Valve has an uneven hardware track record. The Index is an excellent VR headset with revolutionary controllers. Steam Machines and the Steam Controller completely fizzled in the face of conventional gaming PCs and gamepads. The Steam Link enabled surprisingly functional local game streaming, but it was eventually replaced by an app.
Now, there’s the $399 Steam Deck gaming handheld. It’s built on the bones of the Steam Machines, but with a much more focused, singular concept that doesn’t try to replace gaming PCs. It’s a Nintendo Switch alternative more than anything else, only bigger and more powerful, and without a dock (one is scheduled to arrive in late spring). The Steam Deck runs on Linux, but the SteamOS front end is incredibly simple to use, and it lets you easily install and play many Windows games via Proton. The Linux backbone includes a full desktop environment, which leaves lots of room for tinkering and classic game emulation.
The Steam Deck is a lot of machine in a portable (albeit clunky) package. It has a reasonable $399 starting price, but we recommend spending the extra $130 for the mid-tier model that features four times the amount onboard storage (note that all three Steam Deck models house the same CPU, GPU, and RAM power; only the display and storage type/capacity differ). That said, despite promising first impressions, Valve’s handheld has a fair amount of quirks that need to be addressed, especially if you want to connect it to your TV or monitor.
A Big Portable
At nearly a foot wide and weighing almost a pound and a half, the Steam Deck stands firmly on the unwieldy side of what you would consider a portable game system. The Nintendo Switch with Joy-Cons attached is over two inches slimmer and half a pound lighter than the Steam Deck. That’s a bit surprising, since the Steam Deck and OLED Switch both have 7-inch screens. You can pack the Steam Deck in a bag, but it’s far too big to tuck into a jacket or comfortably play on the train. Even my Asus ROG Zephyrus 14 gaming notebook is just half an inch wider, though to be fair, it’s considerably deeper and heavier than the 4.6-inch-deep handheld.
A significant portion of the Steam Deck’s frame consists of the control surfaces and grips, which are considerably wider than the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons and not removable. The standard dual analog sticks are present, along with four menu buttons, plus a direction pad on the left and four face buttons on the right. Square touchpads sit below the analog sticks and above the Steam and Options buttons. In a nice touch, the width of the grips ensure that your thumbs and the meat of your palms won’t accidentally touch the trackpads or block the speakers, located under the Steam and Options buttons.
The Steam Deck’s top panel features standard L1/R1 bumpers and L2/R2 triggers, though the bumpers are just a bit too high to quickly and comfortably press. There are also power and volume buttons, a 3.5mm headset jack, and a USB-C port for charging the device. The bottom edge features a microSD card slot that expands the system’s storage past the 64/256/512GB of onboard storage for the $399, $529, and $649 models, respectively.
The back houses L4/L5 and R4/R5 buttons under where the middle and ring fingers of each hand naturally rest. The buttons are a bit stiff and shallow, but they provide useful additional inputs. The back panel has a large intake grille that works with an exhaust fan and grille on the device’s top edge to ensure proper airflow. The fan is audible when playing, but it’s much softer than a small gaming laptop’s fan (in this case the Zephyrus 14).
Steam Deck Specs and Connectivity
The Steam Deck’s 7-inch screen is functional, but unimpressive. It’s the same size as the OLED Switch, with a slightly higher 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution (the Switch’s display is 1,280 by 720). The screen is a 60Hz IPS LCD, so it’s bright and easy to read, but it lacks the deep blacks and vibrant colors you get with OLED.
Internally, the Steam Deck uses a custom AMD processor with a quad-core, eight-thread Zen 2 CPU that pushes up to 448 GFlops, and a RDNA 2 GPU that pushes up to 1.6 TFlops. They use the same architecture as AMD’s Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs, respectively, but they don’t have direct equivalents with consumer desktop or mobile processors. Based purely on TFlops, though, it’s pretty far behind the PlayStation 5 (10 TFlops) and the Xbox Series X (12 TFlops). In fairness, the Steam Deck is designed to primarily push an eighth as many pixels as those 4K systems.
The unique platform means we can’t run all of our standard benchmarking software, but we still performed extensive tests to see how well the Steam Deck runs games. Basically, it’s better than Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 and other well-equipped notebooks with integrated graphics, but it can’t compare with a dedicated, high-end GPU like the Nvidia RTX GeForce 3050 Ti.
The system uses 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and comes with 64GB of storage on a PCIe Gen 2 x1 m.2 SSD (or 256GB or 512GB of storage on a PCIe Gen 2 x4 m.2 SSD, depending on the model). The microSD card slot enables further storage expansion. We tested the 256GB version.
For connections, the Steam Deck has a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-C port that handles nearly every wired connection besides 3.5mm headsets (a headphone jack is there, too). It charges the Steam Deck with the included USB-C wall adapter, and works with any 45W PD3.0 power supply. The Steam Deck can output audio or video over USB-C or DisplayPort 1.4. In case you’re wondering, yes, the Steam Deck works with a standard USB-C dock to enable additional ports and HDMI output.
That’s a lot of heavy lifting for one USB-C port, and it means you’ll probably need to buy a few non-Valve accessories unless you want to wait for the official Steam Deck Docking Station. There’s no way to connect the Steam Deck to a monitor or TV out of the box, and if you just use a USB-C-to-DisplayPort cable, you’ll probably run out of battery very fast. You’ll want to use a dock that can provide power to the Steam Deck while outputting video. A second USB-C port for power delivery, or simply a micro or mini HDMI or mini DisplayPort port would have been very welcome, to make big-screen connections work better.
Wireless connectivity includes dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0. You can connect gamepads, mice, and keyboards to the Steam Deck via Bluetooth.
Battery life will vary wildly depending on what games you play, but don’t get your hopes up of long play sessions without plugging the handheld into a power socket. Valve estimates as few as two hours between charges for games that use a lot of processing power, but simpler games can stretch the battery out as long as eight hours. That two-hour limit seems to match my testing with Horizon Zero Dawn and Monster Hunter Rise.
SteamOS 3.0: Linux With an Accessible Skin
The Steam Deck uses Valve’s SteamOS 3.0 operating system, which is based on Arch Linux with the Proton software compatibility layer to run Windows games. SteamOS launches into a Big Picture mode-like view, with a large tile-based interface that works well on a small screen using gamepad controls. It integrates directly with your Steam account, bringing any installed Steam games (and games available through another computer with Steam’s Remote Play feature) to the forefront. Steam cloud saves are also carried over from any supported Steam games on your PC.
Pressing the Steam or Options buttons open helpful overlays when you’re in or out of games. The Steam button lets you navigate to different parts of the system, including the home screen, game library, the Steam store, settings, and friends list (with support for text chat using an on-screen keyboard). The Options button launches a quick-access menu with notifications, your friends list (as a sidebar rather than jumping to a full interface with chat), simple settings like screen brightness and wireless connections, and battery life projections. In games, the Steam button also displays the currently mapped controls and lets you tweak them on the fly.
SteamOS enables a useful sleep mode with a power button press. After a few seconds, the system drops into a suspended state similar to the Nintendo Switch’s sleep mode, letting the handheld preserve battery life when you aren’t actively playing. The suspended state works in games, as well. I had no problem putting the Steam Deck to sleep while playing Horizon Zero Dawn, and later picking up where I left it without needing to load the game again.
The SteamOS interface is very handheld-friendly, and it might be all you need if you only plan to play games in your Steam library, but the Steam Deck can do much more than that. Pressing and holding the power button lets you reboot the system into Desktop Mode, which loads the Linux KDE Plasma desktop environment. It’s a Windows-like view with full Linux control, including installing software packages outside of Steam. If you want to emulate older games on the Steam Deck, this mode is vital for installing those emulators, including Dolphin and RetroArch.
Steam Deck Gaming Performance
The Steam Deck Compatibility program helpfully shows the Steam games that are confirmed to work on the Steam Deck. Every game on Steam will have one of four compatibility icons. A green, Deck Verified icon means that the game works nearly perfectly on the Steam Deck. A yellow Playable icon means the game will run, but you might have to make a few tweaks (usually manual control configurations). A gray Unsupported icon means the game won’t run on the Steam Deck at all. Finally, a gray Unknown icon with a question mark means there’s no information on whether the game will run or not.
SteamOS separates your library into tabs for Verified games, All Games, Installed Games, and Non-Steam Games and Software. You can also filter out Unsupported or Unknown games from your library in the All Games tab.
Of the 571 games and apps in my Steam library, 63 are Verified, 104 are Verified or Playable, and 524 are Verified, Playable, or Untested. That leaves just 29 games and apps—about 5% of my library—unsupported on the Steam Deck. This is where we start to have fun testing which games run and which don’t, and just how well the Steam Deck performs with the ones that do run.
All games load about as fast as they do on a PC with a modest SSD; presumably the highest-end Steam Deck loads games faster. That includes the standard Steam preamble loading that happens the first time you start each game. Most of these are Windows games running through Proton, so all the usual DirectX and other files that have to be set up on Windows also need to be processed on the Steam Deck.
Horizon Zero Dawn is Verified, and generally runs well on the Steam Deck. The controls worked perfectly in testing, mapping everything to the standard gamepad inputs. The game uses variable frame rates, and didn’t reach a consistent 60fps, but the action was smooth for the most part. However, watching exploding barrels up close made the game stutter and jerk before the effects cleared.
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is also Verified, and reliably works on the Steam Deck with preset gamepad controls. Using this configuration, I controlled the main character with the left analog stick, and cycled through nearby objects that I could interact with using the right stick or right trackpad (which provided a helpful little feedback bump for each object I selected). However, I couldn’t easily assign classic, PC adventure game-style mouse controls to the trackpad, though I could manually set the right trackpad to behave like a mouse and move a cursor on the screen. Touch-screen mouse pointer controls worked perfectly, as did a Bluetooth mouse connected to the Steam Deck.
Bayonetta, another Verified game, runs on the Steam Deck with solid performance and proper controls. The game defaults to the Medium graphics setting, and runs at a consistent 60fps in this mode. Bayonetta ran well with the graphics bumped to High, but it couldn’t maintain a solid 60fps (and often dipped closer to 30fps).
Inscryption is listed as Playable (not Verified), and loads without issue on the Steam Deck. It lacks gamepad support, so the trackpad serves as a mouse pointer controller, as does the touch screen and Bluetooth mice. It’s playable, and indistinguishable from the PC version if you have a comfortable way to control the mouse pointer.
Monster Hunter Rise is Untested for the Steam Deck, but it booted without issue, and automatically configured all of the proper gamepad inputs. The game loaded more slowly than the Verified games, but the action was reliably smooth. Like with Bayonetta, Monster Hunter Rise’s Average graphics setting produced a consistent 60fps. That said, the game still ran well when bumped up to the High setting, though with frame rate dips.
Dying Light 2 is Untested, and came out only a few months ago, but it can still run on the Steam Deck. The game loaded with preset controls that largely worked, though the analog sticks controlled an unwieldy mouse pointer when navigating menus instead of snapping to items. The graphics defaulted to the highest settings, which resulted in poor performance. Dropping the graphics setting to Low made the game playable. It’s not great, but decent, and still fairly impressive considering the Steam Deck’s size and specs.
Steam Deck Emulation
On paper, the Steam Deck is an ideal machine for playing retro games, but you won’t be able to do it directly through SteamOS. Holding down the power button lets you select Switch to Desktop, which closes the SteamOS front end and loads a KDE Plasma desktop, a Windows-like interface that lets you access all of the features and tools a standard Linux computer provides. Unless you’re familiar with Linux, you should probably avoid making any changes through this mode, and be careful with the file manager because the Linux file system is pretty different from Windows. Fortunately, you don’t need to dive too deep to find emulators that you can load on the Steam Deck.
The shopping bag icon in the desktop’s lower left corner opens the Discover software store, which is filled with free, open-source apps that you can install on the Steam Deck just by clicking the install button. That includes Linux games, which can be hit or miss (though Sonic Robo Blast 2 and Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart are worth playing). Under Games, there’s a section specifically for emulators, and there are dozens, spanning many more game systems. There’s RetroArch for a catch-almost-all frontend to emulate multiple consoles, including Dolphin for GameCube and Wii, PCSX2 for PlayStation 2, and even DOSBox for classic PC games.
Once these emulators are installed, you still need to do some legwork to play anything. I’m a classic game collector who has a large GameCube library, so I can create disc images for use with Dolphin. Getting them on my computer is one thing, but moving them over to the Steam Deck is another. You must format the microSD card slot to use it for expanded storage, though you should be able to pop in a card with the files you want to play, and copy them to the internal storage with the file manager in desktop mode (if the Steam Deck has free internal storage space). I said to be very careful with the file manager, and you should be, but clicking on Documents and creating a new folder under Documents to put your games is safe. I had already filled up the internal storage with Steam games to test, so I used a USB-C hub and connected a USB drive, then copied files in desktop mode from that.
After the games you want to emulate are on the Steam Deck, you need to set up the emulator to work the way you want it to. This can take some tinkering, both to map controls properly and get the best combination of graphical polish and performance.
Finally, if you want to access any of these emulators or any Linux games you installed through SteamOS, you need to manually add them through Steam. This has to be done in desktop mode, using the Steam client. The library screen has an option to add non-Steam games to your library, and will let you select any installed Linux software. Once they’re added, they appear in SteamOS under their own section as non-Steam games. They probably won’t have any tiles or icons, but you’ll be able to run them without going into desktop mode.
After the aforementioned tinkering, including adjusting some graphical settings (primarily switching from OpenGL to Vulkan), Dolphin ran very well on the Steam Deck. F-Zero GX consistently pushed 60fps, while rendering at double resolution; it looked sharp on the Steam Deck’s screen. There were still a few window hiccups when playing it through SteamOS instead of desktop mode, but the games looked great. If you don’t mind putting the work into configuring each emulator, the Steam Deck can really be one of the best handheld retro game systems out there. That isn’t yet the case for emulating classic games on your big screen at home, though, as explained in the next section.
Theoretically, you can install Windows on the Steam Deck. That isn’t a good idea yet, because drivers haven’t been finalized, and getting Windows to work well with the handheld and its custom elements will be a complicated task that eclipses any Linux fiddling. Wait until a reliable installation solution is hammered out, with all of the necessary drivers.
Not Quite Ready for TVs or Monitors
Connecting the Steam Deck to a TV or monitor is where the system gets weird, and more than a little frustrating. In theory, the Steam Deck should be able to output video over DisplayPort or HDMI through the USB port. Testing led to what I would charitably call mixed results.
I first tried to use a Belkin AVC002 USB-C-to-HDMI + Charge Adapter to connect the Steam Deck to my TV, a TCL 55R635. I had no luck, just screen flicker on the Steam Deck itself when I unplugged the power supply from the adapter. I returned that adapter and got an Iogear GUH3C3PD USB-C hub with PD pass-through and HDMI. It wouldn’t work with the charger connected to the hub, but unplugging the charger and cycling the Steam Deck into and out of sleep mode finally got the device to output a signal to my TV. The only problem was that the signal produced an extremely zoomed-in picture that I couldn’t correct with the Deck or my TV’s settings.
Plugging the hub into my 2,550-by-1,080 monitor worked better, with the home screen rendering in full. I was able to load games using my monitor. However, the Steam Deck didn’t output higher than its 1,280-by-800 resolution, and relied on the adapter or hub, and the connected monitor or TV, to handle it. Horizon Zero Dawn ran with a fuzzy Deck-native resolution, and the performance dipped a bit.
The picture cut out again when I plugged the charger into the hub. Unplugging the charger did nothing. However, putting the Steam Deck to sleep and waking it up again restored the signal. It looks like the Steam Deck simply can’t get charged while outputting HDMI over an adapter or hub. Perhaps there is a hub that will enable it, but I haven’t gotten it to work in my testing. This means that even if you can get a usable picture on your monitor or TV, you have maybe two hours of playing a graphically intensive game before you need to disconnect the Steam Deck for charging.
Hopefully system updates will fix this problem, and enable simultaneous charging and HDMI output through standard USB-C hubs, HDMI cables, and power pass-throughs. For now, though, I couldn’t get it to work, and that makes the Steam Deck nearly useless as a docked device. Hopefully, the upcoming Steam Deck Docking Station eliminates these issues.
Playing With a (Mostly) Full Deck
The Steam Deck is a promising handheld gaming system with several wrinkles that need to be ironed out. It’s quite powerful for its size and price, and despite being a Linux-based device, it runs many excellent and recent Windows games extremely well. It isn’t a graphical powerhouse like the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X, but those systems have the size and power benefits of being home consoles. This is a handheld, and it’s a powerful one. Its extensive emulator library only sweetens the deal, even if those games require more work to run than games on Steam (and the Linux desktop itself can require a bit of fiddling and finesse on its own).
If you only want to play Steam games on a handheld, the Steam Deck is fantastic. And if you’re willing to put in the work to get your favorite emulators running on a handheld, the Steam Deck is also worth checking out. If you fall between those extremes, though, the system isn’t ideal. It isn’t well suited for installing and running non-Steam Windows games or any other Windows software, and straying outside of the relative comfort zones of the Linux software library in desktop mode requires expertise. That might change when the Steam Deck officially supports dual-booting into Windows, but for now it’s a Linux playground with a learning curve.
The single USB-C port also severely limits the Steam Deck’s connectivity, especially when HDMI output and power delivery with third-party adapters and hubs are spotty at best. I’ve been unable to charge the Steam Deck while it’s connected to a monitor or TV in my tests, and when the video output worked, it was unreliable. Considering the system can last as little as two hours between charges while running high-end games, it’s a significant problem that will hopefully be fixed with the official Steam Deck Docking Station.
Until we can confirm reliable HDMI/DisplayPort output with power delivery on the Steam Deck, you should look at it purely as a gaming handheld. And until Windows can be installed on it, you should think of it as a highly curated Linux device that happens to run many good Windows games.
For more on the Steam Deck, check out Steam Deck 101: Everything You Need to Know About Valve’s Handheld Gaming PC, Can’t Buy a Steam Deck? 6 of the Best Alternatives, and How Valve’s Failures Led to Steam Deck.
