can exceed 60 fps regularly, thanks to its incredibly simple sprites, but the game also brings the Deck to its knees when its wacky physics system kicks in. A bummer, but not a dealbreaker.
Flinthook, on the other hand, is not yet Deck Verified. While its entirely 2D visuals look much simpler and cleaner, without Noita-like physics-driven insanity, the game still exhibits unpredictable one-second pauses on the Deck. These hitches usually happen during tense battles and can lead to unavoidable damage. This kind of stuff is unacceptable in a Spelunky-like adventure, where health can be precious.
The Deck’s first customers are going to feel like beta testers
Enlarge/ Retroarch's Kronos core, as running on Steam Deck. Those real-time performance stats at the top-left can be turned on or off at any time in any game.
Sam Machkovech
The Steam Deck could benefit from a community database that summarizes how every game performs. You can find a hint of this in the Steam Proton database, which estimates how an average Linux PC will react to Valve's compatibility layer, but information on Steam Deck games will also need to account for factors like hardware-specific glitches and whether the Deck's 30 fps lock functions correctly.
My three weeks of testing have been a head-spinning experience of getting a disappointing test result, then seeing something receive an update (an individual game patch, the entire SteamOS front end, or something in between). I would then retest the game and sometimes see significantly different results. Right now, Valve is clearly scrambling to finalize its optimizations.
By the time you get your hands on a Steam Deck, things may have settled into a good place for the games you care about. I can't predict that future. But I can say that Valve has made progress since the first day I booted the machine and saw even more games struggle, especially with a system-level 30 fps cap that, for some time, simply didn't work for any game. That cap still isn't ironclad for all games, but it's getting there.
As stated earlier, I've written a brief additional report for Linux fans who want to employ command-line trickery and application installs to customize the Steam Deck as they see fit. But at this point, discussing such concerns feels like asking the kitchen to serve an exact one-gram dollop of fresh aioli when they're busy trying to cook the damned hamburgers. Valve is already mad-dashing to get its not-quite-open SteamOS framework functioning to a level that I'd recommend people buy into. I'm still seeing weird bugs as I move from one app to the next. My Deck still downloads roughly 2–5GB of system and game updates every day.
Enlarge/ A romantic night out with Steam Deck at one of my favorite Seattle pubs. Also, a reminder that some very weird edge cases will work fine on the Deck, including the Windows 98 version of Duke Nukem 3D. Getting this game working required fussing with the Steam Deck's per-game controller toggles, but once I did so, I found it ran fantastically.
Sam Machkovech
I understand why Valve is shipping the Steam Deck to customers now. The parts of the system that cannot be tweaked with downloads and patches are good enough. And the Deck's 3D rendering potential is already evident in its most impressive 30 fps and 60 fps scenarios. Heck, I managed to play brand-new PC games like Dying Light 2 and Elden Ring on the Deck. The former, with all settings turned down, generally clears a 30 fps threshold, and it feels like holding the future in my hands. The latter still needs some serious optimizing on all PCs, not just the Deck.
With the Steam Deck, I don't have to beg for games like that to receive ports like I might for the Switch. Instead of begging, I have turned to praying—that a brand-new game, a beloved classic, or a weird indie game will work inside of SteamOS 3.0's Windows-to-Linux system. If you're fine hovering somewhere between praying and endlessly picking through menus, you'll love being on the cutting edge of Steam Deck. If not, either wait out Valve's unfinished business of Deck optimizations or join the club of 103 million Switch owners.
The good
No portable console has ever had such killer joysticks, and most other buttons are up to their caliber.
Built-in gyroscopic options, 3D audio add some next-gen hardware sparkle.
Relative openness with Linux means you can expect compatible apps to work in the background in a pinch.
Mid-grade games can run on a full charge for a little over six hours at decent brightness.
When a game simply works as advertised, Deck can turn around absolutely impressive 30 fps and 60 fps performance.
Deck's base $399 tier is an incredible value for its power and build quality.
The bad
...but that price point is low in part because Valve skips an install of the gaming-friendly OS Windows, and Deck too often struggles to parse games through its Wine compatibility layer.
Want to get your favorite game running on Deck? Prepare to tap around a mix of in-game menus and Deck's system-level toggles to either maximize power or battery life on a game-by-game basis.
When a game doesn't work, you might have to flip through menus—again, on a game-by-game basis—to troubleshoot possible problems like Steam Deck's buttons being incorrectly mapped or a Steam Deck element randomly freezing.
Valve cheaped out on Deck's 7-inch LCD panel.
Grip buttons, rumbling motors feel like an afterthought.
Deck owners may find themselves juggling microSD cards just to maintain a solid portable game library.
Despite Deck's power efficiency, it can only last so long when demanding games rev to 100 percent power.
The ugly
When your favorite game glitches, crashes, or fails to boot.
Verdict: You have to be a specific kind of patient PC gamer to enjoy Deck in its current state. If you're not, wait for its software side to match the value of its price-to-performance ratio.
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